Tag: prayers

Book review: Bless My Child: A Catholic Mother’s Prayer Book

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Bless My Child: A Catholic Mother’s Prayer Book
Julie Cragon
Cover art: Rose Walton
ISBN-10: 1594710147
ISBN-13: 978-1594710148
UPC: 033500021060

This book review is on a book of prayers for Moms! I actually bought it for myself while I was pregnant, having discovered it when I purchased the grandparents’ version as a gift to my own mother in celebration of her first grandchild. There is a lot of overlap between the two, but I don’t think it hurts to have more than one person praying for the same thing!

This thoughtful collection of prayers can be used for many stages of your child’s life, from gestation into adulthood, including for the sacraments!

The prayers themselves are quite modest in their language, without pretense or ostentation (haha, the irony of this review!), and seem to have been written from the heart. They relate to our daily parenting life, the joys, struggles, milestones, and everything in between, and they resonate well with the yearnings of a mother’s heart – some have definitely brought a tear to my eye! Perhaps the best thing about this book is that it also reminds us to pray for ourselves as moms, asking for God’s help and guidance in raising our little saints.

I acknowledge that it is difficult to write prayers for an individual without knowing their gender (that he/she can get a bit clunky and impersonal!). Cragon’s prayers address this by cycling through the use of masculine and feminine pronouns, so some prayers are written using he/him, and other prayers with she/her, but can be prayed for a child of either sex. This may be a stumbling block to some, but I find it easy enough to replace pronouns that didn’t apply with the appropriate ones for my child – I simply think about my child while I read each prayer, and correct as I go along.

There is a Catholic spin on it, hence the title. This is mainly because of the prayers written for receiving the sacraments, as I mentioned earlier. There are also prayers to patron saints of various issues our children may encounter on life’s journey, though neither of these are strictly Catholic things. Aside from these categories of prayer, the book contains many other prayers that could be applied to parents across denominations.

I have the paperback edition, although it is also available as an e-book for Kindle. The satin finish book cover has a sleek feel to it, with just enough grip to be easily held. The paperback book itself is fairly light, and isn’t too big, so it won’t take up too much space on your bedside table or in your bag.

This prayer book would make a great addition to any Catholic mother’s repertoire! It would be a touching gift for any faith-filled mother to celebrate a pregnancy, new birth, baptism, or just because!

Until next time, let’s pray for each other. And remember, we can do Mom things through Christ who strengthens us!

Saint of the Month: St Ignatius of Loyola

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St Ignatius of Loyola
Feast day: July 31
Patron of Dioceses of San Sebastian and Bilbao, Biscay & Gipuzkoa, Basque Country, Military Ordinariate of the Philippines, Society of Jesus, Soldiers, Educators and Education.

This month, we celebrate St Ignatius of Loyola. The founder of the Jesuit order, which was important in the wake of the Reformation, he is patron of a number of communities and educational institutions throughout Spain and the Philippines, and well-known Loyola University in Baltimore MD, educators/education in general, soldiers and spiritual retreats, as well as the order he founded (SJ).

I chose to look at St Ignatius of Loyola this month because I think his Imaginative Prayer, or Ignatian Contemplation, is something we can introduce to our little ones to get them praying about the Gospels. This form of prayer lends itself so well to young minds!

I would introduce it by saying something like, “today we’re going to be in a Bible story! We’ll read it together first, and then pretend we are part of it to imagine what it might have been like for us personally”

Below is a description of how to engage in imaginative prayer.

  1. Choose a bible story – one that really has a story feel. Probably not from anything like Leviticus, Psalms, Proverbs, or the Epistles. Children’s Bibles are a great resource for this, as they tend to be much more story-oriented. There are also a few audio and a video contemplations on this website (you’ll have to scroll down a little to get to the good stuff).
  2. Ask for the guidance of the Holy Spirit as you join in the story
  3. One person reads through the story aloud in prayer
  4. Act out the story using prompts, or for older children (or yourself!), you can simply have some silent prayer thinking about the story (in traditional Ignatian contemplation, you might choose a character or an object in the story and think about experiencing the story from their point of view) and then discuss it. It is important to consider what message God is sending them through this exercise.
  5. Read the story aloud again, but this time, ask your children to bear in mind (or act out) the new details they were able to see from the imaginative time.

Try it out and let me know how it goes!

St Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us!

Until next time, let’s pray for each other. And remember, we can do Mom things through Christ who strengthens us!

