Please remember to keep your regular time for prayer with the Lord. And I mean a specific quite time IN ADDITION to prayer while driving, washing dishes and in the shower (the all day prayers). St. John of the Cross says, "...shutting the door upon thee (that is to say, closing your will toward all things save God), pray to thy Father in secret" (Spiritual Canticle 1,9). This does not mean to shut only the actual door of our room, but that it is necessary to close our will to everything, as he continues: "to shut all thy faculties upon all creatures." This requires a firm decision of the will to put aside everything - all cares, all thoughts of human things, and concentrate on God alone.
St. Theresa of Avila (my favorite saint) gives this advice, "Since we have resolved to devote to Him this very brief period of time...let us give it to Him freely with our minds unoccupied by other things and with a firm resolve never to take it back again, whatever we may suffer through trials, annoyances, or aridities" (Way of Perfection, 23)
While there is a time to pray for our worldly concerns and to mention them to God, it is not the only way, nor the best way, to pray. It is so hard to keep our prayer time free from the thoughts and cares of life and to just love God for the sake of God alone, but if we don't, we cannot enter that most intimate and interior "hiding place" where God resides. A spiritual director of mine would say, "We want to get heaven for a nickle." If we want more of God, we must give more of ourselves. It's going to cost. I don't know about you, but I want it all.
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