7 Life-Changing Tips for Prayer | Sr. Mary Grace, S.V.

sorry it's a long way up here oh my gosh wow well good afternoon what a joy to be with you all should we start with a prayer in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen father we call out you as our children and we ask in Jesus name that you send your spirit into this Hall we ask you to send your spirit into our hearts open them and help us to hear and listen to whatever good gift and word you want us to hear in Jesus name we pray amen in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen wow well there can be a lot of pressure in college to have life figured out right an unspoken expectation is placed on you to have your whole life's trajectory sorted out without failure and to be honest it's a universal experience so growing up in Australia I had my own career crisis in college I dabbled in a bunch of different ideas as you can imagine event management become a professional athlete a missionary even politics spoiler alert none of them worked out but overwhelmed at the simple and yet terrifying question what are you going to do with your life now I had no solid answer no matter how organized I thought I was or how much I thought about it so I decided not to decide and I took a year off my career crisis and a friend invited me to hike across Spain on a Catholic pilgrimage called the Camino with an edge four weeks have we got any Camino successful walkers way to go there's a few if you haven't I highly recommend it four weeks 900 kilometers and at that point in my life it had something to do with faith so I signed up it follows the way of Saint James on his first evangelization trip across the country and after two days we ditched our map because there were yellow arrows that point out the direction of the path always in eyesight but we got confident too quickly and tried to wing it one night in the dark we got horribly lost and we tried to trace our steps and made the unanimous decision no more nighttime walking can't we do this at some point in our life you know try to make it in the dark by trying to control our circumstances take up solo searching and we can miss the path with the signs that are all around us you know prayer is not just a good Christian habit that serious Catholics employ it's not an isolated chunk of time that I tick off to keep God content either it's the blueprint of our life as Christians it it's the guide that enlightens the way keeps her from getting lost on track and aware of the companionship of Christ at every step of our journey and without prayer we don't just simply get lost we actually lose out on living life Fully Alive so we're going to look at 10 tips sorry not 10 just seven today seven tips because prayer is my decision to wake up to the reality that God is never far but with me closer than anyone else at every turn you know one question I think that we tend to forget to ask enough is where is God in this you know where is God in this new situation that I face or old one something I can't handle I don't know the answers to am I seeking God in this am I seeking the path he has placed before me or am I trying to go my own way am I checking in with the one that is holding everything together who knows how my heart beats or am I going solo because the truth is my friends that God never intended a moment that we would be unaware of his company with us and peace flows when we repossession our prayer from asking myself to asking God what have you got planned for my life how have you created me to love and this conversation as we know takes place in prayer when we put aside a specific amount of time when we literally do nothing else but pray and I dare you to consider living leaving the phone alone when we pray because Jesus is the resident in your heart and that is incomparable to screen time and it's a choice that we commit to uh constantly because con constant contact with Christ is the reason for our creation now whether we're in church or checking email there's no such thing as an isolated Christian God wants in on our lives you know he's choosing us and the beautiful thing is that if he stopped we'd cease to be but he hasn't he's choosing you even right now so prayer is our response it's a god choice you know it's not about getting it right it's choosing the god who's choosing us first this is God's life plan for us right that is inviting us to spend our life with him and go together where he leads us so tip number one any prayer should always start in his sight what do I mean by that it's giving your heart a God moment okay bringing to mind the reality that he sees us and he knows us right now God promises I am with you always not I will be or I have been I am with you always there is not a moment in your life he's not looking at you with love and half the battle is realizing this reality right and it takes Faith because our feelings and our thoughts can often convey the opposite but faith is a direct contact with God whatever our mood thought pattern struggle Faith runs deeper and a God moment can actually change the trajectory of our day you know it occurs in the vicinity of our hearts accessible anytime and any place you choose to take it you're walking across campus you're stuck in study and you hit a wall you feel a pinch of loneliness or you feel misunderstood it's always time for a God moment and we do this by hitting the pause button you know and making a choice to be entirely present in the present moment out of future plans and away from past concerns but right here realizing the reality that you had loved in his sight and name what's on your mind you know what you need to let go of and recall just one truth God loves me and no conditions apply and that is prayer becoming more aware of his presence in time of prayer but every single