Transcript

Since being a Catholic, I find myself, uh, praying more.

In fact, uh, we usually start our prayers before we get out of the bed in the morning.

And, um, after that, w- we pray throughout the day and we pray also in the evening bef- when we go to bed.

And that prayer is usually the, uh, Divine Mercy Chaplet.

And there's three, uh, uh, prayers and devotions that, uh, that I particularly like.

I like to, um, recite the rosary, that's in the morning.

And, uh, we also like to, um, um, do our, do our prayers throughout the day.

Um, throughout the day, we do our prayers and asking the Lord for his blessings, and praying for those that we k- that we know that need our prayers.

And also, I like the devotion of the, uh, booklet, um, the Ma-

Magnificat.

Magnificat and, uh, its, uh, prayers there and also, the personal intentions.

And, um, we just love to do that and that makes up our home away from home with the prayers.

And we love it a lot-

Mm-hmm

to do that way.

I've also joined the, a Divine Mercy Cenacle, which I learned about Divine Mercy during RCIA, and it really enthralled me, so I've become a I attend a Cenacle, um, twice a month.

And we are really devoted to Divine Mercy and encouraging other to pray.

In my earlier Christian tradition, I remember hearing a man say one time, If you can't pray a prayer using your own words, if you gotta use somebody else's words, then it ain't a prayer.

And that stuck with me for a while, thinking, Well, that, that sounds right, you know, I don't, don't talk to my friends in words that I've memorized from other people that have given me, that kind of thing.

But I eventually began to, to question that, especially when I realized that even in my tradition, many of the songs that we sang, what, what we now call praise and worship hymns, are songs where, where prayers to God and they were words that were written by someone else that we were taking into our mouths and putting our own hearts into.

And then, uh, in particular, the words of the Psalms, that when churches sing the words of the Psalms, what they're doing is taking on words that are given from someone else, putting their heart into it, making those words their own.

And so that you don't have to have spontaneous prayer in order for it to be genuine, that it can be what we call formal prayer, prayer that has a form.

And that, in fact, not only had the church always done that, Christians and Jews before them using the Psalms and other prayers, but that our Lord Himself had given us the Our Father, the Lord's Prayer, as we often call it.

Words that, that we could repeat, not meaninglessly, not, uh, without understanding, but words that we could make our own.

I grew up, uh, with a prayer life that included my nightly prayers, my morning prayers, um, my, our prayers before meals, but the Catholic faith really has afforded me an opportunity to grow deeper in my prayer life.

The mass itself being a prayer offering, our, my day-to-day vocation as a mom and a wife, the little sufferings, the little annoyances that all moms experience, it, it, it gives it It makes it so much not to be in vain.

It gives, it gives me an opportunity to turn my frustrations as, into a positive thing, into an offering up for something larger than myself.

I also feel like the Catholic Church, um, through various novenas to the saints, through the gift that is the rosary, affords me an opportunity to grow deeper always in my prayer life.

As a Protestant, and, you know, and I was truly a Christian Protestant, um, I had a prayer life and it was something that was important to me, but there were many times when I was praying that I truly felt like I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't know if it was effective, I, I just sort of felt lost.

I mean, we have the Lord's Prayer, and of course, we can pray the Psalms, and there, there are many ways you can pray as a Protestant, but one of the things that is helping me so much as I'm becoming Catholic is the rosary.

And that's sort of a surprise because I never saw myself praying the rosary.

I didn't really know what it was.

I knew that it was distinctly Catholic, but I have fallen in love with the rosary and I try to pray it every day.

I don't know that I'm always doing it correctly, there is a learning process involved, but it is absolutely worth every effort.

And what I've tried to do is when I've had doubts about it, I've just tried to bring a decision of faith that this is something that the church has, uh, teaches and it's a gift to us.

And I really believe it's a powerful weapon, and some prayers have been already answered in amazing ways, unlike anything I experienced as a, as a Protestant.

And that was one of the biggest, m- most wonderful, liberating understandings that I had becoming Catholic, the, the whole realm of what I would call formal prayer, prayer with a form, that I, I learned that there was so much to be gained, not just from praying spontaneously, which I still do and, of course, always will, but also from praying prayers given to us by the church, by the tradition, by the Scripture, that help us to pray more deeply, more profoundly.

I found that, that formal prayers were like anchors, that they would hold me onto topic, that they would remind me to pray for things that I might never have prayed for before.

I, I think, for example, of how the parish, the, the church that I was in before when I started comparing it to the first Catholic parish I was a part of, though we prayed and prayed lots during the ser- service, we never ever had a corporate confession of sin.

And I thought, You know, that's an important thing to do.

But I wouldn't have thought of doing it if the Church had not given me that prayer.

As a Methodist, I, I had learned that the sacraments are God's self-giving to us.

But, but what I found in the Catholic Church is there are so many ways through the sacraments, the seven sacraments, and the church I came from had two sacraments, um, but the seven, through the seven sacraments, in particular, um, God's giving of Himself to each of us is, um, is, is, it's like God had in mind who we are and how we function and what, what we struggle with.

And, and the sacraments were made for us, perfect for us.

So it was, uh, again, a deepness and a richness that I found in the sacramental theology of the Catholic Church.

Our prayer's life have, have definitely changed, um, after the RCIA class and me converted, became a Catholic.

Um, it's definitely not an, an easy task.

Uh, it's something that, uh, you really have to develop and I think the, the important, uh, uh, takeaway here is really trying to take it one step at a time.

And what, what we did was we started praying before every meal.

Um, it, it's challenging, uh, especially when you are in public in the beginning, uh, because, you know, it's just not something that you're used to.

But, but, you know, as, as time goes on, uh, you're getting more used to it.

You know, we do it in front of our friends, uh, and everybody is respectful.

So really it's just take it one step at a time.

And, you know, since I've converted, uh, we, we have definitely increased in, in saying more prayers.

Uh, still something that, you know, we continue to work on every single day.

But, uh, definitely, uh, that's, uh, that's the key thing is to take one step at a time.

The rosary is a great gift, um, of, of the Church of Praying the rosary with my children is so peaceful.

It's so relaxing.

It's crazy.

Um, I have, you know, young children who aren't paying attention at all, who are harassing their neighbor while we pray, um, who are talking and yelling and asking what we can eat and when is it bedtime and on, and on, and on.

But knowing that we're gonna sit down and pray five decades of the rosary, and we have each mystery to focus on for those five, it helps focus our prayer.

It's just 10 Hail Marys, and it, can you concentrate on that mystery for 10 Hail Marys and block out what's going on around you?

Um, it makes it a lot easier, um, because, yeah, I can do that for 10 Hail Marys and then move on to the next mystery and I can do it for 10 more.

And sometimes there, there are interruptions.

Sometimes we have to hit pause and return to it after we've put the two rowdiest to bed or whatever.

But, um, the rosary is a wonderful tool to help, uh, focus prayer.