As a convert with no collective memory to draw on, and also, not inconsequentially, no prayer life to speak of, I had no idea how to pray with the children! There are many things I wish I had done differently. My ability to produce children was greater than my ability to process that I had a lot to learn, let alone to learn it.
I had high, possibly very unrealistic hopes all right — and no practical way to go about realizing them.
My husband, although from a Catholic family, didn't have much to go on either. I'm not exactly sure what went on in his family, but I know that we both, for different reasons, had a very private approach to prayer.
I, because I simply didn't know how to pray with others, or, to be honest, pray at all; he, because… well, I think it's because somewhere along the line prayer didn't seem as lively as other things in life when he was young. So when he recovered it, he did it alone.
How can it be that mothers and fathers think that praying together is anything other than a dry duty, if that?
How can it happen that prayer isn't the loving gathering of worship and consoling supplication, the best and calmest part of the day together?
Maybe you are in something of the same situation.
Maybe your family feels a little uncomfortable making a big show of praying — yet you know you should want a prayer life together. Maybe your kids aren't super quiet and docile (where are those quiet, docile kids, anyway?) and you just can't face it.
Maybe you just feel so awkward. Maybe your spouse's awkwardness dovetails with yours to produce the strongest bond of awkwardness imaginable.
So, if you like, here are a few suggestions from those two boxes I keep here marked “Experiences That Have Stood the Test of Time” and “If I Could Do It Over, Knowing What I Know Now, Here's How I'd Do It.” After all, no point in you making all the same mistakes, right? No; learn from my mediocre example.
Here's one big secret, that will liberate you from the latest and the greatest and the constant merry-go-round that is our quest to improve things: Know that the perfect antidote to awkwardness is not the acquisition of magical confidence or suave skill.
Luckily, no.
It's ritual.
Now, it's true that ritual can be dry. Everything in this life has a downside, and ritual is no exception. But as long as we put in some attentiveness — love, actually — ritual will come alive and rescue us from the necessity of fervor. Fervor is a tricky thing. Sometimes you got it and sometimes you don't got it.
Whereas attentiveness you can usually muster.
Ritual is external. We can access it no matter how we feel inside, and believe me, interior dryness is far more common than exterior dryness — it's just easier to mask. If we ground ritual in love and beauty, things should go fine.
So rely on time, place, and familiar words.
Also, keep things simple and stop comparing yourselves to the Trapp Family, who, to be fair, had their own chaplain. You can cover up a multitude of awkwardness, lameness, ignorance, and sloth if you have your own dang chaplain. I know I have referenced the Trapp Family here, and they have their uses. But keep it under control.
Know that as your children grow, your prayer life with them will grow as well. And just as you hardly expect to know what to do about taking care of a large family when baby #1 is born but rather work up to it gradually, so you don't have to worry yet about praying the Liturgy of the Hours with your two-year-old.
Baby steps.
Time.
Let's go through the day with the simple prayer life of the Awkwards, a family of squirmy, noisy, boisterous recent converts who know nothing.
The Awkwards wake up and (after the proper ablutions — no, you don't offend God by brushing your teeth before greeting Him, although of course it's good to have the habit of having your very first thought fly to His heart, just as the last one at night did) make a morning offering.
It's lovely to do this together. When our kids were little the Chief composed this prayer (at least I think he did — I'm sure you will tell me if you already knew this one) to say at breakfast, which we all ate together:
Dear Lord, Please bless our food and bless us today,
Help us in all of our work and our play
To make it all a prayer to you. A-MEN {Oh, you better believe they shouted said that loudly.}
If we remember to offer our whole day to God, then even later if we forget in the heat of battle to offer some suffering, shock, thanksgiving, or intention, at least we will have made this act of the will early on. Later, as they get older, you can teach them a more mature Morning Offering that they can say on their own, and you can even put a copy up in the bathroom near the toothbrushes, thereby helping them to accomplish two things at once!
At noon, you could say the Angelus. This is a lovely prayer based on Scripture that commemorates the Incarnation, without which we would just be stranded here, little pitiful earthlings, with a set of directions and no clear way to implement them.
It's short. If you happen to live near the fire station and can hear the noon whistle, or a church that chimes the hours, that's helpful. If not, you can set an alarm of some sort. Kids love to stop what they are doing — and more thrillingly, insist that you stop what you are doing — to pray.
