As we embark on growing in our spiritual life, let’s look at some of the concrete ways we can deepen our relationship with God through spiritual disciplines. Now, the Catholic Church has been around for a long time, and it crosses many cultures. So, as you can imagine, there’s a variety of spiritual disciplines out there that have been practiced in the Church through the years by great saints — and sinner striving for sainthood, like me! Of course, I can’t go through all of them, but I’ll share a few of the more common ones that have proved to be beneficial in my journey. Additional spiritual disciplines are listed in the text of the lesson.
I’d like to start with the baseline, the minimum standard we need to live by in order to be Catholic. These are called the precepts of the Church, and they concern Mass attendance, confession, the Eucharist, fasting, stewardship, and marriage. We all start with these precepts and then add on daily prayer because, as we mentioned, prayer is the life of the soul. So, these seven things we hold in common with all faithful Catholics, and we move on from there as we develop our relationship with God. The different disciplines that we embrace are meant to strengthen us, to build our spiritual muscle, as we grow towards God. It’s a distortion to view them as checkboxes, or something God holds over our head to make sure we’re good enough for Him to love.
Of course, that isn’t true. God loves us all. In fact, it’s the temptation to pride to think that somehow we can earn God’s love, and He owes it to us. These disciplines, instead, help to dispose our heart so we can receive and respond to God’s love.
Let’s start with the morning offering and the daily review. These are short prayer times at the beginning and the end of the day, and they serve as bookends for our day. With this practice, no matter how my day goes, I know that at least I started and ended with the Lord in prayer.
The morning offering should remind us of God’s goodness and with a humble heart we offer our day back to Him — the giver of all good gifts. It’s the attitude from the Psalms: “What can I render unto the Lord for all he has done for me?” (Psalms 116:12) When I taught school, my 9th graders would start the hour with a short version of the Amni Christi to praise God, followed by this simple offering:
“Lord, inspire my thoughts, words, and actions, and accompany them with Your aid, so that all I undertake and carry through will be done according to Your will and out of love for You.”
We did it every day, and by the end of the year, the students knew it well. I hope that it became part of their normal day.
In the evening, it’s time to look back and review your day. Taking the time to reflect and recall how the Lord worked in and through your day is very important if you want to grow in the spiritual life. First, put yourself in a posture of prayer and ask the Lord to give you the grace to see your day though His eyes. Review your day. Consider the stirrings of your heart and the thoughts which God has given to you today. Look also at those thoughts that were not from God. Review your choices and responses to both of those, and your day in general. Thank God for the blessings and, with honesty and humility, ask for forgiveness for the times you did not respond as you should have. Then look forward to tomorrow and plan concretely how you can live concretely according to God’s will. Ask God for the grace to see Him more clearly in your day.
This prayer takes practice, but the more we pay attention and reflect on how God is active in our day, the more we will recognize it and be able to respond to those gentle promptings more generously.
Also high on the list is dedicated time in prayer with Scripture. The bible isn’t like a textbook. I would not recommend sitting down at a desk, opening up to Genesis and then reading straight through to Revelation. The bible, in fact, is a collection of books with different genres, written over thousands of years. So, it’s helpful to have a reading plan to guide you. There are many plans out there; I like using the readings of the day from the Catholic Mass. It mixes up the old and new testament, it’s easy to find reflections and commentaries, and it prepares me for Mass.
One popular bible study maps out the historical books of the bible so you can read them in order and get a great overview of salvation history. Another popular method is to focus on one book at a time, using a commentary to help break open the scripture. Now, the particular method you choose doesn’t matter that much; just choose one that works, and get started.
So how do we pray with the Bible? Begin by calling upon the Holy Spirit to be with you and to inspire you. Then, read the Scripture selection prayerfully and reverently. Reflect upon what you have read. Are there any words, phrases, or even whole sentences that caught your attention? Focus on those, and listen. Is the Lord is telling you something? Stirring your heart or imagination? Does an image come to mind? Pray to the Lord in response to the Scripture. Praise Him, thank Him, or just talk to Him from your heart. Feel free to go back, to reread, to reflect, to pray again. This is not a race to be finished, it’s a treasure hunt. Once you find the prize, stay with it. Sometimes, the Lord will stir up a flame of love in your heart, and you will become deeply aware of his love. Treasure these moments. It’s common to keep a journal of your prayer time so you can recall the things that God brought to mind and stirred in your heart. Finish your prayer time thanking God and perhaps making a resolution to put into practice something you have learned.
Frequenting the Sacraments is another important spiritual discipline. Sacraments are a guaranteed encounter with Jesus, and they give us the grace that strengthens our will and sharpens our intellect. A good guide is to go to confession at least monthly, and receive the Eucharist as often as possible. If you can find a daily Mass that fits into your schedule, go for it! Daily Mass was the first commitment I made to God when I started taking my faith more seriously, and God blessed me greatly through it. There are tools such as masstimes.com that can help you find the schedule of churches in the area near you.
These are just a few of the many spiritual disciplines we can use to draw closer in our relationship with God, to grow in holiness and to practice virtue. Don’t get overwhelmed with all the choices. Try a few that you may like, and see if they fit. Then, pick one or two, and stick with it for six months or a year, that way they become part of the rhythm of your life. It’s OK to swap out things that don’t work, or add more things to your day as you grow deeper in love with the Lord.
A caution, though: be wary of the temptation to be overzealous and take on too many practices at once, or jumping back and forth between different practices so that nothing really sticks. We can easily burnout or become overwhelmed. We don’t need to do everything all at once, and taking on too much for our state in life can hurt our relationship with God, and lead to a check box mentality we talked about.
You know, God is very patient with us, and He wants our relationship with Him to last for an eternity. So it’s okay if it grows gradually.