Interdaily Prayer

For my Lenten reading I am reading Fr. Dubay's Fire Within. If anyone were to take only one thing from this book, at least based of my reading of the first 110 pages, it should be that if anyone wants to ascend to any degree of communion with God it is absolutely necessary to maintain a consistant and constant fervant prayer life. It doesn't matter if you pray the Divine Office or the Rosary or just the Our Father. It matters that you pray well and pray often and leave the rest to God and all will fall into place.

This made me wonder how often we, as people in general, pray during our day. Now, I'm a housewife and stay-at-home mother. I fold towels while my daughter unfolds them and try to clean bedrooms while my daughter rearranges the shoes on the floor. Certainly others are in offices and on telephones and doing all sorts of other things during their day. But how often do any of us take extra time to pray? The opportunities are quite numerous: while stuck in traffic or at a red light, while on the phone on hold, while trying to get a little one to sleep, while cooking, while waiting in line - anywhere: the bank, the food store, the cleaners, etc. I can't help but wonder how much better the world would be if we all took more time to simply pray during the day - pray for patience with poor drivers or charity when we answer those annoying telemarketer calls or diligence in work we don't want to do. Even more I can't help but wonder how much better our own lives would be by devoting so much time - even only a few minutes at a time - to prayer. How many things would we not have to regret doing or saying if we prayed before we did them?

Of course, I am no exception to the discussion. As part of my Lent, I am using the time I have to get Cecilia to sleep at bedtime and for naps to pray the rosary... just a decade here and a decade there, but it is impressive how they can add up.