Graduation Speech: How Prayer, Discipline, and Daily Routine Lead to Success

Life is a great battlefield. We struggle and strive to save our souls by loving God and doing our duties to Him. In our quest to love God and do His will, we are compelled to fight against the world, the flesh and the devil. These are always trying to drag us down and prevent us from following God. The principle weapon used by of these tempters is distraction. Their goal is to distract us from God by keeping us preoccupied with other things. They convince us that consider creatures as more delightful. More worthy of our time. And we soon forget about God. We channel our energy into worldly affairs, and enjoyments, and goals that please only us. This will only lead to our ruin and eternal damnation.

We must strive to always and every day keep minds and hearts to God. A daily routine of prayer is the key to fighting the world, the flesh, and the devil. By adopting a well constructed, and well balanced routine, we can make sure that no matter what happens in our life; No matter what distractions and assaults of evil that we must deal with each and every day, we will always maintain a constant daily contact with God that will continually bring our minds back to Him and prevent us from forgetting him as our one and only end in life. Additionally, a daily routine, provided it is well constructed, creates order and instills discipline into our life which toughens us and helps us to resist temptation as we will be in the habit of denying ourself and doing hard things. The Catholic monasteries and convents were a very fine example of a routined and disciplined life. Work, Prayer, Leisure, and Study time were all carefully managed and partitioned into each day. While we as laymen who live in a fast world couldn’t hope to have the luxury of as strict and orderly a life as a religious, we can at least apply it in some degree to our state of life.

So we have briefly covered the benefits of a routine. Now we will talk about how a good routine is constructed.

Man is comprised of 3 aspects which complement each other and work together. These aspects are Spiritual, Mental, and Physical. St. Benedict wrote that a “Balance of exercise, study, and prayer integrates virtue into ordinary life.” It follows, therefore, that a good routine should exercise each of these 3 aspects so as to maintain that balance in our life.

St. Francis Xavier said, “Everyone of us needs half an hour of prayer at a set time each day, except when we are busy – then we need an hour.” Now you may ask, “What does this mean? Adding more prayer time when you are busier than usual?” St. Teresa of Avila explains it with this story. There was once a certain bishop renowned for his holiness who was also quite an unusually busy man. When he was questioned as to how he could get so much done in a day he answered that when he awoke in the morning and knew that he had a very busy day ahead of him, he would pray an extra half hour and somehow, he always managed to complete the day’s work very easily. He added that on busy days that he omitted this practice, he for some reason, never managed to get all of his daily tasks completed. In other words, what these saints are trying to convey is that, when you are busy, the solution is to turn to God and pray. Not necessarily to work more.

This brings us into the first part of a good routine. The Spiritual aspect. The spiritual aspect of your daily life is by far the most important and non-negotiable. Our whole purpose in life is to love God and do His will. Therefore, this must be the center and focus of your entire routine with each of the other aspects supporting it. Fr. Lasance writes in his famous book, “The Young Man’s Guide”, that the most dangerous part of a man’s life is young adulthood. This is because the young man is exposed to the torrentious allurements and seductions of the world while at the same time, not being at a very high level of maturity, making it very easy for him to fall away from God. He says, therefore that the most certain way a young man will survive this time in his life and stay good is by sticking to a solid prayer life.

In respect to incorporating the spiritual aspect into your daily routine, Fr. Lasance says that one ought to have prayers that are said every day and furthermore, should do daily spiritual reading. For example, reading the works of St. Alphonsus, St. Francis de Sales, etc. This will fill your mind with good thoughts to think about and meditate on throughout the day, as well as give you a guide and advice on how to get closer to God. In a sense, Spiritual reading is a way of God talking to you.

The last thing that ought to be incorporated into the spiritual aspect of your daily routine is daily meditation or mental prayer. This is where one has a heart to heart talk or conversation with God. According to St. Teresa of Avila, this is by far the most important thing that someone can do each day, as it more than anything else, increases our love for God and detaches us from things of this world. She says that one should choose a time in the day that works best for the individual to do mental prayer, and stick to that time. St. Alphonsus Liguori said, “The saints became saints because of mental prayer.” In other words, incorporating mental prayer into your daily life is very important and beneficial. (For more info on how to do mental prayer, I would highly recommend the book, conversation with Christ by Fr. Peter Thomas Rohrbach, which explains St. Teresa of Avila’s method of meditation.)

