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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
The-Rosary-In-Our-Hands | family prayer
Today is the 107th anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun, when many were gathered 5 months after Mary originally appeared to Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia at Fatima. She had promised to appear to them every month on the 13th, and on September 13th when the largest group had gathered to join them, she said there would be a miracle on the following month. On October 13, 1917, the rain cleared, the sun emerged, and spun around for 10 minutes as if it were dancing while 70,000 witnessed the miracle. Though I didn’t grow up in a practicing Catholic home, the Rosary truly feels like the backdrop to my faith life. As a kid, I would see images of our Blessed Mother and Rosaries strewn all over when I visited my Portuguese grandmother, whose name literally translated to Mary of Heaven. She had a devotion to Our Lady of Fatima and her own parents were married in Portugal 20 years to the day of the original apparition. I know she was praying for me my whole life and I attribute my conversion in part to her prayers.
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The-Rosary-In-Our-Hands | family prayer
Ever since I was a child, I loved the idea of praying the Rosary. And though I always wanted to be one of those people who prayed it daily, in practice I failed. For the longest time, I struggled with it; I think it was the repetition. I would often commit to praying the Rosary, yet the habit never stayed with me. But as God so often does, He allows people and things to change our hearts. I think both He and His Blessed Mother knew that I continually encountered roadblocks in something I really wanted to succeed in, so they worked with me to break them down. I can’t say that I now pray the Rosary daily, but I can say that I pray it regularly and that, when I do, I get so much out of it.
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Today we hear the Lord heal a man who was possessed by a demon and his adversaries right away claimed that he must be in cahoots with Beelzebul the Prince of the Devil. To his adversaries, there is no way he could act so powerfully against the demons without permission or power from the Devil himself. The response of Jesus was that if the Devil was fighting the Devil, then the days of the Devil and his kingdom were numbered. The Devil was on a self-destructive path. Simply said, the Lord argued that the allegations levelled against Him were illogical, absurd, and downright laughable.
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The-Rosary-In-Our-Hands | family prayer
Prayer has often been a challenge for me. There’s too much noise in the world and in my own head. Throughout most of my prayer life, I would start out with good intentions and rather simple prayers. I would try to simply speak to God, but as I did this, I would distract myself: “Oh, did I do my homework? Or what was the score of that hockey game last night? Did my brother give me my five bucks back?” Silly, simple things that really don’t matter all that much. But by the time I snapped back into focus on what I was supposed to be doing I would be frustrated and want to simply give up. Eventually, I started seeking new methods of praying and new strategies to keep my focus. I tried praying with Scripture, images, and more. While these helped, none of them really clicked for me. Soon enough, I stumbled onto the Rosary once more.
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I’ve always been attracted to the writings of Saint Paul, and yet, I don’t remember the reading from Galatians making an impression like it did yesterday as I read and prayed over it. How can you miss the way he starts his letter: “O stupid Galatians!” Imagine opening up the letter from Saint Paul and reading that; and then needing to read it aloud to the others with you. Obviously, Saint Paul has had it; but we shouldn’t confuse tough love language with an ad hominin attack.
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The-Rosary-In-Our-Hands | family prayer
Waking yet again with a tear-stained pillow and used tissues on my nightstand, I rolled out of bed to begin another day of homeschooling my three young boys. My marriage had been very rocky for two months and I didn’t know WHY, but I knew I felt abandoned. I began praying the Rosary religiously every single day because I knew only an act from Heaven could save us. My husband’s heart was hardened toward me ... and he would not reveal why. Somehow, seven years in, I had suddenly woken up one day and we were only roommates.
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