October 11, 2013 – Catechism 2725 – 2733

You pray as you live and live as you pray and to see prayer as a battle are two images that I think are worth reflecting on.  I can see exactly where my life was when I prayed the least amount and when I prayed the most and fully understand how it affects my life.  Then why is it so hard to do it consistently?  Paragraph 2727 lays out all the obstacles pretty clearly.  When we start looking at prayer through our worldly eyes, we can quickly disregard it as unnecessary.  The battle is lost.  Prayer and its benefits can never be measured by measurements this world uses and so to the world prayer is worthless.  But, when something has a value that cannot be measured, you could also say it is priceless.  I think that is something to think about too.  The world sees prayer as worthless, we see it as priceless, or need to.

Being distracted in prayer is the easiest way to fall out of prayer.  I like how it tells us not to seek out the distractions and try to conquer them, because then we are playing into their hands, but to recognize it and offer it up to God with humility.  Trying to pray through distractions thinking we can do it on our own only shows an arrogance that dulls our prayer.