Pray Like You Breathe

Why is it that many people stop praying after they commit a mortal sin? I know many Catholics who seem to live in two completely divergent states, as disparate as night and day. When they are in a state of grace, they make effort, they pray, they do penance, they act piously. Then they fall into some grave sin, at which point they just give up everything—they stop making effort, stop praying, neglect all their penances, and sink into acedia. Then they just...slump along like this for a while until they feel so bad, so depressed, so down in the dumps that they finally rouse themselves, go to confession, and start living a regular Catholic life again. 

This is incredibly stupid and very pathetic behavior. It's as if such persons find value in the spiritual life only insofar as they can feel happy about their progress. If they stumble, they become unhappy, and if they become unhappy, they cross their arms like a petulant child and say "Why bother?" and just check out. 

This is unfortunate. Prayer shoud not be something that can be so easily diminished because we screwed up. There are some things in life we just do regardless. We breathe no matter what our circumstances. We eat regardless of whether we are happy with our lives or not. We get up in the morning, take a piss, put our clothes on, and go about our business. Prayer should be as routine as this. "Pray without ceasing" means we cry out to God continually, regardless of whether we are on the straight and narrow or have fallen off course.

If your instinct when you sin is to start scrupulizing about whether prayers said when you are not in grace are pleasing to God, whether they are efficacious, and so on, your mind is in the wrong place entirely. I can't pretend to know exactly how God evaluates everyone's prayers, but I guarantee you are better praying than not praying—and that is true in every circumstance. Stop thinking about the context or circumstance or quality or purity of your prayers and JUST PRAY. Not too long ago I wrote about consistency in prayer:

Imagine if you stopped thinking about how you felt during prayer...just stopped thinking about all that nonsense and just prayed. What if you clung to prayer like a man adrift on the sea clinging to a piece of driftwood, not caring how rugged the wood is, or how ugly, or how sore your arms from hanging on, or whither you were going, or any other consideration, for so long as you cling to it, you live, and living is the goal. Treat praying itself as the goal. When you pray, you have arrived at your destination already. ("Prayer—Consistency Matters More Than Method," USC, July 26, 2026)

You're not going to spiral down into some pathetic self-pitying lament about how awful and useless and weak you are. Too often such lamentations ae functionally paralyzing; they are dead-end thoughts that stop you from acting to rectify your state. Of course you're weak and broken; all sons of Adam are such. "Wahhhh I sinned; my spiritual life sucks; I'm no good, blah blah." My brother in Christ, your cringe attitude is likely twice as bad and certainly more obnoxious than whatever sin you may have committed. Just clear your mind, get your focus off yourself and your own feelings, and stop being a little bitch. Make the resolution, "I am still going to do all my prayers and spiritual practices as usual." Be unflappable. If you don't have any prayers or spiritual practices, why? Stop being a lazy slob. Even if you can't commit to, say, daily Mass or the Rosary, start with ejaculatory prayers said at various times, the Jesus Prayer, pious recitation of the Beatitudes—or, my favorite, repitition of the Our Father sprinkled throughout the day. It doesn't matter whether you feel good or bad, whether you need confession or not.

Stop thinking about whether your soul has blipped to the left or right of the line and just think about clinging to God. And if you accustom yourself to such clinging, you will find yourself less and less on the wrong side of the line.

+AMDG+