July Prayers

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As the month draws to a close, it’s time to start a new prayer thread. Just like last time, simply leave your prayer requests in the comment section! I will come back throughout the month to see if there are any new prayers I need to add to my personal prayer list, so even if it comes up a few weeks from now, just come back to this post and pop it in and know I’ll pray for you! Since this is about community-building, I would ask that you keep everyone else who comments in your own prayers too, along with Pope Francis’ prayer intention for July which is:

July: for a Eucharistic life

We pray that Catholics may place the celebration of the Eucharist at the heart of their lives, transforming human relationships in a very deep way and opening to the encounter with God and all their brothers and sisters.

I can’t wait for you to see next week’s monthly devotion post to find out why this is so apt! 

Thanks for being part of this community and for your prayers. I truly believe it’s the most you can do, even (and especially) when you alone can do nothing.

Until next time, let’s pray for each other. And remember, we can do Mom things through Christ who strengthens us!

To Such As These: The Sign of the Cross

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I write these “To Such As These” posts every now and then to explain some aspect of the Catholic faith to children. I try to use simple language so you can just read it directly to them instead of having to put it into your own words! The category name is inspired by Jesus’ words in Matthew 19:14: “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.”

Today, I’m going to be exploring the Sign of the Cross, with a little help from Bert Ghezzi’s book, Sign of the Cross: Recovering the Power of the Ancient Prayer.

If you have any topics you’d like me to cover in this category, pop them in the comments and I’ll add them to the list!

You’ve probably said the prayer countless times: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. But where does this prayer come from? What does it mean? And why do we use it so much?

Many, many hundreds of years ago, St Basil the Great said that the sign of the cross is a prayer that has been used since the time of the apostles. Christians would make a cross on the foreheads of people being baptised.

It has developed some variations since then: just think of how we are still crossed on the forehead at baptism and confirmation, we get crosses of ash on Ash Wednesday, we use our own thumbs to cross our foreheads, lips, and chests before the Gospel is read at Mass, and we can make a bigger sign of the cross from our head to our chest and from shoulder to shoulder when we say other prayers!

There are even different ways to hold your hand when making the sign of the cross, and these symbolise different things. Some people use an open hand, which is a sign of blessing (that’s where we get the term “bless yourself”), with the five fingers symbolising the five wounds Christ got on the cross. Ohers use just two fingers to symbolise that Jesus is both fully God and fully man, and others use their thumb, index, and middle fingers together to symbolise the Holy Trinity, with their ring finger and pinkie resting on the palm, again recalling that Jesus is both God and man.

No matter the variation, it’s something that has managed to stay with the followers of Jesus for over 2000 years, which means it must be pretty important! And the reason why it is so important, is because without question, there is an incredible strength behind this seemingly simple prayer.

The Church tells us that this is a sacramental, which means that it is something that helps us to be open to God’s graces and is a reminder of one of the sacraments, in this case, baptism. The cross is a symbol that can be used to represent the death and resurrection of Jesus, and our baptism also represents our dying and rising again with Him.

The sign of the cross is so special that a very clever man named Bert Ghezzi wrote a whole book all about it! While he was writing the book, he found six things that the sign the cross can mean:

  1. A way to say that we believe in God
  2. A reminder of our baptism and something strengthens the graces we received at our baptism (a sacramental!)
  3. A sign that we are a part of God’s family
  4. A way to accept our suffering and unite it with Jesus’ suffering and death
  5. A form of protection against the devil
  6. A way to call on God’s power to help us say no to any invitations to sin

If we look at all the things this prayer can mean, it’s no wonder that we would have so many opportunities to use it. Anytime we want to call on God, like inviting Him to be with us as we pray, or asking for His help, or reminding ourselves that we are children of God or to remember the good things God has done for us, we can say this little prayer.

So, the next time you make the sign of the cross, remember that even though it may be simple, it holds a whole lot of power! And because it holds a whole lot of power, it’s something we need to treat with whole a lot of respect – make sure no one would be confused of whether you’re making the prayer or shooing away a fly!

Talking points

  • Which of the meanings of the Sign of the Cross stands out to you the most? Why?
  • Think back to the last time you made the Sign of the Cross – why did you do it? What did you have in mind as you were doing it?

Until next time, let’s pray for each other. And remember, we can do Mom things through Christ who strengthens us!

Godparent Day

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Next week, on the first Sunday of June, we celebrate Godparents on Godparent Day! Yes, that’s a thing! Your Godparent may be a relative or a family friend or someone else from God’s family, but whoever it is, we should thank God for them on Godparents Day (and every day!), and pray for blessings on their soul, so that they can do the very important work they have been called to do especially for you!

