Family prayer - how?

[Marcin_L]

I have been married for 10 years and we have one child, aged 7. My wife has been raised in a Catholic family, however herself she has never been a very devout person. I converted to Catholic faith after the marriage. After a few years of exploring the Church I decided to try and live my faith as fully as I could, not just limiting myself to the Sunday Mass. This seems to have surprised and scared my wife. I explained my reasons to her many times but clearly this was not what she had expected, nor does she share this level of enthusiasm. Daily Mass, Holy Rosary, mortifications are something she does not seem to understand. Still, she usually goes with me and our daughter to Mass. When she does that, we receive Holy Eucharist together but she never goes to Confession!

For some time I have been aware that God wants more of us as a family, not just me. I feel He wants us to live faith together, which involves prayer. How can I convince my wife to praying together as a family? I pray everyday with my daughter, and since she has begun preparations to the First Holy Communion, we talk more about God in everyday life situations. My wife however rarely gets involved, and when asked by my daughter to join eg. Grace Before Meals, she always says she does that in her heart, quietly. I respect this but at the same time I would like us to pray together so much.

I have been praying for my wife’s interior life for a long time, I even got her a Green Scapular which she carries with her (in her purse). Can I do anything more?

 

[AussieTrish]

Keep praying. Only God can inspire your wife if she is willing.
You are blessed that your wife and child come to Sunday Mass with you.
Do you pray simply with your daughter before she goes to sleep?
Not a long prayer, but even if you say a formal prayer, encourage her to say something about her day and her needs to God.
Prayer from the heart and real life does help to make a relationship connection with God.

 

[Marcin_L]

Keep praying. Only God can inspire your wife if she is willing.
You are blessed that your wife and child come to Sunday Mass with you.
Do you pray simply with your daughter before she goes to sleep?
Not a long prayer, but even if you say a formal prayer, encourage her to say something about her day and her needs to God.
Prayer from the heart and real life does help to make a relationship connection with God.

Thank you! Yes, we do pray daily with my daughter. We say morning offering and daily examination of conscience (kids version) and prayer before sleep. Usually my daughter tries to add things that come out of the examen to her evening prayer. When she was younger I used to help her with this but now, that she considers herself more mature (7yo she prefers to do a short mental prayer quietly. Do you think I should encourage her to say this mental prayer aloud? I try to teach her about respecting privacy of others so I thought it was better to leave it to her if that’s what she prefers.

My wife usually takes much longer to come to accept new things, I was hoping that my serious approach to faith would gradually become “familiar” to her. I think it has been happening and I pray a lot for this. Still, being a practical person, I am very concerned about her soul. She has not been to Confession for ages and part of the problem is we live in a country where we moved 8 years ago but my wife has not mastered the language to the degree that would allow her to confess comfortably, I guess. There is a priest that speaks our first language but to him she won’t go; afraid of confessing to someone we know personally. Plus as we all know the longer we put something off the harder it is to eventually win over our fears. I also imagine you forget the amazing feeling of grace and relief that comes after confession if you don’t practice for years, but I do weekly confession so I’ve never experienced this. So much for the excuses.
Anyway, I am concerned about her as much as I am concerned about the majority of people of our society these days - God has unfortunately become a secondary issue to them. Having said that, I should be able to do much more to attract my wife to faith than I can do for others. Still, it doesn’t seem to work. What if she stays lukewarm Catholic for the rest of her life? What about the salvation?! It doesn’t just “happen”, you have to co-operate with God!

Please, pray for my wife.

 

[holyrood]

Keep doing what you’re doing. Keep the door open, but I think that if you push too hard, many people will only dig in their heels. It seems she’s very willing to have your daughter raised with the faith this way, and that’s good. Keep praying for her.

 

[Viki63]

You are to be commended for working to lead your family to God. That is wonderful!
Please don’t push your wife. Just love her and show it by helping out in whatever ways she appreciates.
You mention wanting to have family prayer. I really wish we had begun that when our children were small, it might have made a huge difference. You could begin with a very short prayer before bedtime, as a family. Ask your wife if she’s okay with it. Just suggest a prayer to St Michael, or Our Lady, and pray for whatever’s on your minds – each of you could say a prayer intention. Keep it to five minutes at first.
God bless your efforts.