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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Advent | Family Activities | Sacred Heart enthronement
Make room for Jesus. As we prepare our hearts and home for Advent and the Christmas Season, we are invited to declutter our lives and make room for the Lord. Jesus offers us His most Sacred Heart of Jesus as a refuge for all. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a Visitation Sister who lived in the 17th century, was invited by Jesus to be the Disciple of the Sacred Heart and begin a movement of renewal through encountering His Most Sacred Heart, resulting in deeper faith and love. In this ongoing series, we will learn more about the Sacred Heart, Saints like St. Margaret Mary, and ways we can better live out this devotion so that this Christmas we give our hearts and home to Jesus in a new way.
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Advent | Catholic Family Fun | Family Rosary
Lindsay Schlegel recaps her own experience of using the new book, The Family That Prays Together Stays Together, to pray the Rosary. Most weekdays, I pray a decade of the Rosary with my children as I drive them to school. In our routine, this practice comes after a shared morning offering, guardian angel prayer, spiritual communion if the kids don’t have Mass at school that day, and prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. Some days, it’s a quiet and peaceful experience. Other times, it comes after a rush to get out the door and a frustrating cajoling to get whoever hasn’t led a decade that week to either take his turn or speak up from the back of the car. Often my mind is somewhere else for at least part of the decade. For one thing, I’m driving, and for another, the prayer is so familiar to me that it can be tough to stay present, especially if I’m not really prepared for what’s coming next in my day. More often, I’m thinking of the person I’m offering the prayer for (if I can remember to do that!) than the mystery itself.
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Advent | Catholic Faith | Grandpa's Garden | catholic family life
It’s interesting how often we follow routines around holidays and holy days. Families have traditional ways of decorating, menus for shared meals, and seating arrangements. There is something comforting about the ways we have come to celebrate important events together. Yet, with any celebration, change is in the air. I don’t think things are ever “the same” year to year, celebration to celebration, or day to day. It might seem that way, but we constantly change, we grow, history unfolds, our children grow up, they bring their families to gatherings, and so on. God’s Spirit fills the earth, gives life, and embraces our hearts with the life-changing grace of His presence.
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Advent | Catholic Faith | Grandpa's Garden | catholic family life
Each morning in the predawn, I accompany our dog into the yard. The neighborhood is quiet, and I encourage our pup to keep it that way. He has a way of letting out a woof when surprised by something he’s not familiar with. On a clear morning, there is a deep orange glow on the horizon, promising the coming sunrise. These past mornings, the frost on the grass glistened in the porch light. It is a tranquil time on the edge of darkness and light.
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Advent | Catholic traditions | family life
When my children were younger, we painted seven letters purple and then sprayed glitter paint over the top. The seven purple letters are hung every Advent, reminding us to prepare our hearts for Christmas. Now, as I sit early in the morning by a Christmas tree lit with the promise of a season of hope, I am prayerfully going deeper into what it truly means to prepare. Advent is a time of such busyness: a whirlwind of shopping, decorating, and hospitality added to the everyday responsibilities that the peace that calls to us can be hard to pause for. But what if we did? What does that look like—that pause? For me, it can mean closing my laptop and sitting with the Lord. Peaceful Christmas music playing softly in the background, I hear Him calling and from my couch, snuggled with a sleeping child, white lights twinkling from that tree, I pause. We walk heart in heart, Jesus and I, perhaps down memory lane, talking through all the thoughts swirling around in my head and heart, and he shows me all the ways He has loved me through the Christmases.
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