Prayer Journaling

This past Wednesday, I received an e-mail from the U.K. asking: "Have you heard of the practice of keeping a prayer journal? If so, have you any suggestions on its contents?"

I thought it was a good topic for a post and promised the e-mail's author to answer here by Saturday.

Much of what I have to say, I have learned from the teaching and writing of others.  Some of those whose ideas I can pass on have kept prayer journals for many years and have spent much time in prayer with those journals.  Among those sources is John-Charles Vockler, FODC, the retired metropolitan of the Anglican Catholic Church.  His short book "A School of Prayer" has much advice on journaling, if you can find a copy from one of the parishes of the Anglican Catholic Church.  I don't think it was ever published except by photocopies bound in velum.  It contained his instructions from a School of Prayer he once taught in parishes.  While he drew much of his teaching from Catholics and Anglicans like the Abbot John Chapman and the writings of the great spiritual classics, I do not know the source of his teaching on prayer journaling.  Undoubtedly, much of it is what he developed over decades of keeping a journal, and his work deserves particularly to be credited here although I have no link to offer to any formally published writing for further reading.

A journal is a good aid to prayer, but it is not an essential one.  I have kept a prayer journal in the past, but I do not use a prayer journal right now, except to the extent that this blog itself is a journal of Scriptures, meditative quotations from the saints, meditative photographs, writings about issues that concern me, and other things related to prayer.  There are different kinds of journals, too, in that you can be very organized in listing the people and issues for which you want to pray daily, weekly, and monthly, and you can also be quite creative in keeping a collection of pictures of those people that bring them to mind for prayer, Scripture verses and quotations for lectio divina, notations of pages in the Book of the Hours that bring to mind your concerns that you are praying about, and that sort of thing.

It is a good way to keep track of people and issues you want to remember regularly in prayer, but I do not think it is the only way to go about it.  It is easier to use if you have time to pray every day at home.  It is less practical if you pray more in a church or on a commuter train.  It is essential if you have a long list of prayer requests, and yet there is no reason why someone's prayer must be based upon a long lists of requests.

It is important to pray regularly -- daily -- and to include both listening to God in worship, meditation and reading, and also to take our full selves to God in adoration, self-examination and confession, and presenting our petitions.

Some General Practical Tips:

Whether or not you use a prayer journal, it is a good idea to have a specific place where you pray every day.  Keep in one place, where you can regularly pray at home, your Bible, prayer book (the Book of Common Prayer if you are Anglican, the Hours or a simplified form such as Magnificat if you are Catholic), prayer journal, pens for the journal (keep 2 in case one runs out of ink), pencils if you make notes in your Bible or prayer book (pastel color pencils can underline and make notes on thin paper without showing through to the other side), a rosary, and anything else you need for prayer.  Rosaries can be kept in several places if you have more than one.  It is a good idea to carry one with you, keep one bedside in case you wake up during the night, and keep one in the room where you pray.

Decide where you want to sit, kneel, and lie prostrate if that is the position that works best for you for prayer.  For praying through a list in a prayer journal, you will probably want to sit in a place where you can be comfortable for an hour or so rather than trying to kneel.  If you have a specific, sturdy chair, where you can go regularly for prayer, that may be helpful.

Keep time for silence.  Rest with God, and silently be in the presence of God with and for others.

Organizing a Prayer Journal:

Depending on how long an intercessory prayer list you have, you can organize this by subject matter, by how often you want to pray for certain people, and by other categories you may think of yourself. 

Time categories: Some people and situations you may want to pray for daily, if they are very close to you or the needs are serious.  Others, you may want to keep on your list to pray for them once each week or once each month.  God may place someone on your heart that you have not thought much about for a long time, and yet, you do not want to take them off of your list.  Or there may be people whose ministries you want to keep in prayer although they are not so important that they come to mind every day.  You can divide a prayer journal into time categories.

Subject categories: By linking petitions on similar topics together, you can help to keep intercessory prayer from becoming monotonous, and make sure that you are actually praying through the specific needs on your list rather than the names.  A suggested list of categories would be:

1.  Church/clergy: Pray for your own priest, bishop, and parish; pray for the Holy Father; pray for priests, bishops and others.

2.  Family: Pray for your immediate family and for others in your family who are on your list.  These may be people you pray for regularly as well as people you pray for concerning a specific cause at a particular time.

3.  Specific missions: Pray for specific missions, such as vocations, schools, pro-life ministries, orders, and missionary organizations, whose service to the Lord you want to include in your prayer.