Our family often forgets to say the Angelus. But we should remember it. In the Easter season, you can remember to say the Regina Coeli (pronounced “re-geen-a chay-li”) instead. It's even shorter.
Grace at lunch. Grace at dinner. (You've already said the Morning Offering at breakfast and blessed the food at the same time, remember? Clever Chief.)
Yes, saying grace counts as prayer.
See how silly you are? You don't count things because you are doing them. You're like me with an exercise routine: I take it for granted that any exercises I do can hardly be considered a workout. Note the self-defeating program built right into that idea.
Saying grace is a wonderful prayer. First, simply praying before we eat affirms the dignity of our human nature. Unlike the animals, we are aware that our food is a gift. We don't just dive in. Once you are used to saying grace, it seems so undignified to eat without stopping first, simply to have awareness of the goodness of being able to eat, to have life. Then, as we turn our mind to the Giver, we are instantly knowing how much more than the food we are grateful for. Each other, Divine Providence, God himself.
Being grateful is a wonderful state of mind. Taking things for granted is a benighted state of mind.
{Bonus: It's just that much harder to complain about the food after you've given thanks for it.}
I do recommend knowing a particular form for grace. Being able to say, “Bless us, Oh Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord, Amen” can rescue everyone from the necessity of being original, sometimes an unbearable burden. But once everyone knows it, of course you can free-form if you like.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now, a little note to you, Mrs. Awkward, neé Princess Good-Intentions.
Let your husband lead grace at the table.
I too, having seized on the idea that we needed to say grace, would launch in without regard to anything other than my enthusiasm to say it! Finally, my dear husband, who is not given to standing on his authority, gently let me know that I ought to let him lead. I never even thought about who was leading! It never occurred to me! I started because I was the one who knew dinner was ready! Not because I wanted to usurp his place!
But still. We had to develop a little dance of me indicating that I was ready with kids and meal and he being the one to start. You see, the father's role as prayer leader is also under construction, and this sort of thing is how you find your way.
On the other hand. Many fathers just come from such a long line of Awkwards that they protest and demur. They'd really rather not start the prayer. It's actually okay with them if you do it. You do seem so much more confident. Go ahead, Honey!
Don't fall for it. Ever so gently relinquish this place to him, encourage him, and don't make a big deal of it. Eventually he'll get more comfy and able to go on to bigger and better things, things which rely on his state, not his ability. And his state is head of the family, with all that entails — ah, so much more than leading grace!
In our family, as we love rules, we have a whole contingency plan for absences!
In the absence of the father, the eldest boy leads grace. In the absence of any boys, the youngest girl leads grace. In the absence of — everyone! — Mom leads grace. Fine with me! I do a lot of bossing to make up for it.
Okay! You made it through dinner.
Next month is October, the month of the Rosary, so I will leave my discussion of that prayer for that time. But for now, let me say that having instituted the prayers so far, you should be pretty proud of a good day's work and not worry about it too much. Let's finish our day with night prayers, shall we?
Night prayers can be as simple as kneeling with your children and hearing their God blesses (“God bless Mama and Papa, etc…). It's good to mix their own prayers with one or two traditional prayers such as the Our Father, Hail Mary, and especially the Guardian Angel prayer, which has the virtue of teaching us the importance of our angel as well as quelling any fears of being left alone at this important moment of saying goodnight.
If I were doing this over, I might ask my husband if he didn't think it was a good idea to do some form of Night Prayers, as found in the Liturgy of the Hours. Now, we are not monks and bedtime for a busy family is already protracted enough. This is supposed to be about simple forms of prayer, and I don't want to contradict myself. I bet, though, having familiarized yourself with this ancient form of prayer, you could come up with an abbreviated version suitable for children — a ritual that incorporates familiar words but also allows for little squirmers. Have you yet discovered The Magnificat? This booklet, which you subscribe to and is invaluable for Mass, has an abbreviated form of Night Prayers — this example is for Lent – that can be memorized.
Night prayers should include an examination of conscience. This takes a little teaching, of course… It's important to help children (among others such as adults and everyone) lightly touch on what may not have been, ahem, perfect about the day, and to ask forgiveness. But even more, to look forward to the next day with a specific resolution.
