As Catholic moms it can be difficult to add consistent devotional time to our day.  I promise you that if you can schedule time daily and make it nonnegotiable, it will be life changing. 

How I added devotional time to my day in 2020:

At the start of 2020 I made myself and God a promise; I would devote more time everyday to God.  I pray daily, but last year I was inconsistent and unreliable and I knew I needed to be better. God deserves better from me. Having no experience, I needed something guidance, I had these two daily devotional books, both had been started, but I had never gotten too far before forgetting about them and eventually stopped using them. This year I was determined to finish both books, and I did!!!!

The books I used were: The Catholic Mom’s Prayer Companion, and 365 Devotions to Love God and to Love Others Well. Both of these books are easy to read and a great place to start leaning deeper into prayer and faith. My Bible is a free military issue of the Catholic ABS (American Bible Society) and I love it. The other book is a gift from my husband, it is a work in progress as it is not as easy to breeze through.  It is A Year With Mary, Daily Mediations on The Mother of God, I did not finish this one last year, but it is a lifelong treasure and I do not feel like I need to rush through it. I am very devoted to the Blessed Mother.

My devotional time is non-negotiable.

I developed a great routine last year that really worked for me.   Most mornings after my kids leave for school at 7:15 the dog and I go walking . When I return, I make my second cup of Barry’s tea and snuggle up on my bed with the dog. I read the dated page in each of the books and refer to my Bible for the readings and the quotes. The Catholic books will reference specific feast days; I find this to be very beneficial.

Everything I need is on my bedside table ready to go. My devotional books, my planners and some notebooks are ready to write down anything that gets my mind thinking or that I want to remember. I have a pencil case with my colored pens and highlighters as I am an avid highlighter!

So this year I have decided to do the same again. 

This time I ordered three different books from Amazon. Two which are specifically Catholic: Daily Lessons from The Saints, 52 Weeks of Inspiration and Encouragement and 365 Devotional for Catholic Women. I also ordered one which is non denominational Christian: God Hears Her, 365 Devotions for Women by Women.  I am aiming to read and study everyday. Some days this does not happen, if I have an early appointment or meeting then I do it later or I just double up the next day….no pressure. On Sundays we leave for church early so on Mondays I always double up my reading.

Everyday I have the intention of prayer time.

But the truth is sometimes I am stuck into life and those moments of prayer don’t always happen. The day goes by without a decent prayerful effort from me. Sometimes even though I am present for prayer I am distracted and not giving all my attention to the Our Lord. This happens more than I like to admit.

Spending this time with God every morning has been life changing for me. I show up every morning for the Lord and in doing so I show up for myself. When I center my morning around prayer and I focus on what is important then I get my day started on the right track. Then, even if life gets in the way and my day gets away from me, which often it does, then I know that the start was good and my priorities were met. 

Last spring, when everything came to a screeching halt, I had to adapt my quiet time with the Lord.  Finding the quiet uninterrupted time when I have a full house was not easy but I continued to make it a priority and I managed to keep up every day.  Most days I ended up going outside to be alone as all common rooms in my home were being used as classrooms! Thank God for a beautiful spring!

God deserves the best that we can offer Him. He deserves our love, our worship, our gratitude and our praise. 

Offering up this 15-30 minutes in the morning is just one way that as Catholic moms we can increase our time with God. If you feel called to start having devotional time everyday but you don’t know where to start I hope I offered you some ideas. Please give it a try, you will not regret it. Have a blessed day.

Thank you for your time.

Criona ♥