Family Faith on the Go!
Make gratitude the main dish at your table this Thanksgiving. We have not one not two but a dozen prayers to choose from to thank God before the big meal, from making a table runner to inviting a homeless person to praying a Thanksgiving litany. You’ll find all the choices online.
Catholic dad Jerry Windley-Daoust says that a lot of Catholic parents would love to say the rosary with their kids if the experience wasn’t quite so fraught. At our house, we barely make it out of the preliminaries before the littles are swinging their beads around like lassos which inevitably become airborne missiles and if you have ever been whacked in the face by a rosary mid-Hail Mary, you know it kind of ruins the mood. Our older kids are better, but I personally remember doing some groaning and eye-rolling as a teen when it came time for the rosary. Fortunately, we’ve come up with a couple insights that help us to pray the rosary as a family in a more sane and meaningful way. Find 12 ways to help kids with the Rosary online.
Praying with kids can be more messy than holy, especially when you are just beginning to pray together, and especially when young children are involved. Know that you are not alone: hundreds of generations of Christian parents have had the same experience. Setting aside a regular time to pray together as a family is the first step towards a lifelong habit of prayer for your kids. TCK has nine strategies for getting started, plus tips for dealing with those “prayer time crazies.”
What are your family’s rituals when someone gets sick? Healing was a centerpiece of Jesus’ ministry, and he instructed his disciples to heal, too. Make praying for healing part of your family’s routine when someone gets sick. On our website you’ll discover how, along with a blessing to use.
The practice of reflecting on God using the natural world as a sort of “icon” for the divine has been neglected by many Christians who are put off by the secular practice of treating nature as the only way of encountering God, along with the tendency of New Age spirituality to divinize nature. But ignoring the ways that we can encounter the presence of God in the natural world cuts us off from an important part of our tradition, not to mention a way of experiencing God’s presence with a sense of awe, wonder, and joy. Dive deeper to find five ways of praying with nature.
