St Francis de Sales on Prayer

Image: Photograph by Fr Lawrence Lew on Flickr

The length of your prayers should be measured by the amount of your work, and inasmuch as it has pleased Our Lord to place you in the kind of life in which you are perpetually distracted, you must accustom yourself to making short prayers, but you must also make them so habitual that you will never omit them except on the rearrest occasions.

In the morning, when you rise, you should bend your knees before God to adore Him, make the Sign of the Cross, and ask Him for His blessing for the entire day; this can be accomplished in the amount of time it takes to say one or two Our Fathers. If you go to Mass, it will suffice for you to hear it devoutly and attentively.

In the evening, before the meal or just after it, you can easily find the time to make a few fervent prayers, throwing yourself before Our Lord for as long as it takes to say One Our Father – for there can hardly be an occasion that holds you so bound that you cannot tear away such a little bit of leisure.

At night, before retiring, you can, while you do other things and wherever you may be, pass under review what you have done during the day, in outline, and the, as you go to bed, throw yourself on your knees and ask God’s pardon for the faults you have committed, and pray to Him to watch over you and give you His blessing. This you can do in short compass, in about the time of a Hail Mary.

Above all, during the day, you should bring your heart back to God and say to Him a few brief words of fidelity and love.

“Be patient with all, but especially with yourself. Do not trouble yourself about your imperfections. Always have the courage to pick yourself back up and begin again every day, for there is no better path to success in the spiritual life than always to begin again and never to think that you have done enough.”