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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Holy Women's History Month | Holy lives of inspiration | Old Testament | hwhm
For Holy Women's History Month, Karen Estep discusses Ruth, an Old Testament woman who still inspires modern women. Wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God. (Ruth 1:16) These words were read at my wedding. At the time, I meant for it to be part of our family motto because my husband was a football coach, and I wanted to support the teams he would coach. When you’re a football coach and a football coach’s wife, the teams eventually become your family, no matter which team it happens to be. I had no idea what Ruth would ultimately mean to me as a woman in a modern age.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
In 1980, a retired NYPD detective, Frank Bolz pioneered something that transformed law enforcement forever, especially hostage negotiation. His radical, counterintuitive insight was breathtakingly simple: he said, don't storm the building. Talk first. Because the moment genuine conversation begins, something irreversible happens. When you talk, a relationship is established. The standoff becomes a relationship. And relationships, real ones, change people. God, it turns out, invented this long before Frank. What Isaiah records in the first reading is a divine hostage negotiation situation. And here's the twist; we are simultaneously the hostage and the hostage-taker. We have taken ourselves captive, barricaded inside our own comfortable habits, our carefully curated religion, our elaborate self-justifications. And God, rather than sending in the SWAT team, simply picks up the phone. "Come now. Let us talk this over." He doesn't kick the door in. He calls. He begins a conversation and that distinction is everything.
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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.
A World at Prayer is a World at Peace | pray the rosary | rosary novena
Beginning Tuesday, March 3, Holy Cross Family Ministries will launch a Rosary novena for peace during our daily 11:30 a.m. EST Rosary livestream on Facebook and YouTube—lifting together our prayers for peace in our world. As we begin this Rosary novena, we unite our hearts with the vision of Venerable Father Patrick Peyton, who passionately believed the world, “The family that prays together stays together,” and proclaimed with hope, “A world at prayer is a world at peace.” Over these nine days, may our prayer draw us closer to Christ, strengthen our families, and open our hearts to the peace only God can give. With the Blessed Virgin Mary as our gentle guide, we entrust this novena to her loving care and to the transforming grace of the Holy Rosary.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
In the marketplaces of Galilee, grain was not sold in tidy, sealed bags or neat plastic packages, like what we have in the supermarkets, but they were scooped from large baskets into whatever container you brought from home. A standard measure, usually, smaller household bowl was used to fill your bags before your eyes. But how it was filled made all the difference. A stingy merchant would pour the grain in loosely and stop when it looked full. Air pockets remained. Space was wasted. It appeared full and generous, but it was not. An honest seller, however, would press the grain down firmly with his hands. He would lift and shake the container so the kernels settled into every hidden gap. Then he would pour more on top until it formed a small mound above the rim, threatening to spill into your cloak. You went home knowing you had received more than expected.
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Daily Family Prayer | Family Activities | reading the Bible
Nicole Berlucchi shares about ways to help your children engage with Scripture this Lent (or anytime). Over the last few years, I’ve become very intentional about Scripture with my kids. I don’t want the only time they are reading Scripture to be at Sunday Mass, because we all know, even the best of us, how easy it can be to zone out or be distracted during Mass when your mind is full of things. Lent is a great time to have your children spend a little more time in Scripture as a “something to do” in Lent rather than “something to give up.” Here are some tips I’ve found useful as I’ve explored Scripture with my children.
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Daily Family Prayer | catholic family life | pray the rosary
Praying the Rosary as a family has reshaped how we understand holiness in our domestic church. For us, daily family prayer was hard-won, and something I never believed we would be able to keep up. We deeply wanted to pray regularly, but desire alone did not seem enough to overcome our busy schedules, distractions, and the quiet discouragement that had settled in after years of trying to pray together. The turning point came through a simple parish invitation. Our church sends a traveling statue of Our Lady of Fatima home with a different family for one week each year. One Sunday, I noticed a sign-up sheet. My husband and I both felt the unexpected urgency that we needed the statue of Mary to come home with us. At that point, we did not have a statue of Our Lady displayed in our home. Years of moving had left some of our devotional items carefully packed away, and I will admit that our faith life, like our house, sometimes felt more “in progress” than settled. When I saw the waiting list, my heart sank—it felt impossibly long. I set a calendar reminder and nearly forgot about it until the message finally came that it was our turn.
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