x Close
World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
There is something special about conversations at night. During the day, everything runs on script. "How are you?" "I'm good." We speak about weather. Meetings happen, decisions are made, calendars are obeyed. Even in families, conversation is often logistics management, who picks up whom, what's for dinner, what's next. Its efficient, and necessary. But night changes things. A couple can spend an entire day discussing bills, groceries, and whose turn it is to call the plumber and to pick up kids, and then at 10:30 pm, lights off, room quiet, one of them says, "Can I ask you something?" You know immediately: this is not about the plumber. The real conversation has finally begun. Something carried all day has found its way out. Or college students, confident in seminars, composed in lectures, lying on a dorm room floor at midnight, staring at the ceiling, suddenly asking, "Do you ever feel like you have absolutely no idea what you're doing?" That question never surfaces at 10 a.m. But at night, it arrives uninvited and entirely welcome.
Share
Divine Mercy Sunday | catholic family life | family prayer
Silvia Patalano-Ross reflects on how busy moms can practice Divine Mercy at home through patience, forgiveness, and small daily choices. Divine Mercy Sunday has always sounded beautiful to me. I would see the image of Jesus with rays pouring from His Heart. I have loved the simple prayer, “Jesus, I trust in You.” It is a reminder that God’s mercy is endless, something I find myself relying on more and more each day. But most years, Divine Mercy Sunday meets me in a much less peaceful place. There is always someone arguing about whose turn it is to take the dog out. There’s a child who suddenly remembers a project that is due tomorrow. It’s time to eat, but the dinner table is full of papers and half-finished art projects. I can’t tell you the number of socks I’ve dug out of the couch. These are usually the moments when I remember mercy isn’t just something we talk about in church. It’s something we practice in our homes — and for me, it’s about five minutes after I’ve already lost my patience.
Share
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.
Catholic Family Fun | Easter season | Living the Faith
Laura Vazquez Santos explores how the Church’s fifty-day Easter season invites mothers to move from celebration to formation. Every year, I enter the Triduum with holy ambition. I imagine dim lights, whispered prayers, and children gazing reverently at a crucifix. What I usually get is my 6-year-old asking for crackers every 5 minutes during the Gospel at Mass or my preschooler sword-fighting with last year’s blessed palm. I admit that getting through the Easter season can be both logistically challenging and spiritually testing. In years past, and especially after my reversion to the Faith, I placed unrealistic pressure on myself as a mother to get everything right each Easter, as I feared my children would be more enticed by the Easter Bunny than by the amazing reality of the Resurrection.
Share
Blessed Virgin Mary | Rosary Stories | family prayer
A story of how a gathering with my closest friends budded into a love for our Heavenly Mother.
Share
Easter season | Learn more about our faith
I would like to invite us to briefly reflect on the First Reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles. There is a question in there that was directed at the Apostles, but it is also directed at each of us as followers of Jesus. “By what power or by what name have you done this?” Or as they say in politics, “Who paid you for this?” In the text we have today, there is a tension between the apostles Peter and John, on the one hand, and the religious leaders, on the other. After the resurrection, the apostles were went about healing the sick and preaching and they were arrested by the authorities.
Share
Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
A few years ago, a father named Mark sat in his car, gripping the steering wheel, unable to walk into his own house. Inside, his teenage daughter was drifting further away, and their home had become a quiet battlefield. He whispered to himself words no parent ever wants to say: “We had hoped things would be different by now.” He felt like he had failed. Finally, he went inside… sat on the floor outside her bedroom… and said, “I don’t have the answers. But I am here. And I love you.” That moment—was not strength. It was vulnerability.
Share
