In today’s 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator exercise we will make prayer not just something we do now and then, but a habitual part of our day. Just as married couples tell each other “I love you” every day, we too will come up with ways to connect with the God who loves us throughout the day.
Follow the instructions in 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator for starting or improving one prayer habit and then complete this Prayer Habit Worksheet to walk you through the process.
In this exercise, you can make prayerful conversation with God a habit or you can add a traditional Catholic prayer to your day. In the book I explain how I added prayer to the beginning of my day. I still hold to that habit over two years later. More recently, I started praying the Angelus prayer at 6:00 a.m. and noon. For centuries all Catholics were called to pray the Angelus three times each day by the local church bells, but in recent years it has fallen out of practice for many of us. It is a very short prayer, but a powerful one. Here are the steps I took to make it a habit:
- Set a reminder and alert on my phone for 6:00 a.m. and noon.
- Downloaded an app with the words of the prayer and an additional time reminder.
- Introduced the prayer to my wife and family so they could pray with me.
- Briefly explain the prayer to people I’m with and invite them to pray with me if I’m not alone.
- Started a Facebook page dedicated to praying the Angelus (and Twitter account)
- Started a website dedicated to The Angelus Prayer at theangelusprayer.com
When you add a new prayer to your day, you will need to test reminders and “triggers” of these new prayer habits. My hope is that a combination of phone alarms and reminders, Facebook updates, and Tweets will help remind people to join me and many others in the Church as we pray the Angelus and Regina Coeli each day.
What new prayer habit do you intend to add? What are the triggers you can establish to remind you to pray?
Prayer Habits Resources
I’ve written a lot about establishing prayer habits at my personal website, which I actually used to call “Prayer Habits.” Read some of these articles for additional help:
- 6 Tips for Starting a Daily Prayer Routine
- How to Add Daily Morning Prayer to Your Routine
- Shorten Your Prayers
- Finding Where to Pray
- Finding Time to Pray
