I wanted to thank everyone for the prayers, my interview was a success!
I have a question for everyone here.
Often I see people mentioning you need to have an 'active prayer life'. I'd like to have more of a routine in that regard, now that the sunday mass obligation is starting to become a habit, but the recommendations are so broad and varied it can easily become overwhelming. For the last three days I've prayed a rosary daily at least.
How do you guys structure your prayer lives and what would you recommend to a newbie?
I'm struggling too with daily prayer. Everything feels overwhelming or "unnatural" and performative. It's strange for me to do anything else than some kind of "silent meditation" on God, how helpful he is (and how much more I need his help), and how much I want to live in his light, etc...
Regarding prayer, I do a mix of structured prayers and freeform prayers. For structured prayers, it's the "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.", the Hail Mary, and the Eternal Rest, O Lord prayer. I pray those upon waking and going to bed. But I also talk to God as if I were talking to my father or a friend, and I do that throughout the day. I also am the type of person who finds beauty in the majority of things, so what I like to do is take a walk in nature and just admire the flowers or the birds. Also - I make the Sign of the Cross when I'm around a Catholic church, cemetery, and whenever I hear a siren, and I say grace before meals.
By all means though, don't feel like you have to do what I do, these are just what works for me. And I'm still figuring it out too! I used to only do structured prayers, but it felt overwhelming, unnatural, and performative! It took me a while until I started praying in more of a freeform way and I hope to get to a point where I do that more, as I find that it's helped my relationship with God a lot more than just praying, for example, the Glory Be every day. Also, don't feel like you have to pray the rosary every day, or idk the St. Gertrude's Prayer or any prayer where there's claims that if you pray it then this will happen. Are those prayers fine on their own? Yes, but if you're anything like me, you might pray them out of obligation or because you want to avoid Hell and eventually you'll get to a point where you're praying moreso out of fear than love, which isn't the point of prayer. Prayer isn't one size-fits-all, and if something works for one person, it might not for you, and that's ok (for example, the Rosary, even as a small child, was not a prayer that, for lack of a better word, clicked with me. This always made me feel bad, especially since the Catholics I went to school with and the Catholic internet love to extol the Rosary and its benefits. I tried for a period of time in high school to prayer it every day, which to be honest just ratcheted up my scrupulosity. Is it a great prayer? Yes! Is it a prayer that works for me? No, and that's ok). Also a lot of these prayers, while they are devotions, are not obligations, going back to the Rosary, you are not obligated to pray it every day. There's also no set obligation as to how much you have to pray every day, you may have heard to pray for 15 minutes every day, which is what I was taught in high school. I'm not sure where that number came from (I asked my teacher at the time, he did not have an answer), but regardless, the Catholic Church does not say "You must pray for 15 minutes a day or else you're sinning!". As long as your praying at all, that's all that matters.
I also think that figuring out what your strengths are can help your prayer life. I know I mentioned that I find beauty in most things, so I take walks in nature. That's my prayer, spending time with God in nature. Is it unorthodox? Definitely! Does it help the overwhelming, unnatural, and performative feeling that I get? Yes, because I'm not doing it for anyone else but God. God made us all unique, and I think that if you have a unique prayer life based on your strengths and personality and not anyone else's or anyone else's idea of what a prayer life "should" be, it can lessen any negative feelings you may experience in regards to praying.
I feel like everyone needs his own way to pray, and that finding it is a part of the journey towards God.
Tldr; everything I said can be summed up in JeanRob1's sentence here haha.
Also, I'm trying to be indulgent with myself for not necessarily praying "correctly", since the Holy Spirit is doing the job for us (Romans 8:26)
I'd never heard of that verse from Romans before! Here's the full verse for anyone curious, copy and pasted from the USCCB's website:
"In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings." (Romans 8:26)
Definitely going to keep this one in mind, especially whenever I can't get any words out while praying. Shout out to the Holy Spirit man, He's a real one.
I had my round 2 interview for something this last Thursday and still waiting to hear back regarding the final round. The HR person coordinating it was out until this recent Tuesday and I still havent heard. Been praying on it very frequently, but starting to massively discouraged.
I totally get how you feel, I was feeling really discouraged Monday because I hadn't heard anything either, so I sent an email to HR and they let me know I did make it to the 2nd round and sent a link to set up an interview time. It never hurts to ask! And I'm praying for you that you get this job.
