Ten Helpful Rules for Better Prayer

We all need to pray. Prayer is to the life of the spirit what breath is to the life of the body.

Of course, we pray and worship together during Sunday mass as a community, and we don’t want to downplay that, but we all need more personal, intimate prayer with God. Like our Lord Jesus, sometimes we need to flee from everyone to be alone with God, but this “escape” must be planned and organized (in order to do it more consistently).

However, you may be asking, even if I pray regularly how can I do it more fruitfully? Helpfully, the Benedictine monk and bishop Basil Hume, in his book “Being a Pilgrim of Life,” offers very helpful guidance about praying.

Here are Bishop Hume’s 10 Rules:

1. Plan to pray; do not leave it to chance. Select a time and a place (a room at home, on the bus, taking a walk).

2. Decide on how long you will spend trying to pray (five minutes, ten, fifteen, thirty, or more).

3. Decide what you are going to do when you pray – e.g. which prayer to select to say slowly and lovingly; or which passage from the Bible to read prayerfully. Sometimes use your own words; sometimes just be still and silent. Follow your inclination.

4. Always start by asking the Holy Spirit for help in your prayers. Pray: “Come Holy Spirit, teach me to pray; help me to do it.”

5. Remember you are trying to get in touch with a Person, and that Person is God – Father or Son or Holy Spirit. He wants to get in touch with you.

6. Don’t be a slave to one way of praying. Choose the one that you find easiest, and try some other method when the one you are using becomes a burden or doesn’t help.

7. Don’t look for results.

8. If you have distractions, then turn your distractions into your prayer. (If a car passes the window in the wrong gear, then say something to God about the driver – I mean a kind of prayer for the welfare of the driver, not necessarily for his driving or gearbox!)

9. If you always feel dry and uninterested at prayer, then read a spiritual book or pamphlet. Spiritual reading is important.

10. Trying to pray is praying. Never give up trying.