In the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom it says, “Let this day be without sin….” That isn't going to just happen, and the earlier we learn this, the better! To avoid sin we must focus on particular good things we can do and strive for. Keep in mind that this is a life-long learning experience, and what you are starting now is the habit of confidence in God's forgiveness and trust in His help.
Place.
Obviously the place for grace is at the table, around the food. But what about other prayers? For reasons too complicated to go into here, but which relate to that very private feeling I had about prayer, I never understood the idea of a home prayer space. The idea seemed to overreach. It seemed to blur the line between the sacramental and the ordinary. It made me nervous, out of the fear I had of having to manufacture a feeling about prayer when the feelings I was experiencing disappeared.
I was also put off by homes where religious objects overwhelm the important human element. Do you know what I mean? Walls just covered with religious prints, with no thought to beauty or suitability, as if the fact of being intended to arouse devotion is sufficient — which, well, it's not. No, you need to pay attention to fittingness, loveliness, and proportion, in this matter as in all else!
Anyway, I didn't realize that a prayer corner or Icon corner was traditional. I had never seen one. I didn't realize that the sacramental can be fittingly memorialized and called to mind in the home — and I didn't yet know about blessed candles and other blessed objects. I guess I just didn't see how you can enhance the ordinary, suffusing it with the breath of the sacred.
{Updated to add that I went on to write a book with David Clayton called The Little Oratory, to expand on these helps here in this post.}
So I do encourage you to think about a space in your home for a prayer corner if you don't already have one. My friend Therese has a sweet place in her dining room.
I am thinking about it too, as there doesn't seem to be a natural place for one in my home (for one thing, despite its vastness and many mantels, my house has few spacious corners! Weird.)
We need to work on this, don't we? Again, I'm not talking to those readers who are all up on all of this with your home chapels and ringing bells and polyphonic underwater chant.
I just mean little old us, the recovering secular-aholics; the gropers for we-know-not-what-ers.
At the prayer table or altar or corner the family can gather for simple worship. There each person can find a little refuge for private devotion. And then the arrangement of objects that express our reverence bless those who receive our hospitality — all without our saying a word.
Don't be discouraged by thinking, “It's too late, I've already made a mess of things.”
Why, this foremost Awkward family has introduced all sorts of traditions at very late dates — sometimes our older children come home and are a wee bit astonished at some new practice we've adopted, often at the request of the younger ones. Sometimes it's because Phil or I have thrown dignity to the winds and have taken advantage of Advent and Lent, which are great times to start deeper devotions, to institute something we knew we should have been doing all along, but had no idea how — and just said, “Hey, we need to do this.”
Sometimes we've gone off in the wrong direction and have had to correct our course. Sometimes it's seemed so obvious after we've started that we wondered what we were thinking before! That's okay. It's part of our particular journey, and we're doing our best.
Children are always open to our sincere desire to put our best aspirations into practice. As long as we genuinely seek what is true and simple, without drama, they will be open.
Could you do these few simple things in your day with your spouse and your children?
Don't let pride get in the way of starting fresh. Children have no pride in that sense.
They are full of wonder.
They will love praying with you.
MaryBeth says
Love that post!
justamouse says
I don't think I'm ever going to have a favorite post, they just keep getting better.
This is perfect timing for our family, thank you.
Suzanne says
We are the Awkwards! I'm a convert, my husband from a Catholic-in-name- only-heathen-in-every-other-respect family, and I just had no idea what to do! Trying to figure it out while our kids (6,5, & 2) are still young enough to embrace family prayer as a natural part of the day, this is so helpful. Thank you!
Palak says
What a wonderful post! We are not catholic– but hindu- and we have just started praying as a family in the evening. Our two year old cajoled us into doing this; as he seems to love all things having to do with god. I will definitely keep your article in mind as we add more to our nightly ritual.
canadash says
The rituals of family life are something I've witnessed over and over again and happily adopted into my everyday life. Books that have helped include “A Mother's Rule of Life” by Holly Pierlot and visiting Madonna House in Comberemere Ontario. At Madonna House the Icons are everywhere. There are stations of the cross outside on the trees and Statues as you walk through the woods. Everything in life is Ritual and Prayer. I remember visiting Slovenia, my parents' homeland, and being so impressed at the recitation of the Rosary by the whole family in the evening (Grandparents, Parents, Aunts/Uncles and children). No one was excused. What to remember though is that we are all working through it. Everyone thinks that everyone else has it all together, but we are all in the same struggle. Thanks for the fantastic post!
