Praying the Rosary Even When You Feel Nothing

I will be honest, there was a time when I stopped praying the rosary. Not because I never wanted to pray it or anything, but mainly because it was no longer in my schedule.

What I mean is when I was still in the seminary, there's a schedule dedicated to prayer and one of those said schedules is the schedule to pray the rosary. Usually, we pray it as the last prayer of the day.

Then, after this, we go to sleep.

Now, when I decided to go out of the seminary, I got hooked up with work and was no longer finding time to pray it, sadly. Although, I still always bring my rosary with me and place it inside my pocket.

It's worth noting, though that it's not always that I don't pray it; but, most of the time, I don't. Again, sadly.

Then, came the pandemic and ever since then I have been praying the rosary everyday and if I ever find the chance when I'm not doing anything, like waiting for something and is just being idle, I'd grab my rosary and pray.

One of the things that I learned is to always pray and commune with God even if you don't feel like praying or that I feel nothing when praying.

When I rejuvenated my prayer and spiritual life based on the Catholic faith, I was on fire. I hungered so much for new knowledge especially about the Catholic Faith. I learned new ways on how to pray and make my prayer more effective; and it was exactly what it did, and I was so happy and thankful. It FELT good, I FEEL good. That was the beginning of it.

There came a point in time when I am always distracted while praying or feeling so distant from prayer. I said to the Lord, I'm tired and prayer seems to be something that I don't want to do at this very moment, but, I'm doing it for you. But, it was starting to become dry, I was almost not feeling anything.

Then, it became a lot more frequent. The feeling that I was feeling before, was almost completely good. I wasn't feeling good about it. But, I continued. Not because I am strong that I am able to persevere and continue. No, I'm far from being strong by myself, especially when it comes to spirituality.

But, it was by the grace of God that I was able to persevere.

Bit by bit, I learned, and this is something that I should've realized, that prayer isn't about feeling good and base off ones prayer life from that feeling. Prayer, primarily, is a communion and a communication between you and God.

Just last night, I learned about Saint John of the Cross' "The Dark Night of the Soul". I can't put this into a simple sentence as I also need to read this really well and understand it really well, by God's grace. But, the message here is that The Dark Night of the Soul is when one feels distant from God, prayer feels dry and having no sense of consolation.

However, this is not that God truly is distant, nor there is spiritual dryness or that there is no consolation. Rather, this is the moment that God is purifying the soul, getting rid of the feelings and the senses that is attribute to prayer. It is the moment when God is uniting one to Himself in the most raw kind of love and connection.

The first part of the Dark Night is the Dark Night of the Senses - which, again, I will still need to read and hopefully, by God's grace, I can articulate what I truly mean when I experience spiritual dryness and dryness in prayer.

So, in relation to praying the rosary even when you feel nothing is the best time for one to pray. Remember, prayer is based on feelings and what you are currently feeling; if you're up for prayer or not based on feelings is one needs to avoid.

While I have talked about the Dark Night of the Senses and the Dark Night of the Soul, we also need to be aware that the devil may use the lie that we're experiencing a dark night and that God is working within; when possibly, in fact, it is a pure trickery from the devil to take you away from praying at the hour and moment when you're supposed to pray.

The stronger the urge to not pray is the best time to pray and foil the devil's plan.

The best time to speak with God through prayer is ever time. This is the reason why Saint Paul said 'pray without ceasing'. Without a doubt, when you pray even when you feel nothing is most pleasing to God. His child praying and not basing his desire to pray to Him on his feelings is like a human child who just wants to hug his father without any reasons to hug his father, and just wants to hug him.

This must be how God the Father will feel. His beloved child finding time to talk to Him, and out of nowhere just because he wants to talk to Him and just because he wants to hug Him.