Developed as a method of managing work time, the Pomodoro method could just as easily be applied to prayer. At first glance, it seems like a great tool for eliminating distractions. But is this the purpose of prayer? Isn’t the main thing rather to offer them to the Lord?
ould a simple timer be the secret to successful prayer? Would devoting five, ten, thirty minutes to prayer or prayer, using a timer, allow us to concentrate more on our intimate heart-to-heart with God? Without a doubt. In any case, these are the benefits touted and proven by the Pomodoro method which consists of dividing your working time into periods of 25 minutes. An effective way to avoid distractions of all kinds and stay focused on a single task.
At first glance, this method, by facilitating concentration, could revolutionize one’s prayer life. Indeed, no one escapes distractions, not even the saints! Saint Teresa of Avila speaks of it as a real “infirmity”. She reports that sometimes, even in solitude, her mind was like “a madman that no one can chain.” She thought “of nothing bad, but only of indifferent things.” One day, she found herself counting the nails on the shoe of the nun who was praying in front of her. A complicated file, a problem with a child, the menu for the next meal, footsteps from the neighbor upstairs, a notification on your phone (while you were trying to concentrate on the Word of God on your favorite app), everything this contributes to distancing us not from God thank goodness but from our initial objective which was to spend “quality” time with the Lord.
A perfect prayer with Pomodoro… or almost!
Now when we discover the benefits of the Pomodoro method, we say to ourselves that that’s it, it’s won, nothing will be able to distract us from our encounters with the Lord! This is a working method, invented in the 1980s by an Italian, Francesco Cirillo, while he was a student revising for his exams. He used a timer (kitchen, yes yes) shaped like a tomato (hence the name of the method) in order to focus 100% on his work, in 25 minute increments. One of the conditions for the method to be effective? Put your phone away. The instructions could be straight out of a prayer manual: “Don’t keep your phone near you. Put it out of reach, it should be quiet and out of your sight. Each notification, vibration, call or message will come and pull you out of your bath of concentration,” we can read on the official website . A method which has spread throughout the world, and which is particularly suitable for people who tend to be distracted by external demands or to put off until tomorrow what they can do that day. If a tomato-shaped timer solves these two problems, isn’t our spiritual life saved?
“To chase distractions would be to fall into their traps. »
The experience of living a perfect prayer, entirely focused on the Lord, without any distraction, is tempting. However, the main point is not there. Wanting to drive distractions from your mind at all costs is not the goal of prayer. It is better to pray with them. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux , who was not exempt from these recalcitrant thoughts, shows the way. In her autobiography, she humbly admits that she sometimes fell asleep during her daily prayers at Carmel, and that she often allowed herself to be distracted by thinking about people around her. In this case, she took the opportunity to pray for them : “I also have many [distractions] but as soon as I notice them, I pray for those people whose thoughts distract my attention, and in this way they reap the benefit from my distractions. A way to finally return to God.
“To go hunting for distractions would be to fall into their traps, when it is enough to return to our heart: a distraction reveals to us what we are attached to and this humble awareness before the Lord must awaken our love preferably for him, by resolutely offering him our heart so that he may purify it,” underlines the Catechism of the Catholic Church ( paragraph 2729 ). The main thing is to return to your heart and offer it to the Lord. This is where the fight lies. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” ( Mt 6:21 ).
