7 Tips for Starting a Prayer Journal
Starting your own Catholic prayer journal is a profound step toward a more meaningful spiritual life. It takes guts. Congratulations, you’re among the few who value the things in life that matter most. In this guide, we will delve into practical insights that explore the simplicity, structure, and sensory elements of this practice, providing a roadmap for you to get started.
You might ask, what even IS a prayer journal? We would respond, it depends on who you ask. While journaling itself is a broad practice that is found across multiple domains such as religion, psychology, medicine, and professional sports, if you specifically search online for starting a prayer journal, you’ll find everything from new-age spirituality, to connecting with your “inner angel”, to even good-intentioned Catholics encouraging you to start a binder filled with novenas and prayer cards.
So while the definition of prayer journals can vary, what we propose here is a practice that is in line with traditional Catholicism and the teachings of the saints, but also includes a fresh perspective on connecting prayer and your life. Here’s our definition:
What is Catholic Prayer Journaling?
“A spiritual practice designed to foster self knowledge and humble union with God. It involves building up your spiritual memory by praying and writing about your past, present, and future experiences from various perspectives. You delve deeper into your strengths, weaknesses, dreams, worries, and struggles. The ultimate aim is to allow God to guide your whole heart and all your life’s decisions.”
If this definition sounds like exactly what you’re looking for, the following recommendations will serve as a solid foundation for helping you get started on your prayerful journey!
1. Keep It Simple
To start, simplicity is key. Opt for a basic notebook that avoids complexity, allowing you to discover and express yourself without the constraints of perfection. If you shoot for perfection, you’ll never arrive. Relax a bit; remember, this is primarily about your relationship with God. He’s already perfect and all-powerful, he doesn’t need anything from you but … you!
When you’re picking a journal, I recommend a half-page size because of its portability, and a wire-bound format because it ensures ease of writing. Feel free to personalize it with stickers, tabs, and highlights, transforming it into something uniquely yours.
When beginning your Catholic Prayer Journal prioritize practicality over grandeur. The act of journaling is about authenticity, not aesthetics.
2. Understand Your Why
Giving your journey a clear purpose and direction will make ALL the difference in the world! Are you shooting for greater peace in your life? Have you felt inspired to become a better parent or spouse? Maybe you’re just ready to take your spiritual life to the next level! Whatever it is, I encourage you to know your why and to stick to your deepest motivations for starting.
There’s a poster in my gym right next to the treadmill that reminds me every time.
“If you feel like quitting, remember why you started!“
You’ll be needing that phrase again and again.
Structure Your Journal
Structure is one of those elements that helps you find purpose in your journaling. I highly recommend enrolling in our online course as the easiest way to discover a roadmap for your own Catholic Prayer Journal. This course offers a simple yet profound framework for nine essential aspects of your spiritual life that will help you achieve what we set out in our definition above.
Self Knowledge
- Writing
- Listening
- Distractions
Knowledge of God
- Relating with God
- Asking for what we need
- Thanking
Change for the Better
- Discerning
- Struggles
- Resolutions
The online course not only imparts knowledge but also provides practical tools to implement this structure effectively. It serves as a guide, holding your hand and making it easy. The best part of it all is being able to join others who are on the same journey. After you’ve done the course, you’ll have the experience under your belt to be able to adapt your journal to your own personal needs, desires, and interests.
Without some sort of structure that provides purpose for your prayer, you will soon either lose interest or find yourself burdened and distracted with the million things of life that … really don’t matter.
3. Find or Create Your Favorite Spaces
From the perspective of place, it’s essential to create habits. I was in the car yesterday and suddenly realized that I was driving the wrong way because I was following my usual route to work, instead of driving to the grocery store. We are human, and it’s important to recognize this when attempting to bring a new habit into your life. It’s now easier for me to drive to work because I’ve done it a thousand times.
Find what works for you, do it enough times, and you’ll find that it gets easier and easier. That’s another way to say you’ve “formed a virtue.”