Lisa says
wow!
“everyone thinks that everyone else has it all together but we are all in the same struggle”
canadash: thanks for letting me know i'm not the 'only' one ….I have a bad habit of doing so.
Lisa G. says
What in insightful post!! “…as long as we put in some attentiveness, ritual will come alive and rescue us from the NECESSITY OF FORM.” Now that is eloquence. You don't need kids to appreciate that.
Heidi says
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Our family is lacking a great deal in the corporate worship department. Your posts are such an encouragement to me – so few parenting resources tackle the steps between “have children” and “sit quietly in a row in church”. I appreciate your vision for this blog and your ability and willingness to remain true to that vision. Please don't stop, at least not until my kids are in college!
Lisa says
These pictures were the best. I paused at the floor pic.. loved them all so much!
When my husband says prayers with the boys, it's completely ritualistic and ….boring. I try to be personalized and more specific…yet he is more consistant! As in, he never skips prayers (albeit they'll bore you to tears) whereas, I am …..um…lazy at the end of the full-day -with -the -kids and will say, (hide face) “okay, i love you all, see you in the morning, thank you God for this day…Say your prayers.”
Is that a balance? We're trying, right?
Sue says
We're not exactly the Awkwards over here. We're more like the Enthusiastic Inconsistents. Blessings before meals and prayers at bed time come pretty naturally, since I was raised in a strong Christian home. It's consistently remembering to pray together at other times that can be hard. I second your recommendation of the Magnificat. That helps me so much, because I want to read from the Scriptures daily, and pray consistently as a family as well as on my own, and with that handy booklet at my fingertips it is so much easier to do. I love that we can read the Mass readings each day right along with the rest of the Church! The information about Saints and feast days is so helpful for me as well.
Interestingly, since I was an Evangelical for 39 out of my 40 years so far extemporaneous prayer is so easy for me. I actually find it more awkward to pray set prayers. I often felt like I was stumbling into it with an “OK everyone let's say the Our Father.” I'm getting better at it, though. Practice, practice, practice!
Kathleen Jaeger says
I love the title…Enthusiastic Inconsistents….I definitely relate to that!
Glenda Childers says
A beautiful, practical post on such an important topic. Thank you for thinking about this and being a great tender teacher.
Fondly,
Glenda
Debra says
I've never commented on a post before but this post has encouraged me as a 56 year old mom of 5 and grandma of 3 to never give up striving to sanctify our family life. I get tempted by the thought that as parents we did not fully embrace, or even understand completely, our responsibility as our children's primary teachers of the faith. I have to stop myself every day from thinking ' what if we had done this….' and be reminded that God is not done with us yet. Thank you and God bless.
Bethanne says
I hope this doesn't make me an underwater polyphonic chanter, but for us, prayer isn't about the what, but the who. Prayer is talking and listening (that part is really important) to God and when I remind myself that this is about a relationship we are in (as in, we talk to our friends on a regular basis and I want to be considered a friend of God) I don't feel the awkwardness and it frees us up to lift our hearts in prayer. Some specific prayers help us when we can't get to that place fully, when we're distracted by the secular, but sometimes I think it is as simple as a conversation. Thank you for giving people courage to begin.
kate says
Blessings to you and yours. We get to begin again.
Thank you for the encouragement.
Pax et Bonum,
K
Rabbit says
I had no idea you were a convert! This gives new meaning to “if I can do it, you can do it too!” 🙂 As a cradle Catholic, I often feel lost…because my parents weren't “into” it enough, or I was raised in the liberal Northeast, or I didn't have good religious ed/Pre-Cana/etc. Now I know that it's possible to start fresh.
Would you share more of your conversion story at some time?
