Prayer Revisited Cathedral Style

Seraphina and I went up to Pittsburgh and visited the Cathedral of St. Paul there.  I wanted to share a bit of the young priest's homily that he gave. 

He reminded us that in order to have a good relationship with God, we need to talk to him and listen to him.  In order to do this, we must have a better prayer relationship with him.  He suggested that we at least try to make 1 minute prayers during our days.  Specifically, he suggested a one minute prayer called the "PAL" prayer - where you praise God and give him thanks, then you ask him for his intercessions, then you listen to God in silent meditation to finish up the prayer.  I thought this was pretty neat, and at the end of the homily, he said that he was going to make sure that we gave God our one minute - so he held a minute of silence to allow us to pray.  It was wonderful, and a good reminder to try and keep on track of your prayer life.  

I'll pass on one more prayer suggestion he (and many of the Saints) have given before and one that is very hard for me to keep -  the first thing we should do when we wake up in the morning is briefly offer up our entire day to the Lord - Lord Jesus I give you this day and all the sufferings and joys that come along with it.  Once we do that, we are bound to focus just a little better on everything we do and keep the most important thing at center stage - God.