Living Catholicism: Integrating Prayer into your Family Life

« Why give your newborn child a Catholic baby name? | Main | "Yes, I'll take a Happy Meal, please..." »

September 29, 2004

Integrating Prayer into your Family Life

As a father of four young children I understand well the difficulties of developing a family prayer life. It’s important that we pray together as a family in addition to praying as individuals. Family prayer builds a sense of unity and honesty within the family. It also teaches our children how to approach God and how we should trust Him. So how do we accomplish this in practical terms? After all, no one says it’s easy!

Personal Prayer
The basis of a family prayer life begins with the parent’s prayer life. It’s important that we as parents develop a personal prayer life that includes regular private prayers. It’s difficult to convince your kids to spend time with God if you don’t do so yourself! So with everything: start in prayer. Pray that God would give you the ability to integrate prayer into your family life in a concrete, permanent way that instills a love of God in your children.

Prayer During Normal Life
One of the first steps – and I believe an important one – in developing a family prayer life is by bringing God and the Saints into your everyday life. For example, before starting a long trip say a quick family prayer for safety. Or when something is lost ask for St. Anthony’s help (he’s the patron of lost objects). If you learn the patrons in a few key areas there will be no shortage of occasions to invoke the Saints! I think it’s also important to remember to thank God and/or the Saints when you arrive safely or your prayer is otherwise answered.

The second part of this is praying for others at crucial times. For example, when you see someone hurting, say a family prayer for them as soon as possible – even if it’s just a short prayer. Or if you have a family problem, bring together your family and pray about it (ask God to resolve it to His satisfaction). When you hear an ambulance, say three Hail Mary’s for those needing help. There are many small Catholic traditions like this that are easily woven into family life to help focus the entire day on God. By integrating these types of prayers into normal life you normalize worship and help children understand that we don’t separate our spiritual life from our secular life.

Regular Prayers
In addition to these small, unplanned prayers, try to schedule time on a daily basis for family prayer. Our family prays together before meals and before bed. The bedtime prayer is especially important because we recite common prayers from the Church (the Our Father, the Hail Mary, etc) and then each member says some personal prayers. As a parent, the children will learn from the way you pray. So be sure to pray for events in your life, ask for forgiveness, and pray for others. I also make a point of praying that God will help me to be the father my children deserve and the husband my wife deserves; these type of prayers teach children that we can depend on God for every aspect of our lives. As your children mature in their prayers, you’ll likely learn as much from them as they learn from you!

The Rosary
The perfect family prayer is the Rosary – it works so well as a prayer in a group. However, the Rosary often takes more time than the other prayers, so it tends to get skipped in family prayer. The Rosary is powerful because it focuses your prayer on the life of Christ and offers you time to meditate on the reality of our Savior. In the perfect world, a family would pray the Rosary on a daily basis. But to start, I would recommend taking time every Sunday to pray the Rosary as a family. Sunday is set aside as a day for resting in the Lord and focused on worship. By choosing to add the family Rosary on a Sunday afternoon or evening, you make a commitment to God that is an example to your children. When children are small, they don’t have the attention span necessary for long prayers, so just let them play quietly in the room while the parents and the older children pray. This prepares them for the Rosary as the get older.

In addition, older children can “lead” decades of the Rosary to get them more involved. The leader of each decade does the initial reading and says the first half of each prayer alone (Hail Mary’s, Our Fathers, etc.), then the entire family pray the last half together. It works well once you’ve done it a few times. Over time, the Rosary works well as a prayer the family says together after dinner every night – this gives your home a true focus on God and shows your children the importance of prayer.

What if you have Older Children?
A special type of problem exists when a family has older children that aren’t used to this family focus on God. In this type of situation I would suggest starting a little more slowly than those families that have small children or don’t have any children. For example, you could begin by just saying a decade of the Rosary after lunch on Sundays and slowly working prayer into your normal lives. This keeps older children from feeling “pushed” into integrating prayer in their lives. By slowing down the pace with which you add these prayers, it will feel more natural to the kids. Often this helps the adults as well – after all committing to a Sunday Rosary may be difficult for some in our busy lives.

Consistency is the key with older kids. When you begin working on your family prayer life, keep at it. And emphasize to the kids the benefits this will have in making your family closer to each other and to God. Also remember to be kind; if you try and force it down the kids throats, it will leave an antipathy toward faith, rather than a love of prayer. If your child doesn’t want to immediately participate, give them some time and pray for them in your personal prayers (not in front of them). Remember, this could be a drastic change in their lives and may take time to get used to.

The Family that Prays Together, Stays Together
The goal is to make God a integral part of your daily family lives. By doing so, you begin to develop an honest Catholic culture in your home, which typically results in raising good Catholic kids. Prayer is the basis of the Catholic home and is more important than almost anything else in developing the loving, family atmosphere we all crave. We can all improve our family and our personal prayer lives – and I’ll say a prayer that we all do!

God bless,
Jay

Posted by HolyFamily at September 29, 2004 09:51 PM