How can we have a deeper conversation with God

Let me offer a 3-step plan:  1.)  Take Inventory, 2.) 
 Discern Your Desires, and 3.)  Take Baby Steps

1.)  Take Inventory.  Tonight, make a list of everything you are doing today in your spiritual life.  Write down if you go to Mass every Sunday, if you say prayers in the morning or evening, if you pray as a family before meals.  Be honest.  Maybe your list will only be as long as "Going to Mass on Sunday."  That's OK.  This isn't about feeling bad about where you are.  This is about understanding where you are today, so you can plan where you will go tomorrow.

2.)  Discern Your Desires.  Make another list.  On this list, write down where you'd like to go in your spiritual life.  Maybe you want to say a Rosary each day.  Maybe you want to make visits to the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.  Maybe you want to go to confession more frequently.  Maybe you'd like 5 minutes of silent prayer with the Lord each day.  Prayerfully consider how you'd like to grow in your relationship with God and make a list of your desires.
3.)  Take Baby Steps.  I can't run a marathon.  But I can run to the refrigerator.  That's my baby step.  My friend, Fr. Jake Runyon just got back from a vacation in which he pedaled his bike around Lake Michigan!  870 miles!  Not exactly my idea of a vacation.  It wasn't Fr. Jake's first time on a bike.  He had to take baby steps to get to that point.  Often, when want to accomplish something, we will get super-ambitious and make big plans for ourselves and sometimes we will try to do to much too soon.  When that happens, we often fail and then we say, "Well, I guess prayer doesn't really work for me."  Or, "I guess I'm no good at prayer."  That's nonsense.  Take baby steps.  When I was in the seminary, I wanted to cultivate the habit of praying a Rosary each day, but I was failing.  So my advisor told me to pray one decade each day for a month.  Then 2 decades the next month and so on. 

And we've got an event coming up that can serve as a great launching pad for deepening your spiritual life.  It's a retreat called "The Sacred and the Ordinary: Uncovering God's Presence in Our Busy Family Lives."  You will learn how to recognize how God reveals Himself to us in our busy schedules and obligations.  It will take place Saturday, July 31st from 9AM-3PM in the St. Vincent's Spiritual Center.  There's a signup in the gathering space after Mass.

Taking baby steps forward in our spiritual life will deepen our conversation with God.  They will deepen our relationship with God.  We will all meet Him face-to-face one day.  When we do so, we want to meet a very good friend, not just a casual acquaintance.  Taking baby steps forward will help us be both Martha and Mary at the same time.