but with these words, from today's "Office of Readings" in the Liturgy of the Hours, he reminds us that to "pray without ceasing" doesn't mean that we are always in a posture of prayer or repeatedly reciting an Our Father.
Augustine says:
"If your desire is laid before him then the Father, who sees in secret, will grant it to you. For that very desire of your heart is your prayer; and if your desire continues uninterrupted, then so does your prayer. It was not in vain that the Apostle said, 'Pray without ceasing.' Can we be always bending the knee, prostrating the body, or lifting up our hands, that he says 'Pray without ceasing?' If that is what prayer means then I say that we cannot do it without ceasing.
There is another inward kind of prayer without ceasing, which is the desire of the heart. Whatever activity you happen to be engaged in doing, if you only long for that Sabbath then you do not cease to pray. If you do not want to pause in prayer then never pause in your longing."
It is the constant desire of the heart that becomes our prayer. If we are striving to love at every moment, to be the presence of love to our children, then that's the way in which we, busy moms though we may be, can pray without ceasing. Not that we shouldn't strive for formal prayer time, too, as much as motherhood allows it. I wrote about that in an old essay entitled, "A Mother's Prayer Time." But, formal prayer time isn't always possible and I never follow my own advice about it when I have children under the age of three ... I believe God understands alternatives to formal prayer when one is giving up one's body and regular sleep out of love for another. Those are the times when reminders such as Augustine's are balm for the worrying soul. Are you striving to love God at every moment through the means He's provided -- your children -- to sanctify you? Then you are praying.
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