Yet another great post by a blogger that I somehow missed when it came out in August, even though this writer's blog is on my Feedly list.
Will Duquette is a lay Dominican who writes about, oh, all sorts of things on his Patheos blog. Here he describes the place the Divine Office has in his life, and the common problem many of us have of procrastinating over getting to one or more of the hours, even thought we still enjoy it immensely once we get past the obstacle of our (choose one or more: lazy, distracted, worldly, selfish) tendencies:
"Some days recently I’ve found doing my daily prayer to be quite difficult. I just don’t want to sit down and do it—there’s so much else calling for my attention that I’d rather do. Evening prayer only takes a few minutes, and yet I grudge those few minutes: in the time before I sit down to do it, it looms over me like a giant monolith, seemingly impassable.
And that’s where mortification comes in. I’d been telling myself that I really needed to sit down and pray, I’d promised to do it, and spending time with God is good for me, and like that. But it’s simpler than that, really; when I am in that mood, sitting down to pray is a kind of mortification. I am giving over my own will, and seeking God’s will. The benefit I receive in sitting down to pray comes largely, when I am in this mood, from the simple act of choosing to sit down and pray."
Here's the rest.
Will Duquette is a lay Dominican who writes about, oh, all sorts of things on his Patheos blog. Here he describes the place the Divine Office has in his life, and the common problem many of us have of procrastinating over getting to one or more of the hours, even thought we still enjoy it immensely once we get past the obstacle of our (choose one or more: lazy, distracted, worldly, selfish) tendencies:
"Some days recently I’ve found doing my daily prayer to be quite difficult. I just don’t want to sit down and do it—there’s so much else calling for my attention that I’d rather do. Evening prayer only takes a few minutes, and yet I grudge those few minutes: in the time before I sit down to do it, it looms over me like a giant monolith, seemingly impassable.
And that’s where mortification comes in. I’d been telling myself that I really needed to sit down and pray, I’d promised to do it, and spending time with God is good for me, and like that. But it’s simpler than that, really; when I am in that mood, sitting down to pray is a kind of mortification. I am giving over my own will, and seeking God’s will. The benefit I receive in sitting down to pray comes largely, when I am in this mood, from the simple act of choosing to sit down and pray."
Here's the rest.