Kate says
Over our 25 years of marriage I've prayed morning prayers with the kids, being more regular during the school year, and try to follow with the saint of the day reading or spiritual readings during Lent and Advent. Grace at meals, of course. My husband leads night prayer. We go to morning mass on feast days and Friday, but not daily. I still forget to say the Angelus because I don't keep track of the clock very well. I feel like we should add more, like maybe the Divine Mercy chaplet at 3, but we are often scattered various ways in the afternoon or out at errands. I feel like a real slacker since a family moved nearby that regulates their life around prayer – daily mass, liturgy of the hours, rosary, chaplets, no art on the walls except religious art and no secular books on the shelves. They don't go to social events that conflict with their prayer life. I know I shouldn't compare, but I feel like such a spiritual wimp whenever I talk to the mom of this family. My husband, the zealous but level-headed convert, says we can't do every ding dang devotion out there. But I can't help feeling that if I tried harded, got more organized, became holier I could get more in.
Mamabear, JD says
I am so glad that you told us you are a convert! And I wish you'd been doing this 8 years ago, because I've had to muddle my way through seeing what works. I am so thankful for the rosary, because having no place else to start, I started there with my little ones – praying the Our Father and Hail Mary every night after lullabies, whenever they needed rocking, and then as they could speak, more slowly to get the words right. We don't pull a full daily rosary, but that's my goal eventually. I make a big deal about gathering for prayer as my two bigs go to school and giving them a great big blessing on their heads as they leave with Dad. That's more for me than for them I think.
I recommend downloading a recited rosary for sometimes. It works well for us, if you have a sick one on the couch, to put on the rosary – or even the Divine Mercy Chaplet (my 3 year old really likes the recording we have) – to get everyone in one room, calm them down, maybe you have one who is sick and you need to corral the others calmly? We gather around the coffee table, our little altar is on the mantle – in sight but out of reach.
We are inconsistent about grace before meals, and I have tried an index card at the table as a reminder, but it keeps getting moved. I think I need to do something more personal and simple than the traditional one I was going for.
Thanks for continuing to remind us of Dad's role as leader. It took me a while to shake off what I had been taught, and to find my way without my ego thinking I'd lost something, but supporting my husband in his leadership role is the single most important thing I've ever done for my marriage.
Longest comment ever, sorry! Great post and especially great comments!
LKF says
I love this post! So many practical, helpful ideas. I am always amazed at the steady flow of people who stumble across my blog through Google searches related to family prayer life/spirituality, so I can echo that there is a deep hunger for exactly the kind of hopeful ideas & gentle encouragement you offer. Beautiful!
Betsy M says
Leila, thank you for the wonderful ideas – especially that Morning Offering for kids. My 5 yr old commented on the way to school this past week how lucky we are that God put us in the house we are in – we have JUST enough time to say one decade of the rosary on the way to school. If we lived a block closer we would not make it.
I'll add that a few years ago we started adding a new prayer on to our nightly prayers in order for the kids (and us) to learn a few more by heart. Now we say our begining prayers then each kid gets a turn to choose which prayer is said next. Even my 3 yr old can now say the Act of Faith, Hope, and Love. St. Michael, Prayer for Vocations, Memorare, and the Lord is my Shepherd psalm.
I love how your post is all about teaching that praying to God is not just for on Sunday but instead for all day, every day.
Rachel says
I'm not Catholic, though I have a great deal of respect for the ritual of Catholic life. When my eldest son was two, I taught him a simple prayer to say every night. Even though he didn't understand completely, it helped him to appreciate prayer and I had a place to start when it came to talking about our faith as he became older. Repeating something may seem cold but I know from personal experience that the practice comes in very handy when faced with explaining the importance of something to our children. This is a great subject, Auntie.
Anna says
Auntie, you are such a blessing to me. My husband and I both have cradle beliefs in our own denomination, and strong enough, generally speaking. But we don't pray together. “You do it.” “No… you.” And so we don't.
But our kids are learning, at least a little something. We're praying extemporaneously at mealtimes, sometimes, and sometimes a rote prayer. They all volunteer willingly. Sometimes we pray at bedtime, more often not.
As a mom of four who has typical struggles, I need my husband to pray FOR me, WITH me! He just doesn't understand that, and has that awkward thing going on. His parents… his mother is very good with prayer, very good. His dad is proud that he says “ditto” after her evening prayers. UGH.
My mom grew up with rote prayer, my dad thought it was sinful (don't ask.) So, he ended up in his awkwardness saying the same thing for years, so long that nobody can understand it anymore. It's such a struggle.
