Prayer before Coffee

As I’ve written before, I am not a morning person. I am however a faithful Catholic and sometimes my love for Jesus requires me to do things I don’t want to do. One of these is wake up with enough time to do a morning prayer.

It was the First Sunday of Lent and the homily was, naturally, about Lenten sacrifices, their meaning, and their significance. I’ll admit I was feeling a little big-headed because I thought I had a rather superb line up for this season: daily rosary, daily Chaplet of Divine Mercy, no eating out, reading the Sunday readings ahead of time, etc. That was until Father started listing off things as examples and his first one was, “Morning AND Bedtime prayers. Yes, mornings.”

My jaw dropped, and I felt a little dumb. (That’s what I get for being proud. At mass, no less!) Because had I been doing morning prayers? Nope. (Duh!) So what’s the first thing I did? Look for one on Pinterest!

I found a lovely one attributed to St. Thérèse of Lisieux, printed it out, and put it on my night stand. It’s taken a little bit of effort to change my routine and make praying the first thing I do in the morning, but immediately, I’ve noticed a positive effect.

By doing a morning prayer, we realign ourselves to God. It’s like a daily calibration. And what I find the most beneficial is that it keeps me aware of God’s presence all day long. I’m less likely to be angry at aggressive drivers, or cranky with coworkers, or too lazy to do my other prayers, because I know I have Jesus and His Love here with me at all times.

Lent is a time of pruning. It’s a little painful, but it’s necessary to remove some of the less desireable stuff in order to yield a bigger harvest.

So if you’re not doing Morning Prayers, or maybe you used to but have fallen off the wagon, consider adding it now (even if it’s just as an experiment) and see what fruit you can produce.