I am, in this article, still considering the 28th Step on St. John’s Ladder, which is PRAYER. In the last issue I touched on the issue of being distracted during prayer.

Being distracted during prayer does not mean taking time to pause and meditate on certain words of the prayers we are saying. If we are moved to tears or deeper contrition by a penitential prayer, or if we are overwhelmed by a sense of deep gratitude and wonder, we should not ignore this and just push on, even if it means we will not have time to complete our set prayers. St. John tells us: “If it happens that, as you pray, some word evokes delight or remorse within you, linger over it; for at that moment our guardian angel is praying with us.”

It can be helpful, especially when we struggle to concentrate, to involve more than the mind in prayer. Rather than read our prayers silently, we can utter them aloud. This helps keep the mind focused. In addition to hearing the words of our prayer, we can involve the sense of smell by offering incense with our prayer. We can also involve sight by praying before an icon and a candle or vigil lamp. Thus prayer becomes not just something we say, but something we do. It becomes a physical action, a ritual of sorts.

I have found, however, that it is important not to fight to stay attentive to our prayer. If our minds remain distracted after attempting to use strategies to focus our attention, then it is better to just stop and come back to our prayer at a later time. I have found that when the struggle to maintain our focus, prayer becomes too overwhelming and we begin to dislike prayer. It is better to stop and allow ourselves to regroup and come back to prayer a little later. Don’t make prayer a chore. Discover what is distracting you and resolve it. By the way, there is no one proper way to pray. Each of us must develop our own way.