"Pray without ceasing." St. Paul tells us, not only to pray, but to pray without ceasing. This is the ideal of monks and monasteries, but can a family do this, too?
That's what I've been working on ...
Slow and steady wins the race. My wife and I have been slowly adding family prayer times throughout our day. We started with a nightly Rosary or just a decade of the Rosary. Then we added a Morning Offering to our breakfast time together. I recently added the noon Angelus while we were on our family vacation.
Next steps? Annual consecration to Jesus through Mary or St. Joseph? Daily recitation of The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary? More on all this below ...
If these family prayers and family prayer times don't work for your family, don't worry. I have provided 10 Family Prayer Ideas below, so there is something that's sure to fit your family.
10 Family Prayer Ideas Table of Contents
- Why is Family Prayer Time so Important?
- Bedtime Prayer for Family: What is a Good Prayer to Say Before Bed?
- 1. The Mass, Attending Mass as a Family
- 2. Meal Blessings, or Grace Before Meals
- 3. The Sign of the Cross (and how NOT to do the Sign of the Cross)
- 4. Morning Offering
- 5. Daily Examination (Examen)
- 6. Angelus
- 7. Family Rosary & Family Chaplet of Divine Mercy
- 8. Family Consecration (Entrustment) to Jesus through Mary and/or St. Joseph
- 9. Novenas
- 10. Liturgy of the Hours Lite: The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary
- Bonus: Saint of the Day
Want a book with guides for saying all the following prayers? Here is the Catholic handbook for men I published: The Catholic ManBook!
Why is Family Prayer Time so Important?
The studies on family prayer time are compelling. Here is a selection of quotes from Catholic studies on family prayer. From these, I draw this simple conclusion: If I want my kids to get to Heaven, I need to pray with them. And - not that we need to be told this - getting our kids to Heaven is our primary responsibility as parents.
The Faith is not transmitted to our kids through a series of logical, reasoned arguments. A Report on American Catholic Religious Parenting by Justin Bartkus and Christian Smith provides the following:
One of the most basic suggestions of our findings is that young adults arrive at a sense of their fundamental identity and worldview not by weighing all possible intellectual arguments for and against a proposed way of life, but rather by roughly adopting the worldview of those mentors who left the deepest impression upon them—and who loved them and cared for them the most. It should come as no surprise, then, that the emergence of the new generation of dedicated young Catholics will rise and fall with the choices of their parents.[1]
What is the single most powerful force in a child’s religious formation?
What has the most powerful on the Catholic formation of our kids? Is it providing them with a Catholic education? Is it a charismatic youth minister and well-funded youth group? Is it the parish priest? No and no and no.
It's you! The parents. The single most powerful force in a child’s religious formation is the spiritual personality of the parent. Young people’s religious outcomes are decided, not in the parish or in Catholic school, but in the home.
Fathers. Dads. You have an especially important role in all this. Studies have shown that a father's faith, even more than the mother's, plays the critical role in the transmission of the faith to the next generation. You can read more on this here:
According to Families and Faith: How Religion is Passed Down Across Generations, the parental factors that make the most significant difference in promoting faith in youth are the following, in no particular order:[2]
- Parents’ personal faith and practice
- A close and warm parent-child relationship
- Parent modeling and teaching a religious faith
- Parent involvement in church life and Sunday worship
- Grandparent religious influence and relationship
According to Bartkus and Smith, the primary way to root catholic identity in children’s lives are "the day-to-day religious practices of the family and the ways parents model their faith and share it in conversation, collaboration, and exposure to outside religious opportunities."[1]
For more on these topics, here is a great article from the USCCB.
Here are some great ways to model your faith to your children, and maybe to enhance your faith, as well:
Bedtime Prayer for Family: What is a Good Prayer to Say Before Bed?
- The prayer should calm the children down before bed. Bedtime prayer is good to situate right before bed. Or even when the kids are already in bed. After story time. This is a good way to transition into bedtime, if you have trouble with bedtime anxiety.
- Everybody should be able to participate. Everybody should be able to contribute somehow. A good way to do this is to add intentions at the end. What or who do your little ones want to pray for?
- Flexibility! You should be able to continue the family tradition of prayer wherever you go, whatever you are doing (see consistency below). Bedtime prayer should be simple enough to continue while on vacation. In the car. Even on a plane!
- Consistency. Bedtime prayer should be short enough that you will say it every night. Bedtime prayer should not be too burdensome that kids dread it. Hopefully, after the first nights or weeks of a new family prayer tradition, the kids will enjoy it or at least stop groaning. In our family, it's the kids that start reminding us, the parents, that it's prayer time. That's how you know the flame of tradition is burning on its own!
Rosary Bedtime Prayer
1. The Mass, Attending Mass as a Family
- Sit as close to the altar as possible. The altar is visually stunning, full of light and spectacle. This is the best way to capture your children's attention.
