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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Blessed Virgin Mary | Catholic Faith | pray the rosary
Meg Herriot looks back on how she has grown in praying the Rosary and the ways she and her husband have made the Rosary the center of family prayer.
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Catholic Faith | family prayer | parish culture
When Patrick Peyton first arrived in Scranton, Pennsylvania, from Ireland, he searched for work for weeks without success. Monsignor Kelly tracked him down and offered him a job as a sexton (janitor) in the cathedral—he accepted. Finally, while working in the cathedral, with the silence, peace, and joy of talking to Our Lord and Our Blessed Mother, Patrick experiences a sense of being at home and a place of happiness. Patrick’s dream of becoming a missionary priest is awakened in a new land. ~FatherPeyton.org Today, guest contributor, Mary Kreger, shares her moving experience as a church custodian. Help Wanted In the spring of 2022, our pastor announced after Sunday Mass that the church sacristan and groundskeeper would be leaving the parish for a new job. “On behalf of our church, I want to thank Chuck for his 27 years of faithful service,” our pastor said, adding, “Chuck’s full-time position will now be divided into three part-time jobs, including a church custodian role.” My ears perked up at this last announcement. They needed someone to clean the church? I could do that. “Unless we find someone willing to do these part-time jobs, the parish can’t go on,” the pastor continued. “Please consider applying.”
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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.
Catholic Faith | Feast of the Sacred Heart
The Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 27. The feast day is essentially a celebration of God’s Tenderness, His Mercy, His Love for each one of us, and for our world. The Heart in almost every human tradition is considered the symbol and the habitat for Love, for Tenderness, and for Mercy. The Prophet Ezekiel shares how the Lord unveils His tender heart when he says, “I myself will look after and tend my sheep. The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal.” Through this reading, we look inside the tender heart of God, who personally and deeply cares about each one of us and is willing to do anything it takes to care for each one of us. He does not want to delegate but wants to personally take care of us. His is a Love that is gentle, that seeks, that cares, and that is merciful.
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Catholic Faith | Parenthood | intentional rest
I recently recalled a long-ago memory of teaching one of my children the alphabet. They asked, “What words use the lemony letter?” Asking them what they meant, they insisted there was a lemony letter. We then said the alphabet together again, and the truth was revealed. L, M, O, P! In their childhood lisp and said very quickly, those letters became "lemony." Hiding my laughter, I realized I was partially to blame. I hadn’t taken the time to slow them down to articulate each letter clearly and purposefully. We began again, deliberately saying each and every letter, writing them as we went along, revealing all 26 letters. Does Your Life Give You Whiplash Learning to slow down is important beyond learning to read and write. We can all find ourselves blurring words in texts and conversations. We take shortcuts in recipes and look for the fastest Rosary to follow on YouTube. It seems we want to get through this short life we have been given by God as fast as we possibly can.
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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 Faith | family prayer | pray the rosary
Several years ago, my mom found herself in a precarious situation. Financial struggles and the complexities of her ordeal made her problems seem insurmountable. Her mental health—and her very future—hung in the balance, and I did everything I could to help. At the same time, my wife and I were new parents, and the weight of trying to pull my mom out of her difficulties threatened to pull my marriage down with it. I felt trapped, as if caught between Scylla and Charybdis—every path forward seemed to lead to disaster. I was treading water, searching for something—anything—to hold onto, even just a tiny glimmer of hope. And that consoling presence I longed for? It was nowhere to be found. I remember sitting in my mom’s living room one evening, anxiety pressing down on me. I worried about her. About myself. About my wife and our child. Then, as if something deep within me was praying through me, I began murmuring the Hail Mary. Over and over, I whispered: Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee… My thought—or maybe my hope—was that another mother might step in to help us. Without even realizing it, my mind had slipped into a practice I had learned as a child in Catholic school—the Rosary. That night, as I whispered each prayer, I asked for a miracle. And do you know what happened?
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