How to Pray All Day

Ephesians 1:7 "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.”

I just finished reading a book my sister got me. It’s called the Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. And I liked this book because it’s a little book, like it’s small and thin is just comprised of short little reflections so I found it a super easy read. Brother Lawrence, in his reflections, teaches that to pray always is simply to remain in God’s presence. He says, “We have to know someone before we can truly love him. In order to know him we must think about him often.” As simple as that. But I’m the kind of person that’s like, “Ok that sounds nice but what does that reaalllly mean… like tell me how to do that.”Which spoiler alert, Brother Lawrence does, and so for our reflection today, I’m going to share one of the simple little prayers he suggests we pray to help us remain in prayer, to help us remain in God’s presence, for those of us who, even though we may love to be cloistered in prayer, have things we have to do all day long…

“My God, since You are with me and since, by Your will, I must occupy myself with external things, please grant me the grace to remain with You, in Your presence: work with me so that my work might be the very best. Receive as an offering of love both my work and all my affections.”

And I love that this ties into our scripture today talking about the riches of God’s grace… the ability to pray always, to remain in God’s presence is simply a grace given to us from God Himself, He wants to give us this gift of His continual presence. When we accept this gift, the fruit is a calmness of soul, a beautiful trust that God will guide us in all of our affairs.

So my challenge for you today, since God gives us all graces through His Blessed Mother, is to ask Mary for the grace of calling to mind the presence of God so near to you, and to simply, any time throughout your day that you can think of it, see in your mind’s eye Jesus sitting right there next to you.