What is the work that Godparents are called to do? Some people think Godparents look after a child if they are orphaned, but that’s not the case. In fact, a Godparent is simply responsible for a child’s faith formation. Just like parents help their children grow in their everyday life, Godparents are there to help guide their Godchild in his or her spiritual life (not just on Sundays!), along with that child’s parents. If someone’s parents don’t teach them about the Catholic faith, it is a Godparent’s duty to step up and do this. And, just like parents protect children and keep them safe as they grow up, Godparents should also protect their godchild’s faith as it matures. Faithful Godparents pray for their Godchildren regularly, which is something you may not see, but I think it’s the most powerful thing they can do for you!

A Godparent should be a practicing Catholic, which means that at the very least, they must: go to Mass every Sunday, observe fasting and abstinence as taught by the Catholic Church, receive the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist at least once a year (hopefully more), and give what they can to the Church. Essentially, Godparents should provide real-life examples of how Catholics faithfully live out their vocation to holiness.

I am very grateful for my Godmothers, who have been shining examples of the Catholic faith, who have inspired me to pray, and to reflect on the nature of God, and examine my own life in light of the Catholic faith. They never fail to encourage me spiritually, even to this day!

Nobody is perfect, and some Godparents fail in their duty. If this sounds like someone you know, maybe it’s time to reverse the roles and invite them to participate in the life of the Church! After all, we want everyone to share in the glory of God, especially those near and dear to us on Earth. I remember doing this for my own Godfather before he passed away – I hope we will meet again in God’s courts!

Let’s take this opportunity on Godparent Day to pray for our Godparents. I have posted a prayer for Godparents below!

To our beautiful Godparents, thank you for helping raise our children in the Faith! Thank you for praying for them and guiding them to grow closer to God. Your reward will surely be great in Heaven!

A special shout-out to my baby’s Godmother who has already brought so many blessings even though my child hasn’t been around for too long. Thank you, Auntie Liz!

Until next time, let’s pray for each other (and our Godparents!). And remember, we can do Mom things through Christ who strengthens us!

A Prayer for Mothers

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Mother’s day is coming up already – my goodness, time really flies!

Anyway, I’d like to extend an early happy mother’s day to all mothers, grandmothers, godmothers, and spiritual mothers! A dear friend of mine suffered a loss not long ago, so I would also like to share a special thought for all the mothers whose babies went back to God before they got to hold them. Your grief serves to witness to your immense motherly love for those souls. May you feel the presence of the Lord, who watches over your beloved babies and may you be consoled by His love.

Below is a mother’s prayer I wrote, that all mothers can pray. Feel free to share it with all your Mom friends! I hope it helps you in your mothering journey, whatever that may look like.

A M O T H E R ‘ S P R A Y E R

Father in Heaven, I praise You for Your goodness! In Your mercy, You have given me the gift of motherhood.

Lord, I thank You for calling me to share in the lives of these beautiful people who You created, and for all the blessings you bestow upon me through them.

Through my experience as a mother, You reveal Your own loving heart, and Your desire for me to be holy and to have true happiness.

Although it is a vocation that brings great joy, like all Christian life, it comes with crosses to bear. God, grant me the strength to carry the crosses of motherhood with grace, and sanctify me by them.

Holy Spirit, guide me to always grow closer to You, imitating our Lord Jesus. Change my heart to become more and more like Yours, so I can better love my husband, my children, and the whole world.

Holy mother Mary, ask God to help me to follow your example, that I may be a mother who always says yes to God’s will and points others to Jesus. Pray this for me, and all mothers.

Amen.

Until next time, let’s pray for each other. And remember, we can do Mom things through Christ who strengthens us!

Monthly Devotion: May

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May is the month of Mary!

I find it so intriguing that so few words of Mary’s were recorded in the Bible. In fact, the Bible only contains four passages where we can read what she said. These words must have been mightily importantfor them to be recorded, so we must pay attention to what they tell us about God. Today, I want to take a closer look at the words she spoke at the wedding at Cana.

There they are, at a celebration. It’s a wedding! Everyone is having a great time! That’s what happens at weddings. But then Mary learns they have run out of wine -didn’t I say they were having a great time? Well, in truth, weddings back then were less of an RVSP situation, and more of a “hey, so-and-so is getting married, come celebrate!” So numbers could easily get out of hand. Anyway, upon receiving this information, she relays the message to Jesus.

I think it’s interesting that she just lets Him know there’s a problem. She doesn’t tell Him what to do, or what they need, just what is happening: that these people have run into some trouble. She knows that He knows the best way to resolve the issue; it is not her role to tell Him, as many mothers might (yes, even to their adult children), and she acts accordingly.

