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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
There's an unusual detail in the life of St. Benedict of Nursia. When he began his monastery in sixth-century Italy, he didn't start by training people to pray better. He started by teaching them how to stay. Stay in the same place. Stay in the same room. Stay with the same people. Stay in the same rhythm. His famous vow wasn't brilliance in prayer, not productivity, not even visible holiness, it was stability. In other words, remain. Remain. That sounds unimpressive until we try it. We stay physically, but mentally we're everywhere else. If you want to test this, try sitting in silence for ten minutes. By minute three, you'll have planned dinner, solved a work problem, replayed an argument from 2007, and possibly composed an imaginary speech you'll never give. Your brain will have traveled across three continents and remembered something embarrassing from ten years ago.
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Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you! There is a kind surety of security and protection a parent gives to a child even when some do not make sense, but the goal is always to build confidence in this child. Take for instance, when a child falls and is crying the parent will tell the child let us beat the ground for making you fall! The child gains confidence that where my father or my mother is, I have nothing to fear.
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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.
Mind the Gap. When you go to London, particularly on the London underground trains, there is a warning that comes on over the microphone, Mind the Gap. Here, train passengers are warned to be careful while stepping over the gap between the train and station platform. I want to relate that to our life as Christians or followers of Jesus. Mind the gap can also be an invitation for us to pay attention to the space between where we are standing and where we want to go. That means making choices that are aligned with our values as Christians, so that we are not disconnected or disengaged from where we are, who we are and what we want to become as true Christians.
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May | Pentecost | family prayer
Pentecost, arriving in one of the busiest times of year, brings relief and perspective to Kathryn Pasker Ineck. Ah, June. June is a balm after the craziness of May, a month that can be a wild ride, whether you have schoolchildren or not, because there is always such a flurry of activities to attend. Years ago, my friends and I referred to it as “Maycember” because, like Advent, May arrives with an overfilled calendar of good things: dance recitals, class parties, tournaments, graduations (for all the stages — kindergarten, eighth grade, high school, college), and [insert excuse to celebrate]. With better weather and theoretically free-er weekdays, suddenly weddings, barbeques, park days, and hikes are on the docket. “Quick! Let’s get together before all the swim lessons start and the vacations separate us!”
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Catholic Family Fun | Children's Stories | pray the rosary
Lindsey Mitzel reviews a children’s book of meditations on the Rosary written by Dominique Morelli and illustrated by Anna Morelli. The Illustrated Rosary: The Life of Christ in Prose By Dominique Morelli; illustrated by Anna Morelli Published by Diocesan The Illustrated Rosary: The Life of Christ in Prose is a beautiful Rosary meditation book for kids. Written by Dominique Morelli and illustrated by Anna Morelli, this Rosary guide, written especially for kids, is lyrical, whimsical, and thought-provoking.
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May 1st, the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. Joseph was a carpenter, and Jesus would have learned from Joseph’s hands the trade and tools of the carpenter. The tradition, and what we assume from the Scriptures, is that up to the age of thirty Jesus worked as a carpenter. If you happen to see The Passion of Christ, by Mel Gibson, there are some moving scenes during Jesus’ Passion, as he carries the cross, with flashbacks of Jesus making a table and showing it to Mother Mary. That would have been the way Jesus supported himself. I often reflect on the fact that Mother Mary received a visitation from the angel Gabriel, while Joseph only received a dream. All of us dream every night, but Joseph was able to discern that this was not just an ordinary dream, that God was speaking to him on a deeper level. He was called to trust the words of his wife, that something which had never happened in the history of the world, a virgin conceiving, was true.
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