Christmas Season review with the Prayer Journal

Congratulations! You are close to completing another Christmas season. A season that has probably been filled with stress concerning gift-buying, relatives visiting, bills, and much, much more. But I also hope that it has been filled with love, Christ, prayer, heartfelt gifts, and fellowship. The Christmas season is meant to be a celebration of Christ and our love for him. This is obviously not the easiest task amongst all the other distractions of the season, but none the less important.

The Christmas Season is now close to being over and this hopefully less stressful time provides the best time to self-reflect in prayer and self-evaluate in order to determine how best to improve for next Christmas. The question then remains: How does one go about this self-evaluation and reflection in prayer? I propose that the best way to go about this is the prayer journal. If you don’t have a prayer journal perhaps starting it with a little honest self-evaluation is a great way to get into the habit. Or if you already have a prayer journal then maybe spending a few minutes of your time reflecting would be another great way to use the prayer journal you already love.

The prayer journal is a fantastic tool for self-reflection which allows you look back into the past and learn from it, but the prayer journal is not the only one. One can also spend time reflecting in simple silence and prayer. For this to be effective you need to find a good spot to pray which lends itself to silence and easy focus. An example of this would be in a chapel or in a prayerful area of your house. One could simply pray to Christ and the Holy Spirit for their inspiration in your self-reflection, and maybe even bring a prayer journal with you. Spending time in prayerful reflection is one of the keys to improving on your Christmas season experience in years to come; remember, as many have said, if you don’t learn from your mistakes then you are bound to repeat them.

The Christmas season is a beautiful one in which we have the chance to show our love for Christ and one another in a unique way; therefore it is important to make the most of the season. I hope that you will consider using a prayer journal, or catholic book in order to prayerfully reflect on the Christmas season and many other seasons to come.