By Vincent Asselta
A common morning for me looks roughly like this: I wake up and pray in the chapel for about 15 minutes. Then, we will pray Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours as a community. After meditating for about 15 minutes, we have Mass.
While this starts the morning off to a great start, this prayer needs to be continued throughout the entire day. I cannot make this prayer and Mass in the morning my only time with God because then I wouldn’t be fully living for God. I need to continue my prayer and my time with God, or else I will not have a strong foundation for the day.
Just as I am called to carry out prayer throughout the entire day, not just in the morning, so is everyone else. If you just pray in the morning and live your life like God isn’t a part of it for the rest of the day, are you living for God? If you do not think of God, pray to Him, and live your life for Him outside of your main prayer time and morning Mass, you are not serving God to your full potential.
We should all, as Saint Paul says, pray without ceasing. Saint Francis de Sales presents a three-step process for working-class people who want to be with God always. This process is Ask, Offer and Accept.
We should start by asking God to be present and attentive to us. When we ask God to be attentive to us, we are being attentive to Him. Then, we should offer whatever we are doing at the moment to God. If you are going for a walk, offer any pain to God, as well as any blessings you might receive, like good weather or good sights. Finally, we should accept whatever comes out of this time with God.
By constantly doing these three things, we can effectively spend more time with God and pray without ceasing as Saint Paul tells us to do.
Vincent Asselta is first college, the College Seminary of the Immaculate Conception at Saint Andrew’s Hall, Seton Hall University, South Orange.
at the bottom and then tap “Add to Home Screen”
