Fr. Mike Schmitz: 2 Last Tips for Praying

(View segment from 4:22 to 8:11)
What does Fr. Mike teach us to be careful about when we are choosing 'what' to pray?

  • Don’t try to do too much in prayer.
  • When you do pick what or how you will pray, stick with it for a ‘season,’ a period of time where you commit to pray in a certain way.

Can you see a similarity between keeping a prayer practice for a 'season' and the participants of the eye experiment being asked to keep looking for 1 minute?

  • In the eye experiment, the people had to focus in order to keep looking at each other for a period of time.
  • In prayer, we need to keep communicating with God in a particular way for a period of time.
  • Keeping consistent with a way of praying, allows us to focus on our communion with God, instead of on how we are communicating with Him.
  • This is similar to the way a person with glasses needs to focus on looking through his glasses, instead of looking at his glasses.

Why is the 4th tip about 'Why we pray' the most important?

  • Because we need to keep the goal of prayer in mind, so that we get out of prayer what God intends most for us.
  • Sure, God wants to give us consolations and answer our prayers. But most of all, He wants us to have a living, loving relationship with Him.
  • That intimate, loving relationship with Him is the only thing that will ever satisfy us.