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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Catholic Family Fun | Summer Vacation | childhood memories | family life
Looking for practical tips for making summer travel memorable through connection, faith, flexibility, and realistic expectations? Catholic Mom writerShelly Henley Kelly has discovered several practical tips for meaningful family travel that foster connection, deepen faith, and embrace flexibility for unforgettable summer adventures. Summer lies just around the corner, and our family is no stranger to summer travel. We’ve turned work-related trips into mini-vacations, approached summer sports tournaments with the mindset of exploring new places, and even embarked on a multi-generational family trip overseas. In time, we’ve become more purposeful in seeking our faith and making our travel meaningful and memorable. We want trips that strengthen our family connection, deepen our faith, and include experiences everyone can enjoy. These are a few practical tips we’ve discovered over the years. Let us learn how to take a break, turn off the mobile phone to gaze into the eyes of others, cultivate silence, contemplate nature and regenerate ourselves in dialogue with God. (Pope Francis, Angelus 18 July 2021)
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catholic parenting | family life | power of prayer
Discover how to combat negativity in parenting by focusing on positivity and emotional armor, ensuring peace prevails in your family dynamics. One of the many benefits of our faith is the reminders that we are in a constant battle. We daily face the world, the flesh, and devil, as the adage goes. We have the admonition to put on the armor for the Lord in Ephesians 6:10-20. And despite Christ’s gift of peace during the Last Supper discourse (John 14:27) we know peace isn’t easy to find, even in our own families.
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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.
Easter season | catholic devotions | family life
Once Lent ends, it signals for most Catholics that they can resume doing whatever they gave up. It’s like an exhale of relief that it’s over. If your Lenten experience didn’t transform you, you can still experience a closer connection to Christ during Eastertide, the season of the Resurrection. While Lent was focused on sacrifice, as Jesus sacrificed His life for us to have everlasting life, Eastertide is 50 days of celebrating the glory of the Resurrection. Jesus appeared to his disciples for 40 days before His Ascension to Heaven. Then the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles at Pentecost, empowering them to share the Gospel and signaling the beginning of Christianity. As believers and followers of Christ, we are also empowered to model and share the message of our Lord Jesus as His disciples.
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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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Advent | Advent calendar | Catholic Family Fun | family life
As we approach the joyous season of Advent, it’s a time for us to prepare our hearts and homes for the coming of Christ. Advent is a season of anticipation, hope, and joy, with many ways we can immerse ourselves in the true reason for the season. This year, Catholic Mom and Family Rosary are excited to introduce several engaging activities to help you and your family make the most of this sacred time, including the SnapAdvent Instagram Photo Challenge, our new interactive Advent Calendar (with three ways to use it), an Advent Playlist on Spotify, and a collection of inspiring eBooks.
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Parenting | family life | prayer
What subjects does your school of love do well, and where can your school of love improve? “The family is a school of love,” Saint John Paul II once said. I wish I had seen this phrase early enough to have taped it to my fridge when our five young adult children were little. It might have empowered me to see more clearly the sublime dignity in my role as a mother in the most intense hands-on years. As I meditate on this phrase now, and on the section of The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) where the virtues of the family are laid out, it’s clear my chances have not vanished entirely: not in my role as a mother nor as a daughter. Not yet, anyway.
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