Building Prayer Into Family Life

April 1, 2024

Cultivating the habit of daily prayer prepares our children to practice their faith in the world

By Dallas Carter

April 1, 2024

Woman holding a baby — Spirit Juice Studios

If you don’t make prayer an integral part of your family life, you’re setting yourself up to fail.

We need healthy food to be strong, to be fit, to make sure that we can function. Daily prayer and the sacraments are our spiritual food. If we forget to eat or if we fail to eat in a healthy way, we can get sick. So, too, if we forget to pray, spiritual sickness can enter our lives. Having a regular time for your family to pray is essential.

Our Lord deserves time set aside for him when we can pray with no distractions. However, if that is something that you have to build up to, consider praying a decade of the rosary or morning prayers in the car with your children. Make a habit of saying prayers with your children every night.

Praying with the family can look different from season to season. There are certain times of the year when things are busier — your child’s sports practice goes late, and it gets in the way of scheduled prayer time. It’s important that you still pray as a family, but it’s also important to be flexible. We are called to live in the world, even though we’re not of the world, and it’s good for our children to be out there building virtue, being good examples to their teammates, being good examples to their peers. That is ultimately what we’re raising them to be: Catholics living out their faith in the world.

At the same time, we have to guard against the pitfall of inconsistencies when it comes to our daily prayer life. “You know what, we won’t pray today because everyone has a lot of homework.” “We can’t pray today because there’s a football game.” “Dad can’t pray with you today because he has too much work to do.” Those inconsistencies build up and one day could become an avalanche that sweeps away the faith of our family.

Every parent needs to have a consistent habit of prayer. We can’t tell our children, “Do as I say, not as I do.” If we are not praying every day, if we are not practicing the works of mercy, if we are not loving others, we can’t expect our children to live a life loving others, being merciful, being consistent in prayer.

*****

DALLAS CARTER, a member of St. Michael the Archangel Council 16741 in Waialua, Hawaii, is an educator and the president of EPIC Ministry. He and his wife, Monica, have six children.

Supper at Emmaus (oil on canvas) by Rembrandt (1606-1669) (Photo Josse / Bridgeman Images)

Building Prayer Into Family Life

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