A better way to pray 

For ages, I've been trying -- and failing -- to remember to regularly pray the Morning Offering, and such failure has annoyed the heck outta me. Along with that, there are a bunch of other splendid prayers that I like, but they're scattered throughout the various prayer books/booklets and holy cards we've got. (There's a great Act of Confidence in Booklet A, don't forget that short-and-sweet intercession for the Holy Souls in Book C, and wasn't there a lovely Memorare on Holy Card #2,342 ...?)

Finally, I got fed up with the forgetting and bouncing around, and figured There Had To Be A Better Way. After a bit of pondering, I decided to plow through all those sources (!) and compile the ones I wanna pray each morning and evening (after Lauds/Vespers) on one sheet of paper, with morning prayers on one side and evening on the other.

It took a whole day of flipping, side-by-side scrutinizing, analyzing, tweaking a few phrases here 'n' there so stuff was more to my liking (this is for personal prayer, after all), and forcing Husband Mike to proofread everything, but I finally mashed together my collection of daily prayers, and I'm pleased with the results. Here's what I chose:

Morning Prayers

• Morning Offering
  Tweaked to include praying for the Franciscan Order.
• Guardian Angel
• St. Michael
• Act of Consecration to the Holy Family
• To Mary for the Prevention of One Mortal Sin
• For Priests
• To Joseph for the Church and Pope
• To Joseph for the Dying
• Through Mary for the Holy Souls
• Trisagion
  I used the one from the Divine Mercy Chaplet: "Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us, and on the whole world."
• Hail Mary and Joseph
  I wrote this years ago: "Hail Mary, full of grace. Hail Joseph, son of David. Blessed art thou among all people, and blessed is thy Divine Son, Jesus. Holy Spouses, beloved of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."
• Bitty Litany of Fave Saints
  Mine is: "Saints Francis and Clare, pray for us. Saints Anthony, Faustina, Francis de Sales, Ignatius of Loyola, Josemaría Escrivá, Max Kolbe, Padre Pio, and Thérèse of Lisieux, pray for us. Amen."

Evening Prayers

• Evening Prayer
• Examination of Conscience
• Act of Contrition
• Act of Confidence in the Holy Family
• To Joseph for Personal Intentions
• Memorare to the Holy Family
• To Mary for the Prevention of One Mortal Sin
• Protection During the Night
• To Joseph for the Dying
• Through Mary for the Holy Souls
• Trisagion
• To the Holy Family for a Happy Death
• Hail Mary and Joseph
• Bitty Litany of Fave Saints

I printed them on one half of an 8.5 x 11-inch sheet of paper, then laminated it at the local office supply store. Since I only needed half a sheet, I duplicated (with minor modifications, such as fave saints) the prayers for Husband Mike on the other half. We've got them within easy reach on our respective nightstands.

Here's The Bloop modeling the finished result:

And here's a closeup of the morning prayers:

I'm happy to report that the sheet is working splendidly. It's easy and convenient to grab the sucker and simply focus on the prayers themselves, rather than wonder what I'm forgetting, and where everything is located. And because I plopped a reminder in the evening prayers to do an Examination of Conscience, I'm doing a much better job of keeping on top of that, rather than letting it slide until just before Confession.

So, what about you? Outside of the Liturgy of the Hours, what prayers do you pray daily? What method do you use to remember to pray them?

Labels: prayer, the bloop

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posted by Lisa, ofs | Permalink