If you’re anything like me, then you have tried, on countless occasions, to have a morning prayer routine. You’ve Googled, you’ve Pinterested, you’ve scrolled through Instagram for inspiration on what you should be doing in the mornings, and you’ve likely seen beautiful images depicting serene prayer and cozy spaces. You’ve set your alarm, determined to wake up early the next day and pray a full rosary, read the daily mass readings, learn the Liturgy of the Hours, oh and don’t forget to start a prayer journal. How has that turned out for you?
A prescriptive routine based on someone else’s home, budget, and lifestyle doesn’t work.
You should not have to invest time, money, and frustration in trying to make a routine work. Your routines should work FOR you, not against you. We allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good, and if we aren’t able to have the “perfect” morning prayer time that looks beatific and lasts for an uninterrupted hour then we give up trying at all. Or we tell ourselves the story that there’s something wrong with US, that we aren’t disciplined, aren’t committed enough.
I’m here to tell you that’s a lie. Morning prayer can be beautiful and messy, consistent and full of interruptions, simple and powerful. Here are five steps to a more peaceful and realistic routine:
- Decide where and when you will pray. Does a cozy chair in your living room call to you? If you struggle with getting out of bed, what about praying IN bed? If you have a newborn, try praying while feeding your little one. You can pray in your car on your way to work. You can take a cup of coffee outside and pray on beautiful days. Prayer doesn’t have to look a certain way in order to be edifying.
- Gather the supplies you need. Don’t waste time and momentum searching for where you last saw your headphones or rosary. Even better, make a prayer basket for keeping everything together!
- Insert some ambiance. This is the quiet superhero of all five steps, to be honest. Having good ambiance is what will help get you out of bed on tough mornings and help create the momentum that will set you up for a longer term habit. This can look like having coffee or tea, or lighting a candle, or putting on some sacred music. You could experiment with what I call Catholic ASMR (I have a playlist for that!) so that you feel like you’re praying in Adoration or at a medieval monastery. Have fun with this step!
- Keep it simple. Determine two or three ways you will pray each morning. Prioritize them, so that if you get through one prayer and are interrupted by a child or anything else you can feel at peace that you still had some quiet time with God before the day began. Mornings are more unpredictable than evenings, so try not to schedule yourself for a complicated routine that is bound to frustrate you when life happens.
- Select an Easy Button. What is one form of prayer you can do each day that is simple and easy to squeeze in, no matter what? This can be praying the Morning Offering, which takes less than a minute and can be prayed while launching yourself out of bed to tend to a sick child or while changing a diaper. It can be listening to Lauds from that day’s Sing the Hours podcast while you make breakfast or are running errands. Hit the Easy Button and still give glory to God on hard days.
Bonus step: Give up on perfection. Embrace the messiness of our lives and offer up any challenging mornings. Look for the opportunities within interruptions. For example, a child waking up early is a chance for them to see good prayer habits modeled. Make them their own age-appropriate prayer basket to keep them engaged while you finish. They can “help” you make coffee or extinguish your candle. Let it be fun and invite in creativity.
I’ve made you a free guide for turning the pandemonium of your mornings into realistic moments for prayer. Give this method a try and create a buildable prayer routine for your real life.
If you want support around transforming your mornings and beyond this Lent, then consider joining me and fellow sisters in holiness for Everyday Lenten Holiness, an online program for creating realistic routines for holy habits.