- Don't use toys to distract your kids at Mass; let the Mass capture your kids' attention. As toys go, less is more. A chewable Rosary or a knotted Rosary is really all you need. Knotted Rosaries are good because (a) they survive teething, despite getting soggy, and (b) they don't CRASH when they hit the floor. When they get older, give your kids a children's missal/missalette.
- If you're really struggling with Sunday Mass, get your kids some extra practice. Try to go to a daily Mass, once-a-week (or month), as well.
2. Meal Blessings, or Grace Before Meals
3. The Sign of the Cross
Error #1: The Backwards Sign of the Cross
Error #2: The Muddled Sign of the Cross
Error #3: The Lazy Sign of the Cross
Add a Kiss to the Sign of the Cross?
4. Morning Offering
St. (Padre) Pio said "Undertake nothing, without first offering it to God." This is especially true of each new day. We need to offer all of our days to God.
That's why we add the Morning Offering at the end of our blessing at breakfast.
There are many variations on the Morning Offering. Here is a popular version invoking the Sacred Heart of Jesus: "My God, I offer you all my prayers, works, and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of your Most Sacred Heart. Amen."
Lord, we lift up this day to you, all of our thoughts, words, actions, and deeds, all of our joys, trials, and sorrows, all of our work and play; and we ask you Lord to open our hearts and minds to receive the graces needed to do Your Will this day, to bring you glory and honor and growth to Your Kingdom. We ask this through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.
Toddler Version of the Morning Offering
All my thoughts, all my words, all my actions of this day I offer to You Lord, and all out of love.
Craft Your Own Family Version of the Morning Offering
5. Daily Examination (Examen)
- Put yourself in God's presence. Ask God to draw near.
- Thank God. In your day, what are you thankful for?
- Ask God to show you your day. Sort of like a Magic 8-Ball, moments from your day will bubble up. Why is God showing you this moment? Where is God's grace in this moment?
- In your day, where did you mess up? Where did you fail to accept God's grace? How will you do better next time?
- What are you looking forward to in the coming day?
6. Angelus
Pray the Angelus at noon with your family. It so short and simple and impactful. It's a great way to break up and refresh your day. The Angelus is also a good bedtime prayer for the family.
Here is the text of the Angelus prayer:
The Regina Caeli Prayer
Funny story ...
I had been planning to start saying the Angelus for years. I finally set an alarm on my phone to remind myself to pray the Angelus, and success! I finally remembered to say the Angelus for a whole week. I was feeling pretty good about myself ... then I had lunch with a priest friend of mine.
He told me, "but it's Eastertide, you're supposed to switch to the Regina Caeli Prayer." Doh.
So, don't make the same mistake I did. For Eastertide (Easter day through Pentecost), here is the link for the Regina Caeli (Queen of Heaven) Prayer.
7. Family Rosary & Family Divine Mercy Chaplet
We have a lot of little kids, so a single decade is about enough. We plan to expand to a full Rosary as the kids get older.
My kids also love singing the Rosary. Reddit user u/kmeem5 adds "I noticed [the kids] zone out if we just 'say' it but when we sing it they’re more engaged and focused." This is terrific advice, and I agree. It's a beautiful thing to sing the Rosary as a family.
>> Don't know how to sing the Rosary? Here's a helpful video to teach you how to sing the Rosary.
>> Don't know how to pray the Rosary? Check out the helpful guide below ...
Family Divine Mercy Chaplet - Great Afternoon Family Prayer
This is a great prayer to recite in the afternoon. The Divine Mercy Chaplet is typically prayed at 3:00pm as a memorial to Christ's death on Good Friday.
The Divine Mercy Chaplet is also a shorter prayer than the Rosary. This might help the kids catch on easier.
Like the Rosary, you can sing the Divine Mercy Chaplet, too. Reddit user u/kmeem5 adds that "my kids learned the Divine Mercy Chaplet from a song. They sing it all the time while they play or just walking around the house (they’re 4 and 7)."
>> Don't know how to sing the Divine Mercy Chaplet? Here's a helpful video to teach you how to sing the Divine Mercy Chaplet.
>> Don't know how to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet? Check out the helpful guide below ...
How to Pray the Rosary Guide
Do you know one of the main reasons people give for not praying the Rosary? Too long? Too old-school? Nope. The main reason is they don't know how to pray the Rosary. If you need help reciting the Rosary, here is a quick guide to praying the Rosary:
How to Pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy Guide
I didn't learn to pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy until far too late in life. I actually first learned to pray it at 40 Days for Life. Yet another great fruit of 40 Days for Life!
8. Family Entrustment or Consecration to Jesus through Mary or St. Joseph
If we prayed a normal Marian Consecration, like St. Louis de Montfort's, my kids would be totally lost. Thankfully, Dr. Carrie Gress has published a Marian Consecration for Children:
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