Hello, Recently I received the following questions:

Another person wrote: “How do I properly attend Holy Mass? How can I prepare myself for the Holy Sacrifice beforehand, and then give proper thanks afterwards?”

These are very good questions about a very common problem - distractions in our prayers and during our other spiritual exercises. The greatest Saints struggled with this problem and there are many points to consider. I will be answering this over several weeks because it is so common and important to understand. Please pray that my answer will be helpful to you in your spiritual life.

I am going to mention different points but I may not have the space to get into any one area in a lot of depth. But if any of my friends or visitors would like me to explain anything in greater detail, please write to me and I will try.

These questions show that these members of the Catholic Kingdom are taking their spiritual life seriously. This is wonderful and very pleasing to God. It shows that they recognize that if we are not thinking about spiritual things when we pray (and the Holy Mass is the most perfect prayer) we are probably not praying very well.

Why do we get distracted? Part of it is our own weak and limited minds. Some few people seem to be born with a lot of control over themselves, but the rest of us have to learn to discipline ourselves. This takes a lot of effort, practice and especially help from our friends in Heaven. So, we must never get discouraged when we fall short of our desires to please God and grow closer to Him - as long as we are sincerely trying to do our best.

Another factor in distractions are demons. When Lucifer led the disobedient angels in a revolution against God, St. Michael led the obedient angels to victory over them. Then Lucifer and the rest of the poor, wretched rebels were cast into hell and became horribly ugly demons. Satan and the rest of his demons are very, very real. The only thing they hate more than human beings is God Himself and they never stop working to bring about our spiritual destruction so that they can drag us into hell when we die. One trick they use is to get us to think of other things when we try to lift up our mind and heart to God.

Why does God permit this?

There are many good reasons for why He does. One of these is that by fighting against their temptations, we grow in our spiritual strength. We also learn very quickly that, whenever we are tempted by anything, we have to immediately run to get Heaven’s help (either Jesus, or His most powerful and loving Mother, Mary, or our Guardian Angel or Patron Saint, etc.). Without the help of Heaven, we will never be able to overcome temptations or do anything virtuous.

So the first step in overcoming distractions (or any other temptation to do something bad) is to pray for help.

Before you start to pray, or say the Holy Rosary, or attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, or receive the Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in Holy Communion you should pray. You want to ask for all the graces that you need so that your prayers (or attendance at Mass, or reception of Holy Communion, etc.) will be the most pleasing to God and bring the most benefit to your soul. These prayers can be long or short. They can come from a book or you can simply use your own words.

The most important part of praying is the sincerity, or fervor, or love, with which we pray. The closer we get to God, the more fervent we will become.

In the beginning, we have very little true love to give God, Our Lady and our other friends in Heaven. But Jesus understands this very well and He only asks us to give Him as much as we can at the time. He will wait patiently, helping us to grow in our knowledge and love of Him and His friends in Heaven.

One day, we want our hearts to be filled with a blazing bonfire of Divine Love, but for now we give Our sweet Lord all the little flame of love that we have, while begging Him to greatly increase and purify our love for Him.

Our sinful weaknesses and our deadly enemies from hell will make it hard at times to keep going. But God is infinitely more powerful and He has shared that power with His most wonderful Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, as well as all the Holy Angels and Saints. They can easily help us conquer every difficulty in our quest to become Catholic Saints, if we let them.

Remember that God wants our whole mind, our whole heart, our whole body and our whole soul given to Him with all of our strength. Jesus said that we must be perfect, even as our Heavenly Father is perfect.

It was not a suggestion. It was a command. Throughout the history of mankind, very, very few people have obeyed this command.

Will you be one? That is my most fervent prayer for you.

We will talk more about dealing with distractions and being better prepared for our prayers and spiritual exercises the next time.

Until we speak again …

May Our Lord and Our Lady fill you, and all those you love, with every true peace, blessing and grace … now and forever.

Yours in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary,