MrsDarwin tagged me with the question, What are your five favorite devotions? Here’s what she wrote about hers:
When Betty tagged me to write about my five favorite Catholic devotions, I started making a list in my head of this and that and composing little snippets of prose in my head, already crafting what I was going to say about various forms of piety. But then I thought that perhaps I ought to assess not just what I like, but what I actually do. It’s one thing to say you like a particular devotion, but what does it avail one to like a devotion but never practice it?
I agree, so let’s answer the same way: things I actually do, albeit sporadically. Almost every devotion I practice, I practice sporadically. This isn’t all the devotions I practice sporadically, but it is a representative selection.
(1) Grace before meals
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Christ Our Lord, Amen.”
I love Catholic grace before meals. I love not having to make something up on the spot, which perhaps exemplifies why I love Catholic prayers in general. I love that it doesn’t take very long and it’s easy for kids to learn. I love how it sums everything up so quickly. I love how it happens every time we sit down to dinner together as a family.
I grew up in a family which did not sit down together for dinner at all, let alone say a prayer before meals. I occasionally ate with friends who did, and always felt pretty awkward. The first time I ever heard the Catholic prayer-before-meals was, in fact, the first time I ever had dinner with my future husband’s family (quite a long while before we got engaged!). My in-laws’ family recites the prayer all together, and has a litany of a handful of saints accumulated at the end which they all also recited together, and as I listened to this little ritual — so ordinary for them, and so extraordinary and beautiful for me — -I nearly burst into tears and wailed “Adopt me!”
Six years later, they did, so it worked out.
(2) Three-Minute Eucharistic Adoration
Maybe I don’t give my four kids (10, 6, 4, 6 months) enough credit for being able to sit still and not disturb other people, but here is how I like to use my parish’s wonderful perpetual adoration chapel: if we’re driving near the church, and we have a few extra minutes, I like to stop in, herd the kids into the chapel while smiling apologetically at whoever is there, spend just a few minutes praying (fairly noisily) in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, and then herd them out again.
Sure, I like spending more time there by myself. And I don’t take them in as often as I should — I do a lot of “Should I stop? No, I think we’re in too much of a hurry.” But I’d probably never take them in there at all if I wasn’t content to say, “Well, I’ve got time for just a couple of minutes.”
(3) Liturgy of the Hours
I have written before that I really like the LOTH. It’s very hard for me to pray it regularly. But I always have a breviary nearby at home, and always pack a breviary when I travel, just in case I get a chance. Sometimes I manage to stick to it for a whole Advent or Lent.
(4) Short spontaneous prayers
An unexpected benefit to praying the LOTH even sporadically is a much, much deeper familiarity with the Psalms, which has provided me with a multitude of short, one-liner, under-my-breath prayers (which actually have a technical name that I won’t use because the last time I used it it drew nasty search terms to my blog). I say them without even thinking, many times a day. Things like
“Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his mercy endures forever”
or
“This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad”
or, if I’m feeling sorry for myself or stressed out, and this one may seem kind of odd, but I do it because it restores my perspective,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
(5) When somebody asks me to pray for them
So I don’t forget about it and then feel guilty later for having promised to pray for someone and not followed through, I do it immediately after being asked. It’s the easiest way to say “Yes” to every prayer you’re asked for, including prayers for some unspecified thing that — who knows whether it’s really a good thing to pray for or not?
I think I remember getting that idea from Fr. John Corapi, and I use the words he said he uses: “I entrust N. to the enclosed garden of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” Then I let the B.V.M. take over from there. So now you know, when you ask me to pray for you, that’s what you get.
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