All of the Fathers of the Church who wrote about developing a prayer life, tell us that it is important to develop a “habit” of prayer. In order to develop this habit, we must think about making our time for prayer “regular”, that is at the same time each day. In addition to this, the Fathers tell us that we must always “start small”, that is not overwhelming ourselves with the amount of time spent at prayer. Start small and build up the time that you spend in prayer, that is the approach.

So, for example, start with spending five minutes each day, at a particular time, in prayer until you automatically do it in a very consistent manner – you don’t let anything distract you from spending that five minutes with God. Once you see that you have developed a habit doing that, spend eight minutes in prayer. If you have to use a timer, then use a timer. Remember, the pur-pose of this is to develop the habit of prayer – something that you always do.

After than you can again increase the time you spend in prayer, always realizing that it is not the amount of time you spend, it is the fact that you consistently spend some of your time in prayer.

It seems that the foundation or basis of any spiritual growth is the establishment of a prayer life.

Again it doesn’t matter what you use as prayer. It can be a combination of formula prayers together with your reflection. Eventually, personal prayer means that we just think about God and His presence in our life. Prayer becomes that time that we spend just thinking about ourselves as creatures created in His image and given the power to grow in His likeness. Prayer eventually becomes this quiet time wherein we wait for God’s enlightenment (i.e., ideas, insights and even inspirations). If we open ourselves to God, He will eventually begin speaking with us, not in words but in thoughts and ideas. He will never push His way into our lives. We have to open the door to our hearts and minds and invite Him in. This will eventually happen if we pursue the “habit of prayer.”