4.  International/political: Pray for those in authority, for peace in war-torn countries, for food in countries where there is famine, for election issues, and other matters related to national and international politics.

5.  Self: Relationships, career, financial needs, and need for God's guidance for yourself and your friends.

6.  General: Anything else you want to pray for.

Thanksgiving:

Include a list of things for which you are thankful, and reasons for joy in your life.  It is important not to dwell too much on petitions for things you do not yet have.  Pray also about those things you do have and perhaps never requested, reasons for joy in  your life, things that have led other people to tell you that you were lucky.  Balance the requests being made of God with thankfulness for what God has already done.

Adding Scriptures, Prayers, Pictures:

As you pray for one specific person, there are other ways to do so than by mentioning their needs as you pray through a list of names.  A lot of this can become complex.  Of course, you don't want to let the complexity become an impediment.  Keeping a journal should be something that makes prayer time easier, not something that makes it seem so complicated that you lose interest.

Adding photographs and lectio divina readings can be a means to keep you from rattling off a list of names day by day without really holding those people up to God.

As you come across a specific Scripture verse or passage that reminds you of your prayer intentions regarding a particular person or situation, you can write that Scripture verse into your journal next to that person's name.  That way, you can think of that Scripture each time you pray for that person.  You can do the same thing with quotations from the saints and from the Book of the Hours.  For example, I once wrote "I Thess. 3:10-13" in my journal as a reminder to pray for friends I might not see again as St. Paul did:

"Praying earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith?  Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you; and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all men, as we do to you, so that he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints."

You can do the same thing from the writings of the saints and other writings that bring to mind your prayer intentions, writing those quotations into your journal with the name of the person or issue for prayer.  For example, if you pray for peace, you might write in your journal this prayer from Pope John Paul II:

God of our fathers,
source of consolation and peace,
who with the Incarnation of your Son
in the pure womb of Mary
revealed your mercy
and brought reconciliation to the world,
allow every man
to work responsibly for peace
so that adventures without return may nevermore
threaten the creatures of the sky,
the earth, and the sea.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

(from The Private Prayers of Pope John Paul II: The Rosary Hour)

For a teacher and clergy who are praying for a list of students or parishioners, it may help to have photos of the people to help to remember who that specific person is.  A copy of the church directory or school yearbook can become part of your prayer materials.  You could calendar a page number from the directory for each day, or for each week, to be sure to pray for each of the people in the course of a year.  Family reunion photographs can serve a similar purpose, as can photos from a wedding or Christmas gathering that bring to mind the needs of family members near and far.

When you pray alone from the Book of the Hours or other such prayer book, you can choose to pray with an intention not only for yourself and with the Church as a whole, but also specifically with an intention for a particular person or group of people from your list.  Try praying the Lord's Prayer and thinking specifically of yourself and a specific person or group of people as you pray, for example, think of Christians in a nation with great material needs, praying "Give us this day our daily bread." 

It may sound very old fashioned, but you could also tuck a child's or grandchild's photo between the pages of a prayer book to remind you to pray for that person what you find on a particular page.  There is little more beautiful than a well worn Bible or prayer book, so that the people you have prayed with and prayed for over the years can see that it has actually been used. 

However, your prayer journal is for you, and should never become an evangelistic tool that you hope someone else will find and read.  You might think about the memories brought to mind in seeing your grandmother's well worn Bible or prayer book and realize what an encouragement it can be, knowing that this is the book she held when she prayed for you.  Worn pages speak. 

And you would never want to place in writing, or announce to others in a group prayer time, any private information you may have about another person's needs, knowing that there is always a chance that someone else may some day read through it.  God knows the other person's needs, and there is no benefit to telling Him what He already knows about another person when, in the process, we may betray their confidences.

Using Your Prayer Book in Journaling:

You may wish to keep a section of your journal for quotations from Scriptures, writings and prayers that you may use from time to time in prayer of adoration and thanksgiving, as well as in prayers for specific people.  For example, if you have in mind the words of Jesus, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst." (John 6:35), you might pray, "Lord, be the bread of life for them" and "May we come to You, Lord, that we shall not hunger, and believe in You more fully that we shall not thirst."  You may use the "words of power" in this section of your journal for different people at different times.

As another example, if one of the hymns or prayers in your prayer book is one you especially want to pray for issues of abortion or other life issues, or for a specific person, you might write the page number or the entire prayer into your journal.  If your prayer book is Magnificat (a monthly publication with a version of morning and evening prayer for each day of the month), you might even cut that page out of the month's issue and tape it into your journal.

