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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Praying with images | Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary | family prayer | pray the rosary
As we enter the quiet holiness of Holy Saturday, families are invited to gather together for a time of profound prayer and reflection. Artful depictions of Christ’s life—especially His Passion and Death—open a gentle and accessible doorway into conversations about faith that might otherwise feel difficult to begin as a family. From the youngest child to the eldest family member, generations are invited to come together and behold the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary through these sacred images. As they pray and reflect on the images together, families can share what they notice and how they are moved in their hearts and spirits. This prayerful practice, known as Visio Divina or “sacred seeing,” is an ancient Christian tradition that invites us to encounter God through attentive looking and holy imagination. Especially well-suited for family prayer, Visio Divina creates a shared space where faith is seen, felt, and spoken aloud together. As you begin, we invite your family to call upon the Holy Spirit, asking for guidance and openness as you spend time with these images and allow them to draw you more deeply into the mystery of Christ’s love. Your prayer can be as simple as, "Come, Holy Spirit," or you may wish to recite or write a longer one, such as: Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful. And kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And you will renew the face of the earth. The images below of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary include short reflections for each picture to illustrate the variety of ways sacred art can be viewed and discussed. We pray your family is truly blessed by your time together, immersed in the beauty of the art, these words, and your precious time together.
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Easter season | Holy Saturday | Holy Week | family entertainment
Gabby and Nick walk us through the Catholic perspective of what it means to be saved. Salvation and Redemption Have you heard someone ask you? Are you saved? Have you been saved? Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? How do we approach this question and the idea of salvation in general? Join Catholic Central hosts Gabby and Nick as they walk us through the Catholic perspective on what it means to be saved. Watch the Salvation and Redemption episode here:
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Brief and contemporary inspiration focused on hope and family prayer will be delivered to your inbox! Articles include live video, written word, and links to resources that will lead you and your family deeper into faith.
Good Friday | Holy Week | family prayer
Sarah Pedrozo offers a short meditation on a few words to pray on Good Friday. Behold, behold, the wood of the cross, on which is hung our salvation. O come, let us adore. These familiar words are often intoned each year at the Good Friday service. On this somber day that we yet call "good,” what further words can be said? Perhaps just a few. Looking at the cross of Christ, we can say, “Thank you.”
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Easter season | Family Activities | Holy Week | Triduum
Do you attend the Triduum liturgies with your family? We've gathered up some tips and encouragement from past years to help you and your children get the most out of these holy days. Triduum Memories "Let us stand." ... "Let us kneel." I have vivid memories of the first time I attended a Good Friday liturgy. It was held during the day, so Dad was probably working, and we kids attended with Mom and two of our great-aunts. To top it off, we were attending at our great-aunts' parish, not ours, so it was an unfamiliar church. Between the completely different ritual of the Good Friday liturgy as opposed to a regular Sunday Mass and the new surroundings and music, I remember being very confused. I certainly didn't understand the custom of venerating the cross.
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Good Friday | Holy Thursday | Seasonal Reflections | pray the rosary
St. John the Evangelist bravely stood vigil at the foot of the Cross alongside the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the most incredible act of love, Jesus strains to fill His lungs so He may speak, and with just a few words, He gifts Mary to the world as Our Mother and institutes her spiritual motherhood as He proclaims from the Cross, "Woman, behold your son!" Then He says to the beloved disciple, "Behold your mother!" (John 19:26-27a). This incredible gift of Mary as a mother is not only a blessing for John but for every disciple—incredibly, that includes you and me. At that moment, each disciple becomes a beloved son or daughter of the Woman, who epitomizes every virtue and is full of God's grace. Mary, chosen by God to be the Mother of His only Begotten Son, is then beautifully given in the act of sheer love to be the Mother of every one of us. Mary’s life of faith, marked by her profound trust in God’s promises, exemplifies His goodness and fidelity. She embraced the divine word with unwavering obedience: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.” She then lives this out in every moment of her life, most profoundly in the moments of her Son’s Passion and death.
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Jesus’ death and Resurrection is the most important moment in human history, an event of literally cosmic significance. And so, when you stop to think about it, it is remarkable that Jesus chooses to set this infinitely unique and important moment in the context of His traditional Jewish faith and the ritual of Passover. On the night before the Son of God is to die for the sins of the entire human race throughout all of human history, this is what is most important to Him: that He celebrate the Passover meal with His disciples, and so connect this ritual commemoration of Israel’s freedom from bondage with His new Covenant of eternal freedom from sin and death.
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