Starting the day with the right attitude and proper action stands to make all the difference throughout the day. Intentional disicples begin every day with prayer.
Consider the example of OUR BLESSED LORD JESUS as recorded in Sacred Scripture. After a flurry of activity including the exorcising of a demon, healing St. Peter’s mother-in-law, and curing many others, Jesus teaches us the absolute primacy of the interior life by rising early the next morning, before it was day, so as to go to a deserted place and pray.
- Rising very early before dawn, Jesus left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed (Mark 1:35).
Echoing the greatest teachers faith before and after, SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES recommends above all that every day begins with prayer.
- Give an hour every day to meditation before dinner [i.e. the noontime meal] — if you can, let it be early in the morning, when your mind will be less cumbered, and fresh after the night’s rest.
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES emphasizes the supreme importance of praying first before the demands and duties of the day come calling:
- If it should happen that your morning goes by without the usual meditation, either owing to a pressure of business, or from any other cause, (which interruptions you should try to prevent as far as possible) try to repair the loss in the afternoon…with a stedfast resolution to do better the next day.
SAINT ALPHONSUS LIGUORI offers the following prayer as an example of how every Christian can pray immediately upon rising:
- My God! I adore You, I love You with my whole heart. I thank You for all Your benefits, especially for having preserved me during the past night. I offer You all my actions and sufferings of this day, in union with the actions of Jesus and Mary; and I make the intention of gaining all the indulgences that I can gain. I purpose, O Lord! to avoid offending You this day. I beg You, for the love of Jesus, to grant me the grace of perseverance. I resolve to conform myself to Your holy will, and particularly in those things that are contrary to my inclination, saying always, O Lord I Your will be done. My Jesus, keep Your hand over me this day. Most Holy Virgin Mary, take me beneath your mantle. And do You, O Eternal Father, help me for the love of Jesus and Mary! O my angel guardian and my holy patron saints, assist me.
SAINT ALPHONSUS LIGUORI explains that prayer is an essential act of preparing for everything and everyone we will experience throughout the day.
- Further, the resolution to avoid some particular vice: Every day we must either grow or decrease in virtue. The soul is a living being and, like all things living, it cannot in this life maintain perfect neutrality – every organism, including the supernatural organism which is the soul, is either growing or dying. Thus, first thing in the morning, we ready ourselves for the spiritual warfare of the coming day, and we resolve to mortify (to put to death) that fault which is most dangerous to our spiritual growth.
Our beloved patroness, SAINT THERESE OF LISIEUX – known to us tenderly through her nickname the LITTLE FLOWER, prayed these words as her daily morning offering.
- My God, I offer you all that I do today for the intentions and glory of hte Sacred Heart of Jesus. I want to sanctify every beat of my heart, my thoughts and my simplest works by uniting them to His infinite merits. I want to repair for my faults by casting them into the furnace of His merciful love. O my God! I ask you for myself and for those dear to me the grace to fulfull perfectly your holy will and to accept for love of you the joys and the sorrows of this passing life so that one day we may be reunited in heaven for all eternity. Amen.
SAINT JOSE MARIA ESCRIVA, the founder of Opus Dei, teaches that we will find the day easier, more enjoyable and more fulfilling whenever we take on the right attitude from our first waking moments. When it is time for getting up do so without lingering and hesitation.
- The heroic minute. It is the time fixed for getting up. Without hesitation: a supernatural reflection and … up! The heroic minute: here you have a mortification that strengthens your will and does no harm to your body. If, with God’s help, you conquer yourself, you will be well ahead for the rest of the day. It’s so discouraging to find oneself beaten at the first skirmish.
As we mark the half-way point of Lent, we will all do well to make time for prayer soon after our rising and thereby make certain to win the first battle of day.