We, too, should be unafraid to bring Jesus our problems, in a spirit of humility, like Mary.

Jesus responds by calling her “woman”. A lot of bible scholars agree that this is more like the way we might use “ma’am” today. It is full of respect. He asks her how it concerns them. But then… He performs the miracle anyway. Jesus did this to honour his mother, all the while maintaining respect for her.

This tells us that Mary’s intercession is powerful! If you ask her to pray for you, Jesus will listen.

As well as this, with Jesus as our brother, we too must honour our spiritual mother, Mary, and heed her instructions to us. What are her instructions to us? We’ll come to that shortly.

The second phrase she says is directed at the servants (I don’t think there is any irony in that). She says, “do whatever He tells you.”

This is so telling of Mary’s nature. She is always pointing us to Jesus, and encouraging us to follow Him. When we think of Mary, she leads us to think of Jesus. Even the rosary, a gift from the Blessed Mother herself, littered with mentions of her as we ask her to pray for us, is something that makes us meditate on the life of Jesus, for 15-30 minutes, if we pray a full set of mysteries. As the Church says, ad jesum per mariam – to Jesus through Mary.

These words, then, are her instructions to us, the servants of God: “do whatever He tells you.”

As mothers, let us use this month to meditate on Mary, and learn to better imitate her. Let us humbly bring our cares and concerns to Jesus, and encourage others to do whatever He tells them.

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God,
That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ!

Until next time, let’s pray for each other. And remember, we can do Mom things through Christ who strengthens us!

Book review: Prayers for Children

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Prayers for Children (A Little Golden Book Classic)
Various authors
Illustrations by Eloise Wilkins
ISBN: 0307021068
ISBN-13: 9780307021069
UPC: 033500021060

This beautifully illustrated book was gifted to me at my baby shower. At first, I thought it was nothing more than a sweet little collection of prayers, but once I opened it up and began to turn the pages, those timeless watercolour illustrations flooded my mind with memories from my childhood. Suddenly, these 26 pages became nostalgia and something of an heirloom. Folks, this book has been rattling around bookstores (and now the internet) since it was first published in 1952… yes, over 70 years ago. And I think there’s a reason for it.

This book contains 19 prayers and poems, including the staple Our Father – it does have the doxology (i.e. “for the kingdom, the power and the glory…”) tacked on as the protestants usually pray it, but this isn’t a bad thing. There are other familiar prayers as well, such as the Evening Prayer (“now I lay me down to sleep…”). Some of the poetry was written by greats, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The last page is dedicated to a musical arrangement of the evening prayer, so if you are a musically inclined family, you could even sing the prayer together!

Other than some of the thee/thou language that can simply be explained or changed to the modern version, it definitely stands the test of time. The many rhyming prayers will also help with memorisation, when the time comes for that.

We have the hardcover format, which is the classic format for Little Golden Book titles. It does not lay flat, but it is fairly light, and because of the nature of the book, you probably won’t be reading it from cover to cover in one sitting, so holding it isn’t too difficult. I can’t speak to the quality of the paperback or board books, though they are fairly scarce, so they may not be easily sourced, in any case.

In all, this is a good book of traditional style prayers. It is not strictly Catholic, but it has good material that can help little ones connect with God. The illustrations are what managed to stick in my memory for decades, and I still find them beautiful to behold. This is a good book for early prayers that has remained true to its claim of being a Little Golden Book Classic for several generations, and will likely continue for several more.

Do you have this book? Did you have it as a child? Have you bought this for your own child? Which prayers from this book stand out to you?

Until next time, let’s pray for each other. And remember, we can do Mom things through Christ who strengthens us!

April Monthly Devotion

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April is the month of the Holy Spirit.

Explaining the Holy Spirit to children can be tricky – it can be tricky to explain the Holy Spirit to adults!

I think the easiest way to understand the Holy Spirit, is to focus on what it does. So we can talk about the Holy Spirit’s power to help us witness to Christ, to enlighten us, give us wisdom, and speak to us. In simple words: the Holy Spirit is God who comes to us to guide us through life. He shows us right from wrong, helps us understand God and share God’s message, guides us to make good choices, and can tell us what God wants us to do, if we listen carefully.

I have rewritten St Augustine’s prayer in the image above into simple language to share with younger children:

Dear Holy Spirit, come down and fill up my heart. Make it Your home, and shine your bright and happy light in me.

How would you explain the Holy Spirit to your little ones? Let me know in the comments! I’m interested to see all the different ways we convey God to our babies!

Until next time, let’s pray for each other. And remember, we can do Mom things through Christ who strengthens us!