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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Learn more about our faith | Why pray? | rosary rally
If you were to ask a bunch of Christians what the oldest heresy faced by the Church is, I’d bet that most would guess Arianism, an early 4th-century heresy that said Jesus wasn’t really divine. In fact, the threat of Arianism led to the great councils and the Nicene Creed. But the first major heresy goes back centuries earlier, almost to the beginning of Christianity itself. That heresy was Gnosticism, which said -- among many things -- that Jesus wasn’t really human, but only appeared so. And, interestingly, if we meditate on today’s Gospel passage, we can see how Gnosticism itself is a kind of wrongheaded, misguided defense of Jesus from criticisms that Our Lord faced in His own lifetime. Is Jesus Too Human Today, we hear Jesus lamenting how His critics simply can’t accept that a true prophet, especially the Messiah, could eat and drink freely and socialize with sinners. This is all too ordinary and human! A figure from God should be more other-worldly, separated, and inaccessible. And the Gnostics, accepting these kinds of premises, said, “You’re right; the Son of God could not actually be so lowly. That’s why all this human stuff was just an act.”
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Learn more about our faith | Our Lady of Sorrows
How fitting it is that today’s Gospel follows directly after yesterday’s celebration of Our Lady of Sorrows. For in the passage we just heard, Jesus responds with tremendous compassion for a sorrowful mother, a widow who has lost her only son, a widow whom Christ recognizes as a pre-figuring of His own Mother at the Cross and at His tomb. And in his miracle at Nain of raising her son, Jesus, of course, also pre-figures His own Resurrection.
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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.
Learn more about our faith | Our Lady of Sorrows
When parents leave the hospital with their newborn, it’s one of the strangest moments in life. The nurse hands you this tiny human and says, “Congratulations, you can go home now.” And you think: That’s it? No manual comes with it? No training session? Not even a return policy? One dad told me he drove home from the hospital at fifteen miles an hour, with the mother and the newborn, with hazard lights flashing, convinced that every pothole was a death trap for the newborn. Another mother confessed that she spent the first week constantly checking if her baby was still breathing, until her husband joked, “If you keep touching and feeling the child every five minutes, none of us will ever sleep again.” Parenting begins with this comedy of fear and love. You’re overwhelmed, exhausted, terrified, and yet you would do anything for that child. Simeon’s words to Mary, from Luke's Gospel, “A sword will pierce your own soul too,” capture that same mystery. Love opens you to joy but also to the deepest wounds. Every parent, every spouse, and every friend who has loved knows this truth: to embrace love is to risk being pierced.
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On April 15, 2019, the world watched as flames tore through Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. For hours it seemed nothing could survive. Yet amid the smoke, firefighters and few daring cathedral staff formed a human chain to rescue what could not be replaced: the Crown of Thorns, relics of saints, the Blessed Sacrament. Reuters, the newspaer later reported that 90 percent of the cathedral’s treasures were saved because, in the moment of crisis, people knew instinctively what mattered most. When the fire subsided, a golden cross still hung above the altar, gleaming through the ashes. That image is what Paul is talking about in Colossians in the first reading today. “Seek what is above, not what is on earth.” Not because the earth is worthless, but because in the fire, we learn to recognize what endures.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
St. Paul, as he usually does, greets the Colossians, as brothers and sisters and reminds them and us that we have received the Lord Jesus Christ. He then encourages us to walk with Jesus and to have our lives rooted in our faith in God. But as Paul often does, he also draws to our attention to a potential pitfall that he wants us to avoid…
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
On September 8 each year, we celebrate not just a birthday, but the dawn of hope. The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary marks the tender beginning of God’s promise—through the birth of a daughter who would become the Mother of our Savior. Mary’s life offers families today a model, especially in a world where parents juggle endless demands, children face digital distractions, and households often feel scattered. Her example speaks through three simple but powerful qualities: humble presence, hungry hearts, and sacred wisdom.
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