Confession is a Sacrament of the Church. All of the Sacraments are an experience of God's love in a very real, profound, and personal way.
The source and goal of all the Sacraments are experiencing the Father's Love through Jesus in the Holy Spirit. In the Sacraments, The Holy Spirit makes present the Mystery of Christ. In a profoundly personal and tangible way, we experience God, for real, The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.
As a priest, I get asked a lot of the same questions pretty often.
One I've found that comes up frequently is "Father, how do you grow your prayer life?"
There are many ways to grow your prayer life. The mission of the Prodigal Father is to help people discover different ways of encountering the Love of God, The Father, in prayer.
What I have discovered over the years is by simply asking other people for advice I have been able to incorporate different aspects into my own prayer life. I thought it would be good to ask some media savvy priests for their advice and share it with you!
During one of the annual retreats early on in my seminary formation we were encouraged to make a resolution at the end of our five days of prayer and meditation.
The bishop who lead us on retreat said something like: "You have a limited amount of time in your life and in your so only read the best books!" I took this to heart and made the resolution to spend 15 minutes a day reading "the best" spiritual books.
St. Ignatius said that above all prayer, the most important prayer that we could pray every day is the Examen Prayer!
He said that if we were to ever drop any prayer time from our day, because of busyness or tiredness, this should be the last one to be dropped.
The following is a wonderful exercise that you can use every day. It was given to me by a very wonderful Jesuit priest named Fr. Bob Welsh (listen to his Praying with Priests interview here). He led me on my first ever eight-day silent retreat, and it changed my life and the way I pray! These tips are practical ways of entering into prayer.
Lectio Divina is one of the earliest forms of prayer. It was practiced by the monks as they prepared for Liturgy and as an extension of the Eucharist in The Liturgy of the Hours. Lectio Divina gives you a good experience of all three levels of prayer: Vocal, Meditative, and Contemplative. It is also encouraged by the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a way to meditate! (CCC 2708)