To Summarize, the spiritual aspect of your daily routine should incorporate prayer, reading and meditation. We will now move on to the mental aspect.

Once one is out of school it seems easy to just forget about study. One might think, “I just finished 12 plus years of that. I want to get on with my life and not touch books again. Just because you are out of school doesn’t give you or anyone for that matter, an excuse to let their brains just sit there idle. St. Augustine said, “The soul grows by learning.” In fact the primary purpose of school is not necessarily to teach you what to think and learn, but to teach you HOW to think and learn. In other words, school just gives you the intellectual tools to study so that you can learn as you go through life.

School can’t teach you EVERYTHING there is to know. But it can sure give you the tools to learn those things. Therefore, when you graduate, don’t toss those tools you spent 12 plus years acquiring into the corner and let them rust at a time when you have barely even started using them. Take them and use them. Incorporate study into your daily routine.

But just remember that your study must always be for God’s glory and not your own. Take the advice of St. Vincent Ferrer who said, “Do you desire to study to your own advantage? Let devotion accompany all your studies and study in order to become a saint.”

Would anyone like to know what happens to a tractor or vehicle or just about any machine for that matter, that sits outside for years and years just doing nothing? Well, here’s the answer. It rusts right through and turns out pretty much shot in the end. The same thing applies to human beings. If you rest you rust. Which brings us to the next aspect of crafting a routine for a well ordered life and that is Physical fitness. As has already been pointed out, man is not meant to be completely sedentary. He needs a strong body to carry out his duties. Having a strong body also means you are not as prone to illness and means less overall wear and tear on your joints, bones, etc. And last but not least, making yourself stick to an exercise routine on a daily basis gets a person used to doing things that are uncomfortable, thereby building discipline. But without turning this speech into a health talk, it suffices to say that it is highly advisable to have some sort of exercise routine, though the routine itself will vary considerably in makeup and intensity depending on your state in life, you present physical level, your job, and other factors.

St. Ignatius of Loyola said in regards to daily exercise, “Remember that daily bodily exercise, when it is well ordered, is also prayer by means of which you can please God our Lord.” So when you exercise, offer it up to God as an act of love to Him and you will get spiritual as well as physical benefit out of it.

So now that we have laid out what a good routine consists of, that is, combining the exercise of the spiritual, mental, and physical aspects of the person to achieve balance, we will now talk about the routine’s place in your life. Always remember that the routine serves you. You do not serve the routine. If a wrench gets thrown in your daily plans you don’t get all flustered up and upset about it. You accept the inconvenience as God’s will and adapt and overcome. After all, it is not a well-ordered routine if it constantly gets in the way of your duties. The goal here is to incorporate order into your life and have it flow seamlessly with all other aspects of your daily life so that is complements, not conflicts with your duties.

This leads us to our final point which is that the routine is not an end unto itself. Like literally everything else in your life, it is a means to an end. The only good reason to have a routine is that it establishes order in your life and therefore aids you in getting closer to your ultimate end, God. That is with everything in your life. Everything, no matter what it may be, even if it’s a well-constructed routine, is nothing but DUST and MUD when it is not done for God. On the other hand, anything, even the smallest thing such as the beating of your heart or the taking of a step, is priceless if it is done for God. We can draw an example of this from the life of St. Charles Borromeo. It is related that he was one time playing chess when a question went up from the onlookers about what they would begin to do if they knew that they would die within an hour. After everyone else had given their answers, St. Charles said that he would not begin to do anything, but would continue to play his game of chess. For he had begun it for God, and he wished for nothing better than to be called away in the midst of an action done for the greater honor and glory of God. So in everything YOU do, consecrate it to God as a simple, but priceless act of love.

In summary, life is a vicious battlefield in which the price to pay for losing IS your soul. The world, the flesh, and the devil seek to make you fall by distracting you, and thereby making you forget about loving God, your ultimate end. Establishing order in your life by having a routine is a very effective way to bring your mind back to God each day. Pray to Him and think about Him daily. Consecrate all of your actions to Him. And with perseverance, a deep and affectionate love for the Blessed Virgin Mary, and a strong connection to your angel guardian, you will be victorious.

2026 Graduation Ceremony Guest Speaker - Charles Blommel, Holy Innocents School Alumni