moment in between so number two dig out desire you know we three we threw a big party for our sisters recently who celebrated 25 years in religious life it's a big feat and a sister and I were called uh to be on what we call the flower team or what we renamed it as team flower power now involved putting large assortments of flower bouquets together sounds lovely right except for one small detail we had to beg for the flowers ourselves now I don't know about you but the last time I went begging was when I was strapped as a seven-year-old in a car we'd pass McDonald's on the way home from school Dad please please please please please please Dad it never worked so I knew that this time we had to change our tactics picture this New York City it's 5 am in the morning the streets are dark and it's packed with trucks at the beginning of the day we arrive in our beat up Van and this new new prayer arises in my heart help Jesus fill my empty trunk so I walk into this bustling storm and we came here last year but the only description that I had was ask for Mike so I get in there I get in there and I ask for Mike and then I soon quickly realize that this hour of the day customer service is not a top priority and I had to use my yelling voice so I said is um is is Mike here one guy pointed to the next room now my original plan of telling Mike my vocation story my favorite flowers and what they mean to me uh turned into a New York City dialect in an instant Mike we got a nun party 25 years hoping for another One Church 20 tables empty shrunk what do you think I was shocked by myself at this point Mike looked at me blankly and he's like 25 years again I said no Mike new Bunch what do you got then Mike calling across the room you know get their sister whatever she wants Saint Thomas Aquinas says that prayer is asking directed at God for what we need and faith is necessary to believe that we can obtain from him what we seek Jesus asked me in you what do you want me to do for you the problem with our prayer half the time is not that we're not praying but that we've given up on desire you know we downplay our wants but the death of desire in our heart is more dangerous than an irregular prayer life our hearts are at times empty it's true for all of us in need of being filling up and we can't fill it or fix it ourselves but turn to the one who can so we need not only be aware of our needs but dig up our desires we have legit desires for level one happiness right food basic needs pleasures but if we don't dive deeper into this next level of desires for meaning for value for peace belonging we're gonna get Restless fast and that level one will never fully satisfy us Pope Benedict our beloved Pope described Heaven as the Supreme moment of satisfaction I want that so let's get real about where we're going to you know to be with God forever in heaven where God fulfills everything we're desperately looking for and Jesus brought Heaven into your heart when he came you know he named you as his new home so don't be afraid to let your heart want what it wants because that's what it's made for you know we can ask questions like what do I desire in my life now what do I really want you know there's no one in the world that wants you more happy than God himself you know this was a big breakthrough for me my own vocational Journey I was fixated for a while and trying to figure out what God wanted for me that I left my desires at the door you know thinking maybe that if God wanted something that I didn't um I tried to forget my own desires and figure out his plans instead and I was afraid that he'd dumped them if I ever brought them up so I kept them down and I tried to protect them in fear that I'd lose out but oh how wrong I was there was a particular moment that God woke me up from this way of praying I visited the sisters of life and was desperately disappointed when they didn't tell me what I should do surely I thought they know they'll tell me but they didn't because the heart is sacred ground and God Alone calls a heart it's not our Pious plan it's a response to God's plan I was praying before the Eucharist in adoration just like last night and for the first time I got real and raw with Jesus and it took a load of Courage but God can handle our stuff you know in fact he wants to hear from us especially our confusion our fears our troubles you know all the stuff that we tend to leave outside of church that's what he's interested in because Jesus has incomparable compassion and incomprehensible power to heal restore and set us free so I said in my heart Jesus I want to love you like the sisters love you I want to serve you like they serve you I want to belong to you like they belong to you you know Union with God is Not reserved for religious intimacy with God is the vocation of every baptized soul and it's planted in every heart that beats we want God and that was the moment that I heard his voice it was nothing audible God speaks to us in the silent depths of our hearts like Whispers promptings And they come clothed in Peace and Freedom and it's how we recognize his voice when he draws closer to us and we feel wider in Freedom and I heard this truth from him I heard him say something like what if what I want is what you want and what you want is what I want for your life you know nothing has ever set me more free than this truth I was able to literally let down my desires to the Lord and let go to receive his because they knew then not just in my head but in my heart that God's will for our life is the Fulfillment of our desires and I can trust him you know however God calls each one of us to receive and give his love with our lives it's his design and our free response but every vocation has the same destination it's Union with God it's holiness which is why bringing out actual real and raw experiences to prayer is vital you know what am I thinking what am I feeling what am I hoping what am I Desiring so do not be afraid to share your heart with Jesus and give your heart the mic so tip number three engage a Eucharistic life God has given all of himself to us in a particular way the Trinity took up residence in our souls the moment we were baptized but it did not end there he comes daily fully willingly in the Eucharist where we receive his own body and blood all for everyone and for you to stabilize us securely in his love we have a monthly event similar to last night with adoration on Fifth Avenue at St Patrick's Cathedral New York city where the front doors spill out into one of the busiest streets in the world right outside shops like Victoria's Secret and sax sisters and habits that are still trending after centuries ask people in the streets welcome would you like to come inside and you wouldn't believe their kind of responses we have when we invite people to try church again one young family said that was an unexpected therapy session I love that God therapy you can't beat it you can't pay for it it's a free gift given just for you within an inexhaustible power of healing and it's the best care that we can give ourselves and invite others into because it's handing over the heavy lifting of Jesus and letting him be Lord in our life prayer before the Eucharist is a treasure that we will never exhaust a girl from China was invited in that same night and sitting before the Eucharist she asked who's God and the sister explaining that he was right there before her gave her a Litany of trust to pray with and she asked the sister if she should pray it out louder in her heart and the sister said you can but maybe you can try in your heart so she read it quietly and then she closed her eyes and after a brief moment she opened them again with tears saying sister that's the first time I heard my heart in Eucharistic adoration it's like our hearts are Amplified coming before the real presence of God we have full access to God's heart and at every moment of our life Jesus is living out his Humanity in you you know think about it what stage of Jesus's life is he living out in you right now and let us not forget that his most powerful moment of his life was when he poured himself out on the cross for us out of love for us and rose from the dead you know everyone in this room is carrying a cross and most of the time it's hidden and we don't perceive it in one another but there is no suffering that any one of us experiences that Jesus is not living feeling and suffering with us your suffering has meaning and it's not for nothing and God's plans are at work 100 of the time Jesus just didn't die for us he defeated death and Rose that we might hold out and hope that the same Resurrection will take place in my life too especially in my suffering and pain because our faith it's not it's not a commitment to a program but it's a Conformity to a person someone who is alive and living and making actual direct interventions in our life you know inviting us closer another young man was on his way to a strip club that same night and he was invited to come pray surprised that he was welcomed after he just admitted where he was going he asked to the sister do you still see the good in me the sister looked him in the eyes and said yes Rodney I still see the good in you and so does God well he stayed that whole hour and he did not move you know none of us have enough time anymore but making time for what is good is what we can do and God asks each one of us stay with me prioritize our prayer and there is no greater compliment that God has made of you and me than making his own image and likeness and then to give us his very self Kyle that night had had a really rough day in the city but he couldn't refuse a nuns invite into the into the church and dragging himself inside barely inside the door he looked up and saw the Eucharist and stood Motionless a sister just came and Stood Beside him and eventually he sat down but it wasn't until the end of the night that that sister approached him again and noticed tears flowing from his face and she just said simply to him I don't know what you're going through but I want you to know that God loves you infinitely and he just sat back and said sister now I know now I know let the Eucharist love you that kind of Love Changes Everything tip number four the rule of disengagement you know grow upping in Australia survival depends on two elements one living close to the water and number two you just don't trust the animals I mean I don't care how much you tell me and find a kangaroo is cute those things will never lose on a fight did you know that their tails are a fifth limb and they can deliver 759 pounds of force in a kick I don't know how strong that is but it's powerful they have been seen to crush metal with their bad Paws don't tell me I didn't tell you but their one weakness fascinating about kangaroos is they can't move backwards probably because they've never lost a fight but it makes me question like where are we backing up in our relationship with God you know what causes us to lose ground Saint Ignatius gave a name desolation to the spiritual experience that hounds us with lies lies like God is distant he doesn't care about me or basically anything else other than what he's revealed himself to be but desolation is a lie God never wanted it to be part of our stories but he may allow it if he sees that there's a new Strength that we'll receive through it or there's a good outcome that's not possible otherwise we all experience it a Christian since the fall hears the Serpent's lies and he sounds like the same old stuff yet we pay way too much attention to the very things that Jesus has defeated there is no