A couple tips on how to improve your focus during prayer

Friends, I was on Morning Air this past Thursday to discuss the topic of how to improve your focus for a better prayer life. Of course, these tips help with focus for any task, and it seems to be our culture has a crisis of focus. You can hear that interview here, starting at 17:27.

The two tips I discuss are removing your phone from your bedroom at night so it’s not the first and the last think you check every day. Not only does that further erode your focus (constantly checking notifications), it distracts from the literal time you could use praying.

The other tip I share is to actually practice focusing. To practice your focus, choose something beautiful and look at it thoroughly for a time. That could be a stained glass window, a patch of sunlight on grass, the flowers in your back yard, a holy icon. The purpose is not to turn that time itself into a prayer, but to just…focus. Let the distracting thoughts come and go. Just look.

This conversation took place on the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits (Society of Jesus). I have written and spoken various places about what I owe St. Ignatius in terms of my own prayer life, and the contemplative form of prayer he created. I highly recommend taking an Igantian retreat if ever you are able.

By the way, apparently we had a caller who called in and said that this topic was very helpful to him, and timely, and that he was going to make a decision to work on his focus. But, he didn’t want to go on air to say that. Listeners and readers: please join me on the air! I would love to hear from you.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us!

How do we improve our focus?

This Thursday at 8:20 am eastern I will be on Morning Air to talk about focus. Specifically, how we can improve our focus so that our prayer is more fruitful.

I’ll talk about just two things I recommend: one is removing your phone from your bedroom at night so you’re not looking at it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. This serves two purposes: one, when we’re constantly looking at our phone it destroys our ability to focus. Attention spans are very short right now, due to all our instant, constant distractions. The other purpose is that it then clears the way for you to use that early morning and before bed time to pray, instead.

Second: practice focusing by paying attention to something beautiful. Sit and look at a stained glass window in church, a patch of sun on the trees in your backyard, a wonderful painting, and do nothing else. I believe if we practice focusing - like developing a “focus muscle” - it will become more second nature.

Find out where you can listen here.

Are there spiritual benefits of boredom?

On Thursday I spoke on Morning Air about the spiritual possibilities of boredom. It’s good stuff! Listen here, starting at about 18:20. Notes:

Boredom happens! It’s natural, any time of year or life, and our natural tendency is to avoid it. It’s time to deprogram from seeking constant distractions and consumption and instead embrace that opportunity for silence and creativity.

We also talked about the habitual - addictive - way we reach for our phones and don’t even allow boredom to happen. Instead, we do mindless things. My favorite part of this interview was talking about remembering what we used to do in the evenings. before phones and social media - play a game, read a newspaper, play outside, call your Grandma.

We also discussed the role of imaginative contemplative prayer, how the use of your own imagination in the perfect antidote to boredom and the tendency to mindlessly scroll and consume.

Bottom line: don’t be afraid of boredom, it can’t hurt you, and God has given us the gift ourselves - so be with yourself!