World at Prayer blog

Reflections of Family and Faith

"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton

John Dacey

John Dacey is a retired Catholic high school teacher. He has taught Scripture, Ethics, and Social Justice. He enjoys being in the company of family, reading in the field of spirituality, and gardening. John and his wife have been married for more than 40 years and have two children and four grandchildren.

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Celebrating family life

Imagining, Recognizing, Announcing

When our children were young, we would do a project with construction paper to prepare for Easter. The concept was to create a three-dimensional “garden.”

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Celebrating family life

The Rest of Lent

Our youngest child, now an adult with a family of his own, will turn forty-two years old this week. I don’t know if it’s a bigger passage for him or us. I remember he was born on Easter Monday. We anticipated an Easter baby, but the timing of birth, as we know, is according to nature’s time. “Timing is everything,” as the expression goes. I suspect there are things about birth and life that both our children have learned as parents that we could never have adequately explained when they were growing up.

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Celebrating family life  |  Seasonal Reflections

Light of Prayer in the Late Afternoon

I remember as a child during Lent, my mother and I would walk to weekday Mass in the late afternoon. It was about a fifteen-minute walk. The sun would be setting, and the church’s west-facing stained glass windows would cast long streams of color across the floor and benches. On the way home, it would be dusk, and the fading light of late day would gradually give way to darkness.

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Celebrating family life

Carefully Preserving What Is Good

I ventured into the garden the other day. The snow had melted, and I thought it a good time to weed out dried overgrowth and winter clutter in preparation for planting. I carefully worked around the good herb plants, preserving the oregano, mint, and lemon balm. Lent is a good time for preserving what is good and weeding out what is not.

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Celebrating family life

Conversations, Memories, and Prayer

During their elementary school years, we generally would pick our children up at the end of their day. Often we would ask them how their day went. The older would reply with a detailed description of almost every event, classroom topic, and lunchtime conversation. This commentary would take a while. The younger would simply respond, “fine,” “good,” or “okay.” We came to respect and treasure both response styles.

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Celebrating family life

Praying the Interruptions

During my teaching years, I had to wake up at 3:30 AM to avoid the worst of the commuter traffic. When the alarm clock sounded, I could hear myself quietly praying – O Lord! It’s so early!

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