Welcome to our daily rosary meditation.

Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Through the month of October, we're going to really open up and explain for you the fourth

part of the catechism on prayer, which gives some really practical advice on prayer.

Distraction is a universal problem in prayer.

I have a good friend, Katie, who is deaf,

and she does amazing things teaching the Catholic faith to the deaf community.

But one day I said to her that maybe being deaf has one blessing in that there were less distractions for prayer.

She said, oh no, there is so much noise in my head that it's very distracting. We all have it, this terrible time with distraction, while we're doing our best to focus on God.

In her autobiography, often referred to as the book of her life, St. Teresa of Avila, the great

master of prayer, recounts her own challenges with distractions

when she writes, it is as though the mind were a madman. No one can tie it down. It goes hither and thither,

for even if we try to recollect it, our efforts are in vain,

unless the Lord puts his hand to it. And my mind is so wild that it distresses me to see that it does not remain where I wish it to.

So, if you have distractions in prayer, you're not alone.

Even the great saints suffered from distractions.

So what can we do about it?

Our Father who art in heaven, hallow it be your name, thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth

as it is in heaven.

Give us to stay our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who

trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil amen.

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