family prayers

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I recently heard of Catholic families who pray together, usually the Rosary. This seems like a beautiful thing to do together. Does anyone here do family prayers? When and where do you do them? Has it strengthened your relationship as a family? :grouphug:
 
We did when I was growing up - at least when we were on holidays we’d say the Rosary together each night.

When we were at home our schedules were all too different, but I remember I used to say them with my sister when we were sharing a room 🙂

Couldn’t tell you what my sisters thought of it but I’m certainly a strong Catholic today because of it, and if God blesses me with a family I’m going to pray with them!
 
We did not pray together in my household when I was growing up, but we do a little now. We know that we should and have made some attempts but can’t seem to find a consistent routine. DH and I have prayed the rosary together several times and I say the rosary out loud sometimes when I rock my son to sleep (he can’t say it with me, he is 1 yo). DH and I sometimes say our nightly prayers together. One of us will pray out loud to God while we hold hands. I like the idea of a family praying together but sometimes it just seems akward because I did not grow up doing it. So we are trying to figure out the best way to do it. We are doing it more and more but would also be interested in hearing from other families to see what they do as well. I hope this post continues, it would be great to hear about other family routines with prayer! 🙂
 
Aside from grace before meals, we didn’t pray as a family (of course we went to Mass but I mean in the home). I wish we had. FH and I struggle to find time to pray together but I am definitely hoping to make that more a part of our daily/weekly schedule. I am hoping to homeschool which I think will make that easier when we have children.:crossrc:
 
My husband is a bit shy and reticent about praying together, but he says he likes to pray the rosary together and will do so if I initiate it. I guess I’m a bit shy about it, too.

Didja know there’s a plenary indulgence attached to praying the rosary in a family group? (If you go to confession, receive communion, pray for the Holy Father’s intentions, and have no attachment to venial sin, then you can get a plenary indulgence for praying the rosary in a public oratory/church or “in a family group.”) That and reading scripture for at least half an hour are two ways you can gain a plenary indulgence at home (which is a lot easier than visiting various shrines in Lourdes. 👍 )
 
In addition to saying grace, we add a Hail Mary before dinner and add any other intention we may have. It allows us to pray together at least once each day.

Even my 3 y/o son can recite both prayers. To the kids, grace is a must before eating anything- even snacks.
 
We do it daily, and during the week it is usually just before bedtime. We do not stick to a particular devotion and mix it up. Some of the things we may do on any given night in addition to a bedtime prayer:
  • Read Scripture together and discuss the reading
  • Pray at least a decade of the Rosary
  • Pray written prayers from a devotional book
  • As a family, do an examination of conscience
  • Choose a topic in the Catechism and study/discuss
    Those are just what comes to my mind, and it varies to meet the needs of all family members on any given day.
Peace
 
I have struggled with this on and off myself. One thing I find helpful is if I am going to pray the rosary with my girls, remember its ok if we only do one decade. Sometimes I dont want to start becuase it seems like it will take to long. We usually finish anyway but I start out with no expectations.
For lent my daughter and i pray a prayer from st> Faustina. She likes the time together. And believe me she needs it most!!!
 
Our family prays together each night. Our kids are young (6 and under), so we limit it to one decade of the rosary per night. In fact, Monday-Thursday we do the first 4 mysteries of whichever set. Then friday, we do a chaplet of mercy. Saturday, we do the 5th mystery. And Sunday, we do either the Regina Coeli or the Angelus, depending on the liturgical season. This way, we complete one set of 5 mysteries each week, and it is easy to keep track of where we are in the process. We also try to pray freely at this time. Aside from our night prayers, there is grace before meals, and then the impromptu “let’s pray a hail mary for that accident” or “let’s pray for a safe journey” etc…

The results most noticable to me are that the children know their prayers better and have become comfortable with prayer being a part of their life. It does not seem weird to them. As for the spiritual fruits for our family, well to be honest, I’m sure they are there, but I haven’t noticed them. Because the kids are so young, I do believe we are definitely in the planting phase of this situation. It can be hard work, it requires patience from all of us (especially with a rowdy toddler), and it takes a lot of discipline. Just the growth of those virtues would make a habit worth it. But I do believe there will be many other spiritual benefits for us because of this.

We are by no means expert at this family prayer thing, but we keep plugging away, and hopefully our efforts are pleasing to God.
 
Growing up… every night downstairs in our jammies before bed with dad watching… and in Polish…

In my home… when the kids were little I had them go get jammies on, meet back in Living room and prayers in English…

As they got older this faded to advent and Lenten prayers together and now… rarely pray together… because we are never all home at the same time.
 
ThyKingdomCome said:
Aside from our night prayers, there is grace before meals, and then the impromptu “let’s pray a hail mary for that accident” or “let’s pray for a safe journey” etc…

We are by no means expert at this family prayer thing, but we keep plugging away, and hopefully our efforts are pleasing to God.
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DH and I have always crossed ourselves and I say a prayer in my head if we see an accident, but I never thought about praying outloud together! Great idea. Those are the kind of things that we could improve on, all the little things so our son will hear us and know that we are praying. If we never say it out loud he’ll never know it is even being done and then won’t think to do it himself…thanks! And you are right about “plugging” away at it. God knows what you do and will show you the benefits at one time or another :). Thanks for all the ideas on this thread!
 
When I was small my mom, sister and I would pray and Our Father and a Hail Mary before bed and my mom would recite a prayer in latin for our dead family members which I sadly no longer remember.

Since when my daughter was very small, about 2 maybe even younger my husband and I continued this tradition as well as adding our own petitions at the end.

When we began homeschooling, one of Seton’s homeschool package (which what we originally used) requirements was for our daughter to memorize the Act of Contrition so we just added this to our nightly prayers as a means of her learning it and have kept it ever since.

We also read the Bible at bedtime every night and before beginning we pray “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love.” It was in the front of parents big, beautiful family Bible that my mom passed on to me. It stated it should be read before reading scripture, so we’ve always done that before reading the Bible.

On the way to Mass we pray The Chaplet of Divine Mercy, we have a beautiful version on CD by Vinny Flynn, it’s about a 20 minute drive so it works out perfectly.

We have prayed the rosary as family but not on a regular basis other than in church before Mass each week, as it is prayed out loud.
 
I got so many good ideas from this thread. Thank you all for sharing your family prayer lives with me. 🙂
 
My wife and I, now empty nesters, are joining the Church this Easter. We have been praying the Rosary together just about every evening. I can’t believe how much closer together this has brought us. We both have lots to learn about the faith and the Rosary triggers discussions about the mysteries. I usually wind up telling her all the fabulous things I learned on CAF that day!
 
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