I- Definition: Distraction is the unwilling presence, during prayer, in our conscious mind/brain, of thoughts, feelings, memories, imaginations and temptations.
II- Causes of distraction
1- Human
weakness
2-
Memories (unwilled activity of the brain), body tiredness
3-
Temptations coming from outside of us
4-
Outside input coming through our senses (noise, …)
5-
Sins: since they make us slaves to bad habits, leading us astray from God
III- Remedies for distractions
1- Accept our weakness.
2- To know (and reinforce this knowledge)
that:
- prayer happens in our heart and not in our brain/mind
- distractions can be passive or active
- we will always have passive distractions
- “passive distractions” are not real acts, they are not sins
- the direct contact with God in prayer happens in our
heart and not in our mind
- “passive distractions” can’t stop the direct contact with
God in our heart
3- Discern what depends on us and what
doesn’t depend on us. To reach a detached attitude, ignoring the presence of
the distractions. (a barking wolf attached to a chain doesn’t harm)
4- During
prayer, if we suddenly realise that we went to “active distraction” and left
our heart and went back to our mind, we don’t
have be upset with ourselves, we need to remain peaceful (accepting our weakness). A Peaceful reaction
brings Peace (the Action of God). Then we
repeat, peacefully, the act of offering of ourselves in order to be
reintroduced in God again.
5- We take our Rosary in our hands, and repeat with each bead a short prayer that
has the Names of Jesus and/or the name of Mary (it can be as well the “Hail
Mary”), with the normal rhythm of our breathing. This repetition:
- has a routine form (we are not
invited to think about what we say or meditate a mystery, we are in front of
THE mystery: God in us, immersing us in Him)
- gives some “food” for our mind to
make it gently busy while the heart is with God. It fools the mind.
- expresses and increases our desire
to be “in God”. It is a real act to say: “pray for us sinners”.
- makes us last longer even if God
doesn’t look at the length of the time spent in Him but at the quality of our
trust when we resume the offering of ourselves to him.
- puts us willingly like a little child in the Hands of
Mary, i.e. under the Full, Pure and Perfection Action of the Holy Spirit. In
her the Holy Spirit forms us, Body of Jesus. Mary’s womb is a much protected
place.
- calms and regulates our breathing,
transforming it, slowly, into a act of Divine Love: spiration of the Holy
Spirit.
 |
| If, as an adult, we chose "to be like a child", it protects us from distractions. |
6- Learn how to recollect our thoughts and
senses to lessen their power over us:
Pre-prepare
- leading a healthy life (food,
sleeping time, relaxing time, …).
- leading a holy live.
- learn the virtues of silence,
order, discipline and ascesis.
- a very good practice of the Lectio
Divina. Disciplines our thoughts, purify them, put order to them, lessen the
influence of distractions over the heart….
Prepare
- dimming the light to lower the
visual input and increase the attention to the inner world.
- the body wisely relaxed: not in
pain, but not in an excessively relaxed mode (horizontal position). Taking deep
breaths.
- being like a child (surrendering
our burdens to Him frees our heart to move toward him).
Jesus
- knowing that God is in the Center
of our being, learning how to find Him in our heart (not having to “shout”
loudly to Him to make ourselves heard).
- to acquire the daily habit of
turning our eyes to the Lord who is at our side, seeing how much He loves us.
He never takes His eyes of us and adapts to us (sad or happy, Passion or
Resurrection).
- in order to do so we Icons to
collect our mind and put ourselves in His Presence, using this grace.
- using some reading that help us
collect our mind and put us in front of Jesus: a passage from the Gospel.
(You may have a look at St. Theresa of Avila, "Way of Perfection", chapter 26, 28 and 29)
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