darkness no despair or no battle that Jesus hasn't crushed with his love period and lies they sound permanent and discouraging they sound like you know I'll always struggle like this or I'm a failure I'm unforgivable and there's certain times in our life where we get plagued by them which is why what we need I what I like to call the rule of disengagement we can deal with lies differently you know we don't need to waste our time and energy trying to get them out of our minds because trying harder is often a common pitfall God never intended you to fight for yourself he intended to Jesus to live his power in you the rule of disengagement means we don't even engage in them but we make a choice to focus on Truth we re-engage with what's real the power and presence of Jesus in your life and in your soul he Bears the weight and he's dealt with it so we can let him so when we hear Bad lies thoughts we can decide to re-engage reality and enter back into the present moment focus on what we're doing or pray a simple repetitive player to replace replace the lie like Jesus Jesus I trust in you and what we're doing here is we're turning down the mic on the lies and we're amplifying the sound of Truth now it may be often times in the day that we do this but it's better than the burden of being fixated on what's false evil has had its air time and Saint Therese of the zoo likes to say we must never torment ourselves about anything this kind of a practice will train our mind and strengthen our hearts and imbuse our soul with the power of Jesus that God has given us you know however many times you've counted yourself out God is one in counting you back in this is the consequence of the Incarnation it's good news that no matter how deep the abyss is the light is always brighter which leads us to The Next Step tip number five never go solo another little fun fact about Australia in case you haven't known that 95 of my home country is an uninhabitable land so living close to the water is key so we have a sport in Australia that's called surf life saving beaches are packed in the summer and basically all year round so we've developed an entire sport based on different rescue techniques and there's one rule that we're drilled before we're we're even learned to swim and that is never enter the water alone you know running wildly to help someone in the ocean often ends up with two people in trouble instead of one and it's the same tip that we can't Tire of never go solo you know we spend way too much effort wasted forgetting that we're following someone we believe in Jesus not just some way of doing life and he first lived this you know he said radical claims like I and the father are one I can do nothing on my own I seek not my own will but the one of the father who sent me faith in Jesus entails an Ascent you know so I can make acts of faith I believe in his goodness I trust in his Mercy but it also entails a refusal a refusal to distrust God and resist giving up on him so whether we're facing old Temptations or new ones refusal to go solo is our strength and this is the faith of Jesus crucified when all goes dark and abandonment is his only experience he refuses to distrust the father's good plans and that made the resurrection in his life possible you know we first fell in Eden because we distrusted the God the father and will rise when we start trusting like him so just as Jesus never stopped praying to his father even when he seemed silent we can bring Jesus into everything Jesus how are you going to deal with this Jesus what way now Jesus loved through me here you know the world of science has finally caught up to the healthiness of holiness scientists discovered breakthrough evidence that Christians consider vintage they found that 20 minutes a day of prayer directly reduces stress anxiety and eliminates wholly eliminates loneliness using a technique that they call functional magnetic resonance imaging they found overwhelming evidence of immediate effects in the brain when we pray when we're anxious there's regions of our brain that control our thoughts worries and emotions and when we're anxious then deactivated and procrastination is Amplified but after a 20-minute preet of prayer these brain regions is amazing they're reversed to their proper full potential prayer is for you and we're more human with it and it's not only critical for our souls but for our bodies to make it a daily part of our day and you don't have to be a monk to benefit from it and routine is key you know find your prime time is it the morning is it the evening schedule it and don't cancel it and it's not a it's not a program we need to master but it's the whole point of life and if we miss this we'll miss the best parts so tip number six know your rest rate a psychologist once said recently that if people were eating sleeping and resting well I'd be out of business [Music] so I want to talk about the importance of rest [Music] one way is lack of sleep anything less than seven to eight hours per night we we physically and mentally suffer our attention span lung capacity and energy levels are all depleted I know about you but that feels like my current state but we know that God works Mighty wonders whether we're awake or asleep attentive of relief or aloof but the more aware we are the more we notice his unending effort to engage with us sleep sleep scientists found key elements it's very fascinating that impact the quality and quantity of our sleep and one way is a screen free pre-bred routine it's proven we know the blue light already damages our brains but a screen free hour before bed tells the brain to release melatonin that actually prepares our body for rest and it's also been proven by sleep specialists that meditation a prayer before bedtime as simple as meditating on one word or a phrase