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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Catholic Motherhood | Podcast | catholic mom | inspiration
Discover the best of CatholicMom.com's content in Catholic Mom Audio Digest, a 5-minute minicast filled with encouragement for moms and families. Are you looking for some encouragement in the hurry-up-and-wait season of motherhood, or want a little inspiration for your day when you take a break for a cup of coffee or tea but are short on time? CatholicMom.com’s new 5-minute mini-podcast, Catholic Mom Audio Digest, delivers brief reflections to inspire your faith and vocation—right when you need it most. This bite-sized podcast is designed to fit your busy life. Each episode includes a thoughtful reflection to accompany you in your day and help you live your faith with joy and inspiration.
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Learn more about our faith | Why pray?
Saint Paul addressed his letter to the Corinthians with a heartfelt appeal. Paul says, “As brothers and sisters in Christ, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” Immediately, this made me ponder the questions: How are we receiving the grace of God? Are we letting this great gift help us fulfill our mission each day, or do we sometimes fail to use this gift from God to help us? Paul reminds the people of his time and ours of God’s message: “In an acceptable time, I heard you, and on the day of salvation, I helped you.” In every Sacrament…we receive the grace of God, and we know that we also receive His grace in moments of prayer and even in moments we cannot even find a way to ask for His help. In this spirit, St. Paul reminds the Corinthians that God has heard them and helped them throughout their lives in various ways.
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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.
Book Club | Catholic books | Scripture Study | summer activities
CatholicMom.com announces our first-ever Summer Virtual (Zoom) Book Club featuring Jesus Heals: Finding Hope, Wholeness, and Peace with author Allison Gingras. Our Catholic Mom team felt the summer was the perfect time to try something exciting, interactive, and, well, downright fun! I have hosted virtual book clubs for years as part of my spiritual development. Initially drawn in by the convenience, since I had small children at home at the time, I was pleasantly surprised and delighted by the unexpected intimacy and vulnerability experienced through connecting with faces on my computer. I am blessed that the team chose my new book, Jesus Heals: Finding Hope, Wholeness, and Peace from Our Sunday Visitor for this new adventure. During my time in women's ministry, I have observed that everyone needs healing. For some, that healing is physical, but for most of us, it is emotional, mental, or spiritual. Jesus healed many people during His earthly ministry. Yet those healings weren't fancy magic tricks to show off His divinity. Every miracle healing reveals something about Jesus and teaches us about who He is and who we are in Him.
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Catholic Family Fun | Parenting | summer activities
It’s the first week of June! That means school is out (or will be soon), or, if you are a homeschooling family, the at-home schoolwork is done. Now is the time for the long, slow days of summer. Hopefully, that conjures up images of camping in the backyard, bike rides around the neighborhood, catching fireflies, and lots of running barefoot. But besides all these fun activities, summertime also offers us a chance to experience and grow in faith in unique ways. At the end of each religious-education year, I send out a few ideas to the families in my parish of how to continue to grow in faith during this season. I’m sharing four ideas below, and I hope you’ll find them helpful.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
Saint Anthony of Padua {1195-1231} was a Franciscan priest and the best known follower of Saint Francis of Assisi and who was famous for his preaching, miracles and holy life, However, he is popularly known for his intercession when an item has been lost. He is often invoked with the familiar phrase: “Tony, Tony, come around, something’s lost and can’t be found.”
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Learn more about our faith | Why pray?
Have you ever seen an unfinished bridge? I once visited a village where they proudly began building a beautiful concrete bridge over a river. Great foundation. Impressive pillars. It even had decorative railings on one side. But halfway through, the project stopped. Politics changed, policies changed, Budgets dried up. Now it just stands, suspended midair like a promise never kept. It’s funny until you realize: that’s what many of our relationships look like, half-built. We start with connection, trust, and love… and then something happens. A harsh word. A betrayal. Silence. Ego. Or like most of us, we don’t explode in rage, we freeze in silence. We master the art of polite distance, just smiling at people we secretly avoid. leaving that bridge hanging, unfinished, awkward, and unusable and slowly, quietly, we let the bridge rot. One misunderstanding at a time.
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