Prayer Update

In my last post I shared our growing prayer habits.  Well, they have grown even more!  Ok, first off, a slight tangent. . .

"Anyone who does not breathe dies of suffocation; anyone who does not accept with docility the grace that God constantly gives us ends up dying of spiritual suffocation." - R Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, Vol. 1  (Tangent inside a tangent: This comes from In Conversation with God which I plan to address in my next post.)

"For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away." - Mark 4:25 (NRSV)

What this quote and this passage from Scripture enlighten for me is how God's grace is so much more than we can imagine.  As we open ourselves to it, it is like a faucet on full-blast!  And there is no turning it down.  It is on or off and when we manage to get ourselves to stay put in the flow - oh my, it is amazing!

I feel like this is what is happening with our family prayer time.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I did "pray about it" as I know it is really important and I just felt like I was not doing it justice.  It felt like an insurmountable task to try and conquer and our minor attempts seemed so pathetic.  To add to it, I have a degree in Religious Education.  I am TRAINED to teach this - you would think I could handle helping grow the spiritual life of MY OWN FAMILY!!  Sheesh, I certainly felt like a failure I must say, but God has been showing me that it is not me (surprise, surprise), it is Him.  And man, when I step back and follow His inspiration, He does a pretty darn good job I must say.

But enough with the tangent.  Back to the main point of this post.  I mentioned we were reading Prayers for Each and Every Day.  And we still enjoy that book, but it has become clear my children are hungry for more.  The other day we finished our short "reading" and they asked for a bible story.  So I broke out the Bible and it has become a tradition now.  I love that they enjoy Scripture!  Some days I pick up the regular Bible  and other days we enjoy a more structured approach such as 365 Read-Aloud Bedtime Bible Stories.  This is nice as it starts at the beginning and you can just read it from cover to cover, but it is simplified and sometimes my hungry young minds want two or three of the stories, but I'm not really complaining.

So there you have it.  I will keep you updated as we progress further.  On a side note, but related, I have started praying Night Prayer from The Liturgy of the Hours with my oldest child, Rebekah (almost 7-years-old).  The words are BIG and often above her, but she knows it is a sacred prayer for the Church and she enjoys praying it with me.  (On a side note: Night Prayer is only on a weekly rotation, instead of the four weeks of psalms for Morning and Evening Prayer, so it is a bit more familiar.)  I have no doubt it is helping her vocabulary grow and when the time is right she will have an even greater understanding of the spiritual aspects it contains, as well.  I'm also working through

The Mass book for Children and Little Acts of Grace with her as she will be turning seven soon (the age of reason!!!) and God-willing, receive her first Reconciliation and first Communion.

 

So there you have it.  Yay, God! :)