Family Faith on the Go!
Different families have different names for this kind of space: home altar, home shrine, celebration table, and so on. Whatever you call it, use the space as a physical reminder of God’s presence in your home, as well as your intention as a family to create “space” for God in your life.
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.
When you pray for God’s blessing on your kids’ school day, you’re equipping them with something far more valuable than a #2 pencil or textbook. Here are three simple ways to go.
It sounds simple, but if you make a habit of it, taking thirty seconds of silence before (and after) your spoken prayer can improve your family prayer time and lay the foundation for kids to learn meditative prayer.
You’ve got a baby in one arm, groceries in the other, your toddler somehow got your phone, which is ringing—quick, what do you do? When you need to pray but don’t really have time to sit down and compose yourself, an invocation might be just the ticket. Invocations (or “pious invocations”) are very short prayers—usually a phrase or sentence—that can be said once (as a quick, spontaneous prayer during stressful or busy times) or repeated over and over as a way of meditating on the presence of God.