Sharon says
From what church or ecclesial community did you convert?
Pippajo says
We had a discussion about prayer at the dinner table last night. The Viking always says grace before our evening meal (the only one during which we are all together) but has been asking Man-Cub to do it every now and then and last night was one of those times. Man-Cub didn't want to do it because he didn't want to “mess it up with mistakes”. So we discussed the value of both memorized and improvised prayers (for lack of better terms). It was interesting as we were pretty evenly divided: The Viking and Redheaded Snippet on the improvised only side and Man-Cub and I on the memorized side.
Having grown up with a somewhat negative view of Catholicism (my father was raised Catholic but, due primarily to the hypocrisy of his family, became a Protestant when he was in college), I was taught to dismiss and even fear its prayers and rites. But I find myself inexplicably drawn to them. And I find it interesting that many of the same Protestants who are critical of Catholics for relying on “empty, mindless ritual” use words, patterns and forms for their own prayers, songs and church services that have become just as mindless and just as much of a ritual. I think many of us Protestants have thrown the baby out with the bath water. I think there is definitely something to be said for ritual, especially in our prayer life and I really enjoyed this post. Once again, you've given me lots to think about…
Kh. Patty says
I definitely resonate with this part of your post: “because I simply didn't know how to pray with others….” Early in our marriage, my husband would often ask if I wanted to pray with him and because I wasn't ready that second or felt awkward about it, I'd only hesitatingly say yes, which he sensed, and finally stopped asking that often. But I had no experience praying with others! While I knew my parents were faithful, prayerful people, we never had family prayers or anything, so I really didn't know how to do it! I'm starting to get over it, seven years into marriage, as I make the decision to pray with my kids so they know what to do someday. 🙂 But the Awkwards definitely still live here sometimes.
Meg Schmitt says
Thank you for giving me permission to not feel guilty about my “Non Trappness”.
Love this and you,
Meg
Juelle says
Thank you for this encouragement, and the truths which you express so beautifully. I could echo several of the other comments, but let it suffice that you have renewed inspiration in this slightly discouraged mama. l laughed out loud three times in just this one post!
Your love in blog-words, reflecting the love of God to me, is a much-needed glow.
Julie
Jessica says
We're expecting our first baby and also lack any sort of prayer tradition, besides the memorized dinner grace. Thank you for these ideas and encouragement to bumble along!
Arlie says
This was an excellent and encouraging post. I am going to go and read all the comments now, but wanted to share with you a short post my husband wrote about praying with our three year old son. Thank you for your excellent blog!
http://www.thecrabtree.net/blog/blogentry/79-pray…
Elizabeth Hansen says
I so like your post! Ritual of prayer can also be, for me, an incredibly deep, powerful, peaceful refuge….whererin I am alone with God, in His heart, where I am safe and loved and cared-for beyond my wildest dreams. Ritual is important in that it increasingly casts a foundation upon which one's life is built. Also, Ritual provides ready prayers when we cannot think of our own words to the Lord. Oh how happy He is to hear from us! E. Hansen, Chester County, PA
Meaghen says
I know this is an old post, but I’m just reading it for the first time 🙂 I love all your advice – but what would you recommend for a wife who is Catholic, but whose husband is not?
Leila says
Meaghen, in our book The Little Oratory (see the link in the sidebar), we go into these questions in depth. Let me just say that you can trust in the goodness of your marriage and God’s will for it that when you even try to build family life oriented towards Him, he will send grace. And remember that when we work with the way marriage IS, its inherent structure, we bring blessings on family life. So confidently and gently begin where you can, with the children. Always give the sense that your husband is “behind” all of it. Defer to him at all times when you think he would be open to leading any prayer — for instance, grace before meals or an Our Father before bed. Don’t assume the role of “leader” but have an air of respect for his headship even if he is not exercising it at that moment. It’s there.
If you trustingly do what you can, without worrying at all and with lots of prayers for your husband, you will see: He will gradually grow into the role. He will see the good it does for his children and the trust you have in him, devoid of any reproach or impatience.
If he is completely standoffish, don’t let it bother you. Many a mother has fostered a love for God in her children in the breach, simply by conveying in her manner and even sometimes in her words, “Dad loves you and wants the best for you.”