Pray Everyday, Everywhere

Beads of Joy 02-20-10

Pray Everyday, Everywhere
©2010 James Dacey, Jr. SFO

Lent 2010 - Day 4
Hello Everyone,

Yes I am serious, it's not as impossible as it may sound. And it's a good worthwhile habit to develop. I made this decision about incorporating prayer into my life probably about 20-25 years ago. Let me walk you through some of my own prayerful daily habits. As a side note, please note that I am not perfect, absolutely not, by no means of the word. I do the best that I can do every single day, I to have many challenges, disappointments and sorrow that make even good habits have a challenge at times. But since I have been doing this in my life for so long now, it does come rather easy to me. I work five days a week (Mon-Fri); and on average I drive 8-10 hours a night and my weekends have a slight difference to the habits I am going to share. To me there is no excuse to not be praying to Jesus, God or Mary every single day. Do we have time to eat, do we have time to watch TV, do we have time to be on-line; well then we have time to pray to Almighty God. If we dare have time for any of those things and so many other things; then what we are saying to God is that those things are more important than Him. Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, "why pray?...well then why breathe?"

Let us start by understanding what prayer is; now it can be defined in many ways, but I like the way Archbishop Fulton Sheen defined prayer best, "Prayer is a lifting of the mind and heart to God." Prayer is also thee greatest gift anyone can ever give, as long as we follow through and really pray for those we tell we are praying for. And on the flip side receiving prayer from someone is gift that is beyond the greatest to receive, it's the most precious, most valuable and the most eternal gift we can ever receive. With that being said, I will say that if there was one gift I'd rather receive from anyone over anything in this world, it would be there prayers for me. OK, let me bring you into my crazy, fun, exciting world. I like to consider myself a prayerful man, I am very devoted to the rosary and my bible study; I would guess pretty much to the levels of addiction at times. LOL. Don't prejudge that yet, let me explain. I have so much overflowing Joy inside my heart and soul because of all this. Keep in mine this statement: Junk in - Junk out, or would you rather Jesus in - Jesus out.

Here's my daily schedule at work, since I drive for a living, I take my rosary prayer and meditation Cd's and my New Testament cassette's (hey don't laugh, at least there not 8-tracks, these tapes are 27 years old, and can't be replaced, and they are awesome Janelle heard them). Every single day at work I pray my 20 decade rosary followed by listening to 1-2 books of the New Testament, I also have Cd's of Fr. Larry Richards and Archbishop Fulton Sheen and Scott Hahn and a bunch of others. I am very addicted to constantly feeding my life with inspiration that sparks tremendous Joy into my heart and soul. But that's what I pretty much do everyday I got to work. On the weekends my prayer life is a tad bit different, it's usually only one rosary each day and a tremendous amount of reading and writing in my bible study. Like I said earlier, an addiction. Also key to my daily prayer life, I talk to Jesus in "conversation - one way" every single day. What I mean by that is this; when I am thankful about anything (having a good day, seeing a sunrise, being treated rudely, literally anything that raises an eyebrow). I look up to Heaven and say, "Thank You Jesus,..." and comment about it. I always do this, probably 10-20 times a day, this is a habit engraved inside me. I don't even think about remembering to do this, it's literally like breathing to me.

I will also confess that even with all this most joyous prayer time that I have been blessed with probably spending about 3-5 hours a work day singing to the top of my lungs. Ok, everyone can make all the usual comments, but I will even agree with all of you. LOL. I keep the radio so loud that even I can't hear myself...so there. LOL. Maybe I can write, and I know for a fact that I adore and love Jesus. But one thing is without a doubt the truest statement of all in today's blog: I can not sing a tune! Yes I sing, but not anything that Simon Cowell would say yes to. LOL. Today let's reflect on our own personal prayer life, Lent is a good time to re-evaluate the time you might be able to spend in conversation with Jesus; praying your rosary or just in whatever form of prayer you enjoy the most. Let us remember the example Jesus always showed us in scripture, here are just a few of them, "But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." Luke 5:16, "After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:" John 17:1, "One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God." Luke 6:12, "One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples." Luke 11:1. I pray that you all have a blessed day. I hope I made you laugh today.

Today's Challenge: Take one full day of your normal routine and see how you can entwine prayer within it. I'm sure it's possible.

Your brother in Christ Jesus & His Most Blessed Mother,
Jim (The Rosary Man) Dacey Jr SFO