Our Family’s Week with the Luminous Mysteries

I recently was given a book from Catholic Mom and Holy Cross Family Ministries: The Family That Prays Together Stays Together: A Bead-by-Bead Family Guide through the Mysteries by Fr. Willy Raymond, C.S.C. I was so excited to receive it in the mail and immediately read the introductory chapters.

I have been wanting to get back into a routine of praying the Rosary while including my family in it, and am very thankful to be a part of “The Family that Prays Together Stays Together” series for the Catholic Mom Community. My family was asked to focus on the Luminous Mysteries. 

I am going to be honest and share that I was not entirely sure how this would go for my family. We have five young kids aged 7, 6, 4, 3, and 20 months. Also, something to note is our 3-year-old has special needs. I tried to plan out what this would look like for us ahead of time and also tried to keep expectations to a minimum.  

I explained to the kids beforehand that we were going to be praying a decade of the Rosary each night, following the format suggested in the book, and that we were focusing on the Luminous Mysteries. We ended up praying them for two different weeks: once during Holy Week, and then once again a few weeks later.  

It was definitely nice to pray the Luminous Mysteries during Holy Week because we got to focus on the highlights of Christ’s ministry and end with the Institution of the Eucharist. However, we did travel for Easter this year and were not able to complete our full Rosary on Saturday, which is why we decided to try again a different week.  

The first night we prayed the decade, my husband and I brought all the rosaries and kids to the playroom so we could pray it there and let the younger ones move as they pleased. This method worked for that night, but ultimately, I ended up passing out rosaries and praying with them during dinnertime while everyone was sitting down already. Our kids are all involved in activities, and this just worked out better for our schedule.  

I did enjoy how Fr. Willy broke the Rosary down into praying one decade each night while focusing on one set of Mysteries each week. This allowed the kids to ask questions and focus on each Mystery. The older kids attend a Catholic school and the older two were familiar with The Baptism of Jesus and The Wedding Feast at Cana already, and they were excited to tell me what they knew about it. They were able to learn more about the other three Luminous Mysteries: The Proclamation of the Kingdom, The Transfiguration, and the Institution of the Eucharist during the rest of the week. 

 We let each of the kids take turns leading the prayers for the decade. I was also pleasantly surprised to see how calm it made our 3-year-old; she really enjoyed being able to lead the Hail Mary when it was her turn.  

The reflections in the book are definitely nice to have, but most of them were too advanced for our kids to understand. So I read the reflection and then would try to break it down for them so they could understand what was being said. Sometimes it clicked, other times, it didn’t. And a good amount of the time there was pausing due to screaming or redirecting. Again, I tried to keep expectations low.  

The first week we completed the decade on the Luminous mysteries, my husband was able to join us for most of the decades. However, the last week that we completed them, we had a different schedule and weren’t able to all pray them together. I noticed the kids were calmer when he was present, but ultimately, we did what we could.  

We prayed the full Rosary with all five Luminous Mysteries on Saturday, and I will say that it got to be a little long for the younger kids and there was more screaming this time around. I think the next time we attempt the full Rosary we will put everyone in the playroom again instead of at our table so the younger ones can move around more. But they all still did a good job and took turns saying the prayers. We did decide to have the Hallow App on to help guide with the full Rosary as well, which I think helped the kids too.  

I really enjoyed praying the Luminous Mysteries with my family using this book and am excited to pray other Mysteries with my family using the same methods and reflections provided in it.  

Save 20% off the cover price of The Family That Stays Together Prays Together when you purchase the book from the Holy Cross Family Ministries online store. Use coupon code CMROSARY at checkout. This offer expires on June 10, 2024. 

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Copyright 2024 Michelle Nott
Images: Ave Maria Press