over and over again enhances our ability to stay and fall asleep so if you swap your screen for scripture you'll probably rest better and not just sleep but rest in Leisure and creativity you know when was the last time you did something that didn't own an outcome you know where do you come alive you know there's so much pressure to do and be more productive right we all feel that but I'm talking about intentional life-giving activities that cause your heart to rest to wonder and to look up and reactivate on a deeper level it's not selfish and it's not a waste of time it's actually opening my heart wider to receive more the gift of life that God is pouring into me without limit or cost at every moment of Our Lives Saint John Paul II teaches that God gave us the whole created world to rest in it to rest in it the Polish word rest means to be reconceived which means a true rest literally allows us to come alive again and at Pentecost the church begs for the Holy Spirit but we can call on the Holy Spirit every time which lets a power of Pentecost enter every time we pray and when we call he comes so we can find the deepest rest in a healthy sacramental life nothing can strengthen and unite you more to God himself than the prayer of daily Mass nothing can liberate you and remove obstacles in your life than regular if possible monthly confession and nothing can help you more in your prayer time than invoking the aid of the Holy Spirit as simply Come Holy Spirit so give yourself permission to rest in him because God is forever creating you his masterpiece and so the last tip is tip number seven take up the weight of the word as you heard I live in the Bronx and one night we noticed that there was a group of young men gathering in our front garden for a late night smoke so some sisters bravely went out to meet them and asked if they'd be open to finding a new place together I stayed inside because I was in the backup team but they needed no backup after a few minutes chatting they all gathered in a circle and started praying well we never saw them again until one year later a guy was crossing the road early in the morning and caught us in the middle of the road with the smoking hand glasses and his hoodies over his head ran up to us and he was like hey hey now in the Bronx these kind of experiences are unpredictable so we're a little hesitant at first and he said to us I met you last year he said me my friends were smoking in your yard like oh you remember you and he said but I never forgot you because you were kind to me he said sisters do you have the word of God barely believing this came out of his mouth and trying to you know use every month of inch of our muscles trying to keep our cool we're like yeah we have a look and see if there's anything in the convent so two sisters and I look at each other and say you get the Bible I get the beads back here in a minute so this this young guy got choked up because we started filling his pockets in his backpacks with basically everything removable in the convent and our conversation continued and as his heartfelt safe he started to ask other questions like what do you do when temptation is close you know is God angry at me is a spiritual world real you know grappling for questions that we all ask at different times we prayed and we told him the good news that we're all aching to hear you know Stevie God loves you and the church is not for the perfect the church is for Sinners Like You and I come on home you're welcome here you know in prayer we let him in more and more give me a word should be our prayer we cannot talk about prayer without picking up the actual words God has given us himself because the truth is that God is seeking you and I more than we could ever hope to seek him God has revealed everything in one word Jesus and he could not have gone further than becoming one of us and relating to us like one of us so let's take up what God has given up you know the weight of his own word then our prayer is no longer just our prayer but it's prayer with Jesus it's the prayer of Jesus to his father you can take the gospel from the mass of the day or trust your heart and ask yourself where do I want to live in the life of Jesus today where do I want to be with him because it matters not so much what place we go but that his word finds a place in our prayer my brothers and sisters the truth is God has chosen you for his home he's chosen you he's in the midst of your life and in your heart you are you are the sacred ground that Jesus now walks and lives and he longs to encounter you right there and in our prayer we see God just last week we went and visited some classrooms all the way from six-year-olds to 18 year olds and you know in every classroom the one question that was asked everywhere was do you see God God is in you God is with you and he's named your heart his home so I just want to invite my sisters they'll pop up somewhere to come and join us as we end with a prayer and we want to do it in the form of a song and I just encourage you now to join me in Opening Our Hearts wide wide to the Lord because the truth is that the Lord is in the house of your heart that's where he belongs that's where we access him and that's how sacred you are you do not even need to move to encounter him so let's just ask him to reveal his love to us there in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen [Music]

Channel: FOCUS Catholic

Views: 70,595

Keywords: sister mary grace, jesus christ, sister mary grace australia, sister mary grace sisters of life, prayer for beginners, catholic prayers, pray with the sisters of life, questions for prayer, deepen your prayer life, pray each day, sister mary grace 10 tips

Id: 5ruSnm0Yv9E

Length: 32min 27sec (1947 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 17 2023