The Liturgy of the Hours has many quotations and prayer that might strike you as good expressions of your intentions.  Here are a few examples from the current volume (Volume IV, Ordinary Time Weeks 18-34), which you might think of praying for a specific person or group of people on your list, such as for your priest or for your children's teachers: 

Page 788: "Lord Jesus, uphold those who hope in  you and give us your counsel, so that we may know the joy of your resurrection and deserve to be among the saints at your right hand."

Another way to use a prayer book to pray for specific person is this:  When you say "us" and "we", you may think of yourself and that one specific person or group:

Page 774: "Lord Jesus Christ, you chose to suffer and be over-whelmed by death in order to open the gates of death in triumph.  Stay with us to help us on our pilgrimage; free us from all evil by the power of your resurrection.  In the company of your saints, and constantly remembering  your love for us, may we sing of your wonders in our Father's house."

Lectio Divina, Liturgy, Meditation, Contemplation and Journaling:

Most of what is written here is about intercessory prayer: seeking God's assistance and guidance in your own life and in the lives of others.  Keep in mind that prayer should also include the adoration of God, self-examination and confession of our sins, and thanksgiving.

A prayer journal should never become your only form of prayer.  The liturgical prayer of the Church in Mass and in the Hours (especially morning and evening prayer), the meditative prayers of the rosary, the stations of the cross, and meditative reading (lectio divina), and silent prayer from your heart, listening to God, are all aspects of prayer that are as important and perhaps more important than the kinds of prayer lists usually kept in journals. 

A journal should never become so complex or so time consuming that it takes you away from more important forms of prayer.  It should not become so long that you do not have time to simply linger with God in silence, holding yourself and others up to Him.

In the Presence of the King:

Your prayer should direct the journal more than the journal directs your prayer. 

Decisions to take someone off of your prayer list are ones that you will reflect on before you actually make that decision.  Keeping a weekly list and a monthly list can let you keep that person in prayer who perhaps has not been in your life for a long time but whose needs you still want to keep in prayer.  If that person's needs are still in your heart, it may be God's prompting you to continue to pray for that person on occasion.

Decisions to add someone or a new issue to your prayer list are also ones on which you should reflect.  If you pray more for one thing, the needs of daily life may require you to pray less for something else.  You never want to let the list become so long that you are just rattling off a list of names without praying from your heart. 

It may be better to pray more deeply for one or two issues: vocations, right to life issues, the needs of clergy and religious in your diocese, or your family.  If your prayer list becomes very short, you may want to drop the journal altogether and focus more on  other means of prayer, such as the Hours, the Rosary, and silent prayer.  There is nothing wrong with this. 

Nothing in Scripture or elsewhere requires you to keep a prayer journal.  Always think of it as a tool that can be expanded, reduced, abandoned, and taken up again as God leads your prayer at any given point in your life.  Whether you pray with or without a prayer journal, all true prayer should come from your heart, and all true prayer should draw you closer to the Lord.  Keep in mind this prayer advice from St. Teresa of Avila in Interior Castle:

"If a person does not think Whom he is addressing, and what he is asking for, and who it is that is asking and of Whom he is asking it, I do not consider that he is praying at all even though he be constantly moving his lips.  True, it is sometimes possible to pray without paying heed to these things, but that is only because they have been thought about previously: if a man is in the habit of speaking to God's Majesty as he would speak to his slave, and never wonders if he is expressing himself properly, but merely utters the words that come to his lips because he has learned them by heart through constant repetition, I do not call that prayer at all -- and God grant no Christian may ever speak to Him so!  At any rate, sisters, I hope in God that none of you will, for we are accustomed here to talk about interior matters, and that is a good way of keeping oneself from falling into such animal-like habits."

Comments

[andii]

This is really helpful, thankyou. As I was reading I realised that some of this was similar to the idea of a prayer scrapbook as promoted in Praying the Pattern [see http://abbeynous.schtuff.com/book_synopsis]. The pictorial approach can be really useful for those of us who are a bit more visual and have an affinity for less wordy and tied-down approaches.

[Father Randall Allen]

Thank you for a well written and practical post on prayer journaling. In a post on "Keeping a Prayer Journal," I have linked to your article so that my congregation and others may learn more about the subject.

[Teresa Polk]

Thank you, Father Allen. I enjoyed your article too!