Don't Bury Your Prayer Journal

Do you keep a prayer journal? Monica McConkey explains how to follow the example of some favorite saints to enrich your prayer life.

A Prayer Journal as a Legacy of Faith

We’ve learned a great deal about a number of saints through their spiritual diaries or prayer journals, even those who wrote them reluctantly in obedience to their superior, with no intention of letting their writing be shared or published after their death.

Saint Thérèse wrote her autobiography in obedience to Mother Agnes of Jesus (her superior who also happened to be her sister). 

Saint Gemma wrote her spiritual diary in obedience to her spiritual director. 

Saints John Paul II and Teresa of Calcutta had wanted their private spiritual writings destroyed, but they were safeguarded and eventually published as invaluable insight into their spiritual lives.

While we gain so much wisdom from the personal writings of these saints, these spiritual diaries and journals seem to be most often recorded experiences of prayer (in retrospect).

While most of us regular spiritual pilgrims don’t experience locutions or apparitions, a prayer journal can be a helpful tool to collect our thoughts and express our hearts to Jesus through writing.

I can ask the Lord questions and, guided by the Holy Spirit, I can write “in my own words what I think He wants me to say” (as articulated by Fr. Gaston Courtois).

You Don’t Have to Be a Saint to have a Meaningful, Insightful Prayer Journal

For many of us, writing helps us to focus and articulate our innermost thoughts, our heartfelt desires, and our most personal prayers. The Prayer Journal can become a tangible record of our intimate conversation with Jesus, and a useful tool to remember past struggles, answers to prayer, and spiritual insights for future reference.

How easy is it to forget the moments of grace we’ve received in the past when the present flurry of activity and concerns are pressing in. I believe I have prayer-journaled some real moments of grace, soft and reassuring, concise and emboldening messages gently placed in my heart. They’re all carefully transcribed in various prayer journals. Each prayer journal was diligently filled over time ... and now sits buried in a box.

I believe that those messages and prayers are real. They’re real Prayer Transcripts: little snippets and quotes placed in my heart, nurturing my relationship with Jesus. They are words I have received in a quiet moment of prayer or spiritual reading, hopefully heavily infused with the Holy Spirit. They are also words I have spoken in heartfelt prayer, hopefully also infused with the Holy Spirit. They are the Living Word of Scripture that speaks to us poignantly and excerpts from spiritual reading (including wisdom imparted from the saints and theologians).

They can pierce us in the heart and move us in our own circumstances.

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You don't have to be a saint to have a meaningful, insightful prayer journal. #catholicmom

Don’t Bury Your Old Prayer Journal!

We need to revisit those old scrawled-in prayer journals. By reviewing those messages, we can relive those moments of closeness and consolation and draw from them when our current prayer gets a little distracted or dry. We need to sift through old prayer journals, giving special attention to the words that are highlighted or circled, because they can continue to speak to our hearts in the present moment!

We are reminded of the living relationship we have with Jesus, revisiting the tiniest insights we’ve been blessed to receive or those moments when His continuous Message finally got through.

Written in part in response to Allison Gingras’ book Encountering Signs of Faith.

Copyright 2023 Monica McConkey
Images: copyright 2023 Monica McConkey, all rights reserved.