Sunday, August 21, 2011

Sanctifying the Day

I love starting the day with morning prayer from Liturgy of the Hours. It used to be such a great habit in college, but I also had friends I prayed with, so we kept each other accountable. And I'll never forget the way-too-early morning prayer during Echo summers, trying to hit the high notes of "Morning has Broken" at 7am. Now I'm trying to get back into the habit. What better way to pray than to use the Universal prayer of the Church!? And turns out that it's much easier to pray in the morning than before bed... those prayers are usually a quick sentence or two thanking God for the day. But with morning prayer, I know I'm sanctifying the whole day and giving it all to God.

I've used morning and night prayer with my youth group; once after a lock-in and once during a youth group session. It seemed to go over fairly well. I think I'll use night prayer a few more times this year for our Sunday evening gatherings.  Someone's gotta teach those kids how to pray. :-P