Nourishing Our Spirit

Posted by: L.E.S. on: February 2, 2015

• In: Everyday Life | Faith | Prayer
• 1 Comment

Like many people, I work to find the right balance between meeting my nutritional needs and not depriving myself of the things I enjoy.

But how much attention do we give to nourishing our spirit?

• Do we make time to read the Bible?
• Do we have a Catechism (and maybe a YOUCAT if we have teens at home)—and refer to it?
• Do we have books of prayers, including novenas and rosary prayers?
• Do we make time to pray?

I said “make time to pray” rather than “take time to pray,” which makes prayer sound like something we fit in when and if we can. With the speed of our lives today, we can tell ourselves we don’t have time to pray when so much remains to be done before we can call it a day. We have to make the time because prayer is vital to our spiritual health.

As our body cannot live without nourishment, so our soul cannot spiritually be kept alive without prayer.

~ St. Augustine, quoted in “Celebrate February 2015,” Catholic Digest, January/February 2015

Praying the rosary

So how can we make a little time for prayer?

• Get up a few minutes early to place our day in God’s hands, or take a few minutes at bedtime to thank God for his blessings that day and pray about our concerns.
• Use a prayer app on a phone or an MP3 player while on the bus heading to work, on a walk around the neighbourhood, or on the treadmill.
• Pray the rosary as a family or gather for a brief prayer time before everyone goes to bed, encouraging children and youth to pray, too.
• Arrive early at Mass, stay a few minutes after the service, or take part in Eucharistic adoration to pray in God’s house, if that makes it easier to focus.
• Take part in a perpetual rosary, if the commitment helps make prayer more of a priority.

If we know we need to plan prayer time into our day to keep it high on our priority list, we can block it off in our planner, even adding an alarm if the planner is digital.

Whatever we need to do to make prayer time a part of our lives, I pray that we would not wait until Lent but start now, for our spiritual health.

Advertisement

Tags: Catholic, Christian, faith, God, prayer, religion, spiritual health