The Prayer Thread is a collection of teachings and practical prompts to help as we learn to pray in community. This text was originally delivered on February 7, 2024 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
All the best books, reputable programs, and wise teachers encourage us in regular prayer. From the suggestion to attend mass at least once a year, to monthly spiritual direction rhythms, to weekly worship in community, to daily readings, to twice daily 20 minute sits, to stopping five times a day to pray—we know that regular rhythms of prayer are so good for us. The discipline of regular prayer forms a musculature in our bodies, minds, and hearts that literally shapes and strengthens us.
Yet even as we recognize that regular rhythms of prayer are good and important, we must also recognize that there are inevitable times when our regular rhythms of prayer get broken up—perhaps for a day when something unexpected comes up, for a week if a big life event or tragedy happens, or in longer seasons marked by distraction and life changes.
If our usual rhythms of prayer have shaped us, and the musculature of prayer has settled deeply, then these periods of not praying should not deeply disrupt us. Sure, we may feel guilty for not praying, or worry about our credentials if we are in the public eye, but the whole world will not fall apart while we are not praying. In fact, if the rhythms and musculature of our prayer have seeped in over time, we can rely on a deeper faith that the work of prayer occurs in us, by the force of a larger, Loving Laborer, even while we are not actually praying. In this long, loving view of things, we see that the life of prayer is indeed sustained, even when we are not praying.
