Narthex

Side notes about: “When Your Prayer is Lacking” — Catechism in a Year, hosted by Fr. Mike Schmitz, featuring Sr. Miriam James Heidland.

Prayer is often discussed as either a skill to master or a feeling to chase, yet the video under review proposes something sturdier: prayer as the place where truth forms the heart, a theology of the heart. The content invites viewers to move beyond the familiar split between “learning about God” and “living with God,” showing how doctrine and devotion belong together. It frames prayer not as a niche practice for the professionally religious, but as the daily vocation of the baptised, ordinary, repeatable, and quietly transformative. Central to its vision is the recovery of solitude. In an age saturated with noise and perpetual connection, the argument is simple and bracing: interior silence is the soil where communion with God takes root.

The presentation further identifies three common roadblocks —feeling unqualified, feeling ashamed, and “having no time” —and offers clear, workable remedies that consecrate small portions of each day to God without romanticism or excess. What emerges is a practical theology of prayer: bringing subjective experience —its hopes, fears, and constraints —into contact with the objective reality of God given in Christ and mediated by the Church’s rhythms. The result is an introduction compelling in its clarity and humane in its expectations, well-suited to readers seeking a path that is both theologically grounded and concretely livable.

Framing the context

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), prayer is grouped in two complementary ways:

1) The five basic forms of prayer (what we do) — CCC 2626–2643

1. Blessing and Adoration
2. Petition (asking pardon and for our needs)
3. Intercession (praying for others)
4. Thanksgiving
5. Praise

2) The three expressions of prayer (how we do it) — CCC 2700–2724

1. Vocal prayer
2. Meditation
3. Contemplative prayer

To sum up, prayer practice consists of five forms (blessing/adoration, petition, intercession, thanksgiving, praise) and three expressions (vocal, meditation, contemplative).

Religious scholarship often posits a false dichotomy between acquiring knowledge about God and living in a relationship with God. In many approaches to Christian formation, theological study is treated as distinct from the practice of faith, as though the systematic acquisition of doctrine and the cultivation of the spiritual life were separable and unrelated pursuits.

The inner dimension

Fr. Schmitz underscores a pivotal distinction in prayer: the necessity of solitude. Prayer requires withdrawing into quiet; God is encountered in silence set apart. Such solitude becomes a space of grace, sought, approached, and received in deeper union with the Lord. In a culture marked by noise and constant connectivity, the capacity for sustained quiet has diminished. Yet this interior solitude is the condition for the most profound communion with God and the cultivation of a pure, deep relationship with him.

What Are You Looking For? The Obstacles to Prayer

According to Sr. Miriam, three principal obstacles hinder prayer:

A sense of disqualification

Prayer is often relegated, in common discourse, to the realm of the “religious”, priests and members of consecrated life, rather than the baptised faithful at large. This is a serious misunderstanding. As Sr. Miriam notes, “we are called to holiness through baptism,” and prayer is the ordinary, daily means by which that calling is embraced. Far from being a specialist’s task, prayer is integral to Christian identity and growth; it shapes the person God intends one to become.

Shame before God

Another barrier is the fear of being seen by God in one’s poverty, sin, or confusion. Shame can suggest that only a perfected self may approach the Lord. In truth, Christian prayer presupposes need: it is precisely the wounded, the uncertain, and the imperfect who are invited to come. Honest vulnerability is not an impediment to prayer but its proper starting point.

Perceived lack of time

A final obstacle is the conviction that there is simply “no time” to pray. This often rests on hidden assumptions that prayer must be long to be real, that it requires ideal conditions, or that it competes with “productive” tasks. In fact, prayer flourishes through regularity more than duration. Brief, intentional periods, upon waking, before meals, during a commute, or in an evening examen, can sustain a living relationship with God. Setting modest, consistent commitments (e.g., five to ten minutes daily), attaching prayer to existing routines, and creating small zones of silence (phone off, notifications paused) make space without overhauling a schedule. When possible, anchoring the day with the Church’s rhythms, the Liturgy of the Hours, lectio divina on the daily readings, or Eucharistic adoration, further integrates prayer into ordinary life. The issue is less the scarcity of minutes than the deliberate consecration of them; ordered intention turns scattered time into sacred time.

A shift that changes it all

When obstacles to prayer show up (feeling unqualified, feeling ashamed, or feeling too busy), the way forward is to let real, everyday experience meet the steady truth of who God is and what God gives.

Remember who you are
Baptism already names a person as called to holiness. A simple daily rhythm makes that real: a short morning prayer, a few quiet minutes at some point in the day, and a brief review at night. Prayer is not for specialists; it is part of Christian life itself.

Let yourself be seen 
Prayer does not wait for perfection. It starts with honesty, using the Psalms when words are hard, asking plainly for help, and turning to the sacraments, especially confession, where mercy is not a feeling but a gift received. God’s gaze steadies the heart more than self-scrutiny ever can.

Make small, firm spaces for God
Time appears when a day is anchored. Protect five to ten quiet minutes — on waking, before meals, or before sleep — and guard them from noise and notifications. A chair, a corner, a commute can become a “little cell.” Fidelity matters more than length.

Let head and heart work together
Study can become prayer, and prayer can be guided by good teaching. Slowly read the day’s Gospel, linger over one truth, and end with a moment of adoration or gratitude. Knowledge of God is meant to lead to trust in God.

Lean on the Church’s steady rhythm
Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours, and Eucharistic adoration give shape when energy is low and keep balance when zeal runs high. These practices are “objective” in the best sense: reliable and life-giving.

Don’t walk alone

A spiritual director or steady confessor helps sort feelings and choices in the light of the Gospel. A shared commitment — like a weekly holy hour — turns desire into a habit that lasts.

In short, prayer grows when ordinary life is gently re-ordered by baptismal identity, honest mercy, simple structure, the Church’s rhythm, and faithful companionship. That is what it looks like to let “subjective experience meet the objective reality of God” — and it is how a real, durable life of prayer takes root.

References

Catholic Church (2000) Catechism of the Catholic Church: revised in accordance with the official Latin text promulgated by Pope John Paul II. Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, forms of prayer:

• Blessing and Adoration — CCC 2626–2628.
• Petition — CCC 2629–2633.
• Intercession — CCC 2634–2636.
• Thanksgiving — CCC 2637–2638.
• Praise — CCC 2639–2643.

Expressions of prayer:

• Vocal prayer — CCC 2700–2704.
• Meditation — CCC 2705–2708.
• Contemplative prayer — CCC 2709–2724.

Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCatechismInAYear

On the Hallow AppCatechism in a Year [https://hallow.app.link/aXwgXq4isVb]