Whether it’s a quiet adoration chapel, a cozy attic corner, or your favorite comfortable chair, these spaces become a place where you build routines of recollection. In this way, it becomes easier to stick to your plan, listen to God’s voice, and detach from worldly distractions.
4. Time Is The Hardest Part When Starting A Prayer Journal
Of all the struggles in prayer, time is the hardest battle to win. Everything fights for our attention and concern. We are pulled in a thousand different directions, many of them very important and good. Just like exercise, if you don’t make time for it, you’ll often find that all your time runs out with the mundane worries of life.
If you want your life to be worthwhile, you MUST learn to block out time for God. Many prefer early in the morning before work and family begin to flood them, others are capable of getting away to a quiet chapel over lunch, and still others create the habit of spending 20 minutes before going to sleep each night.
However, while learning to block out quality time for God, another good lesson to learn getting used to quick prayer! Resist the temptation to skip prayer altogether when time is scarce. Even two to three minutes can be a divine encounter. If you really want anything, you’ll find a way to make it happen. The real challenge is learning to want God that bad!
If you want your life to be worthwhile, you MUST learn to block out time for God.
5. Pay Attention To Your Body
We already talked about finding times and spaces that work for you. Now what you need to do is to personal those spaces with everything that can give you an advantage.
Your Surroundings
Music, blankets, statues or crucifixes, candles, socks, or pillows. I don’t know, whatever it takes, whatever will help you get your mind and heart away from the world and focused on what actually matters for your eternity.
One thing is not better than another. Comfort or sacrifice, heat or cold, soft or hard, light or dark – it doesn’t matter but make sure to use them all to your advantage. You’re human and these elements should not be ignored when spending time in prayer.
Your Interior
When it comes to your body, it’s also important to pay attention to yourself. How are you feeling? Is there any pain or comfort? Are you emotionally drained or perhaps positively ecstatic? It often helps to begin prayer by being fully aware of what you’re experiencing physically and emotionally, before trying to connect with God about your life.
6. Remove Inner and Exterior Distractions
Second on the list of hard battles is probably learning to detach yourself from what does not matter to spend time alone with God. The hard part is learning how to be alone, even in your own heart and mind.
Before starting, make sure to physically remove anything that could trigger your interest or attention. Screens especially! Put your phone in another room. Find a time when you ideally won’t be bothered by others, either in person or electronically.
Distractions During Prayer
For those things that still distract you while you’re trying to prayerfully journal, you’re in luck! Our online course has a full section dedicated to teaching you how to take full advantage of all your precious distractions, teaching you how to pray deeply about them all. Talk about cool. In other words, you will learn how to never really be distracted ever again. And even if you are, you can use it to your spiritual advantage. Starting a prayer journal, at least from the perspective of distractions, will be a breeze.
7. Embrace A Badass Mindset
I’ve had many jobs, lived in many countries, endured many things, and I have found no battle to be as hard as the war that you have to wage within in order to be faithful to prayer. Yes, I will repeat, as we learn in the Catechism Prayer is a battle.
If you’re contemplating starting a prayer journal, remember that many who start with great intentions soon quit, because they didn’t realize that prayer is not something that you learn once and suddenly become an expert. Prayer is not primarily something that you learn, but an interior communion with Goodness himself. You cannot fake it!
Learning to pray is essentially learning to LIVE. It’s the hardest lesson of life, and the most important. The good news is God desires you more than you want him, so as long as you’re humble and rely on his strength and grace, he will hold your hand every step of the way.
Encouragement
You are not alone! Every man, woman, and child was created with the same beautiful and awesome purpose of learning to become one with the Almighty Creator of the universe.
And if you got this far, I bet God has some really cool things in store for you. Be faithful to that call to prayer! You will never regret it.
I wish you all the best; I’ll be praying for you!
A few questions to take to prayer
- Am I committed to becoming a saint?
- What do I need to tweak in my prayer life to be more attentive to the Holy Spirit?
