How to Pray for Healing of Disordered Attachments

Adapted from John A. Veltri, Orientations, vol.1.pp.101-102

    In order to open to God’s will for me I need to be spiritually free, free, that is, from the influences of selfishness, prejudices, fears, anxieties, and preferences that twist or block the movements of the Holy Spirit within my inner being.  But I cannot give myself this interior freedom.  It must come as a gift from God.  Only God can bring me to that inner balance in which it is possible to make decisions about my life or life-style that are in accord with the divine will for me.  The following suggestions will help me receive this gift of freedom that God wants me to have.

1. Be Honest

·  a. Admit to myself and to God how attached I really am to this object of disordered attachment by "naming and owning" my experience as concretely as possible.

·  b. I must not pretend to be free when I am not.

·  c. I must also recognize that I am not yet ready to pursue a decision, much less actually attempt to make one.
2. I hold myself "AS IF" I am free and the disordered attachment is removed.

·  a. I make an interior effort neither to want nor to reject the matter (about which I am trying to decide) unless the Lord alone moves me to want or reject it.

·  b. I tell our Lord that I would like to do His will rather than my own, even if at the moment I have only "a desire for the desire."
3. I pray for the opposite

·  a. I pray for the readiness to do the opposite of what I want if that should be God’s will for me.

·  b. I ask God to transform and order my affections, feelings, and desires so that they are in harmony with the divine will.  I pray insistently that God will give me the grace to be free of the influence of the disordered attachment I experience.
4. I pray the "triple colloquy"

·  a. First, I pray to Our Lady, asking her to obtain for me from her Son the freedom from the disordered attachment I am seeking, so that nothing might keep me from being in perfect union with Jesus, and I might give honor and praise to God, the Father, in all I think, and do, and say.  I end this part by saying a Hail Mary or the Memorare.

·  b. Then I go with Mary to Jesus and, with her, ask Him to obtain the grace of this spiritual freedom I seek from His Father.  I end with a prayer that honors Jesus, like Soul of Christ.

·  c. Finally, together with Jesus and Mary, I turn to God, the Father, and again beg for this grace I am seeking.  I end with an Our Father.

5. I do some penance.  This is a sign to God and to myself of how much I truly desire the freedom I seek.

6. I repeat this prayer until God has freed me from my disordered attachment.