I periodically do this here, asking my reader the same question my spiritual director favors every meeting: how is your prayer life? Are you being faithful to the daily time you committed to, whether that’s 10 or 30 or 60 minutes?
My director said once, the three most important qualities of a strong prayer life are fidelity, fidelity and fidelity. Yes, technique, good content, methods of focus, forms of prayer – these are important. But if you don’t do something consistently, daily, there is nothing to struggle with, wonder about, grow into.
How your prayer is faring each day is the most important point of self-examination for a Christian. Daily prayer is the foundation of all else: a wellspring of grace, guardian of peace, shrine of good judgment, remedy of sin, shield against temptation, ballast and rudder in every storm, centering ground and source of joy.
It is important to always be aware that when we begin to pray daily with consistency, a conspiracy of distraction will arise, thousands of GOOD reasons to do other things. Things to do, to read; restless mind; dry and boring prayer; not enough time. The list is endless. As Fr. Hopko oft said of how hard the habit of prayer is to maintain, “when you begin to open to heaven, all hell breaks loose” – and for the good-willed trying to do good, the devil especially tempts us away from prayer with good things or with discouragement.
Those of us who serve in the Church in ministry, ‘professional religious people,’ are extremely susceptible to ‘my work is my prayer.’ No, it isn’t. Work is work and prayer is prayer, and thought they are meant to exist in tandem, one cannot supplant the other.
I asked a seminarian In Omaha once how he discovered his sense of calling to priesthood. He had been working a successful job for a number of years, lived a nominally Catholic life and indulged in behaviors he vaguely felt were probably not compatible with his faith. “But,” he said,
it wasn’t till I had this woman I dated, who was pretty serious as a Catholic, that I started to pray every day at her encouragement. She introduced me to lectio divina [praying with the Scriptures], and I started doing it. Had never heard of it before. I really did it for her at first. But pretty soon, it opened up all kinds of crazy stuff inside me. And at a certain point, maybe after a few weeks, I started to realize I couldn’t both pray and keep up binge drinking [and other things]. I knew I had a choice to make, and I didn’t like it. I knew that to keep praying would cost me everything. Thank God I persevered by God’s grace and my girlfriend’s encouragement.
We eventually broke up, and over time, maybe after a year or so, I began to feel Jesus calling me to join Matthew the tax collector and abandon my lucrative post to follow him. And here I am.
He and I spent the next hour speaking about how he now struggles with prayer because, in the absence of the old habits he had given up, habits that gave him pleasure, he was starving for that pleasure. Prayer, he said, had become so hard as it is not simply calling him to a higher life, but, as he said it, to a deeper life — to the places of his past sins’ roots he had never had to deal with before. “Giving up the behaviors back in the day was the easy part. This dealing with the roots is the real work. Yuck! But you know,” he added, “at this point, I ain’t givin up.”
Six years later, he is going strong.
If today you see your commitment to prayer has waned, or is under assault, recommit, beg God for assistance, phone a friend, and strive to wear the crown of every other virtue: persevere.
Neal Obstat Theological Opining 
First thing with my coffee every morning now for over 13 years now . Thank-ful for it . The Examen first and scripture to follow .
I begin each day with prayer, about an hour. It anchors my day. My prayer is largely a Mass preparation time since after prayer I usually go to morning mass.