Shut the door
When you pray, enter into your inner room, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Everything about this instruction is privacy: the room, the door, the secret. Jesus is suspicious of prayer that has an audience, even the audience of one's own self-regard. The inner room is a physical place, and it is also the interior itself: the part of you no one sees. Much of the noise in prayer is performance: composing sentences for a listener, managing an impression. Shut the door on all of it. There is no one to impress. The Father already sees. What follows can be wordless, halting, or nothing but a sitting still, and it is heard.
Today's practice
Find an actual door you can shut. Sit behind it for twenty minutes. Say nothing to God you would not say if you were certain no one, including you, was judging it.
The fast
Daily fast. Eat one meal today alone, in silence, with the door shut.
By the calendar, today is Day ?.