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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Catholic Faith | Holy Saturday | Mother Mary
If you’ve ever had to scoop a child in a deep sleep off a couch, you know how hard it is to position them in a way that you can lift them, walk while carrying them, arms limp, head rolling here or there. The bigger your kids get, the harder this feat becomes. So imagine Mary holding the lifeless body of Jesus. Imagine the strength it took to hold the body of her dead, adult son, and not only its physical weight, but also its emotional weight. Mary Has Incredible Strength The Pietà provides us with a grim romantic version of this scene. When you look at the Pietà, you feel the weight of the moment, but you forget the weight of the body. Mary’s face sorrowful, but serene. It’s her right hand, fingers sprawled, which you can almost miss, peeking through under his body, where you glimpse the strength it must have required to keep his body propped up. His head, weighing heavily on her forearm.
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Catholic Family Fun | family prayer | pray the rosary
Getting kids to sit down and recite a whole Rosary is not always met with cheers and delight, as much as I wish that were the case. If I am telling the truth, I am sometimes met with groans and eye rolls alike. But when you lay out a donut Rosary, suddenly your kids are rallying to lead more prayers than their siblings. There’s nothing complex about the Donut Rosary. The cross can be a construction paper cutout, or you can make a cross with donut holes. The Our Father and Glory Be prayers should be regular-sized donuts — whoever leads the longer prayers and Scripture verse for the Mystery gets a “big donut.” The Hail Marys should be donut holes — make a decade one flavor or mix them up. After you say your prayer or prayers, you get to eat the donut(s). You will be amazed at the complaints about how unfair it was that Sister 1 got to lead more prayers than Sister 2 —haha!
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Catholic Family Fun | Hail Mary | family prayer
When my firstborn was a baby, I started the habit of singing the Hail Mary to her at night as a lullaby. I hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but soon enough she was singing along with Mama—praying without even knowing what prayer was yet. And so began our family’s tradition of starting bedtime prayers by singing the Hail Mary. I can already hear the reactions of those of you who can’t carry a tune. Guess what? Me too!
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