A few years ago I wanted to start praying the rosary daily, so that was my goal for Lent. I struggled though, because as a wife and the mother of three young children, uninterrupted prayer time is rare. Several people at Catholic Answers Forums shared that they too struggled with finding enough quiet time to pray, so they prayed throughout the day, a decade at a time if that's all they could do, because that was better than not praying it at all.
At first I thought this was a bit odd, since it seemed to me that praying in such a way wouldn't allow for the proper measures of attention and devotion due to our Lord Jesus and His Mother Mary. Nevertheless, I decided to give it a try since I really wanted to pray the rosary daily.
My daily Lenten rosary has since turned into my daily rosary. Praying a decade or two at a time has been a blessing. It has allowed me to weave prayer throughout my day. When prayed all at once (all five decades), it takes an average of 17 minutes to pray the rosary. The fact is, we all have 17 minutes a day that we could use more wisely, but for those who are caring for young children, sometimes praying here and there is the best we can do, and that's OK.
If you're struggling with finding enough time for prayer, why not give this way a shot? Pray a decade of the rosary. It will probably take just a few minutes, and you'll find that you do have time for more. If you get interrupted, go back to it later. If you have a long enough commute to work, pray during that time (I used to do this when I was working outside of the home).
For the chaplet of Divine Mercy, I usually try to pray this during the 3:00 hour, as Jesus told St. Faustina that this is the hour of mercy. When I was working and therefore couldn't pray the entire chaplet at that time, I would turn my thoughts to Jesus and pray only this prayer. Now I'm blessed to be able to pray during the 3:00 hour almost all the time, and praying the chaplet takes an average of seven minutes.
So, no matter how busy you are, the important thing is to start because once you do, you will never regret it. With all that God has given us, we can give Him seven, 17, or maybe even 24 minutes a day, can't we?
