School Year Countdown: Prayer Life

“You must pray . . . without prayer, all the schooling in the world will not produce the effect God wants homeschooling to give.” --Fr. John Hardon

Each family needs to decide what prayer life it want to be promoting.

Even though prayer should not merely be a subject of the academic school year that stagnates during the summer, I find the beginning of the school year a good time to refresh all routines, including prayer routines.

I suppose in the modern world, our family prayer life might be considered radical (!), maybe even oppressive (!), but it is quite basic in the Christian tradition over thousands of years.

Here are some of things our family does, which I share in case it is helpful for anyone else forming their families in the early years. I am regularly inspired and amazed when I hear what some of my friend-families do as prayer habits!

Sometimes we pray the following routine 100%, but even if it's 60%, 70%, 80%, that's still so much more than zero percent! Developing a habit of prayer in the children was something I witnessed early on in successful, faithful families, and after ten years I've been able to affirm its value in our own family.

I want the children (and adults) to be making a Morning Offering upon waking, and then doing some holy reading and mental prayer. There are many morning offerings, but I've linked above the one we use.

Part of their morning prayers is doing some mental (unscripted) prayer, and I teach the youngest children the 5-Point prayer that another mother taught to me:

1. Love God.
2. Say sorry for your sins.
3. Thank him for three things.
4. Ask for help.
5. Pray for someone else.

At each meal, we pray Grace Before Meals and Grace After Meals. (Little tip I learned from another mom about five years ago: Simply pray the Grace Before Meals and the Grace After Meals in the same breath, otherwise different kids finish their meals at different times, and then people are forgetting to pray the Grace After Meals.)

It has been a goal of mine for several years for us to be praying the Angelus at noon--which is really meant to be prayed at sunrise, noon, and sundown, so I'm starting with a modest goal in the Christian tradition! These last months, I've been aiding my goal by setting my iPhone to beep at noon and by changing my goal to only me praying the Angelus (instead of holding myself to the standard of gathering all the children--a future goal), so I may make progress yet, we shall see.

Then there is a family Rosary after dinner--and, in our home, all credit goes to my husband for absolutely cementing this habit into our children for the last decade, as I've often been in a cycle of being sick and pregnant, or running bedtime routine with the babies and toddlers. Chris also tacks onto the Rosary some evening prayers, such as the Guardian Angel prayer and Act of Contrition.
(Note: It would be so lovely on Fridays to pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy either as a substitute for the Rosary or in addition to it, at the traditional three o'clock.)

The evening prayers take 20 to 25 minutes, which, again, some might see as radically lengthy, but I ask: what else do we spend 25 minutes doing after dinner? Television? Surfing the web? Facebook? Video games?

We have also added in the Litany of Humility as something the whole family prays together reactively when we are experiencing a lot of bickering. (This Litany is being prayed regularly now!)

Pragmatic Ideas

In order to make the above goals happen, I do take some pragmatic measures.

I have a space for prayer in the corner of the dining room where I've set a chair by a little table. I've placed on it the various holy reading each child is personally reading, as well as laminated prayer cards.

I've laminated prayer cards for each child so he or she will have guidance during morning mental prayer.

I've also laminated prayer cards (that I printed out myself) of common prayers and I keep them in the napkin holder on the kitchen table. Nothing fancy, just readily available!

Each summer, I have to print out and laminate new prayer cards because them become ragged with use.

I have boxes of plenty of rosaries set up in two stations, both in the den and in the master bedroom--as well as in the car!--so we are prepared to pray our night rosary wherever we typically are.

But Aren't You Praying All Day?

• Morning Offering and 5-Point Prayer (excluding holy reading): 5 minutes (but could be longer)
• Grace at meals three times daily: 3 minutes
• Angelus: 3 minutes
• Rosary, Guardian Angel prayer, Act of Contrition: 25 minutes
• Litany of Humility when fighting: depends!

Total: 31 minutes, which is 2% of our 24-hour day, or 3% of the roughly 14 hours a child is awake, so if we look at prayer as a form of tithing our time, it certainly isn't even close to 10%

So, What Are We Doing All Day?

Our pastor has a suggestion he makes to families and, while our family isn't brave enough to follow it at this point, it is excellent and provides deep meditation: When asked how much TV a faithful Christian family should be watching, he says "Don't spend any more time watching TV than you do praying in a day."

With this recommendation and meditation in mind, I took a few minutes to look up recent statistics.

A 2016 Nielsen study showed that Americans spend 5 hours daily watching TV, a subset of the 10 hours 39 minutes daily consuming all forms of media.

A 2017 study from Bureau of Labor Statistics showed:

"Watching TV was the leisure activity that occupied the most time (2.8 hours per day), accounting for just over half of all leisure time, on average. The amount of time people spent watching TV varied by age. Those ages 15 to 44 spent the least amount of time watching TV, averaging around 2.0 hours per day, and those ages 65 and over spent the most time watching TV, averaging over 4.0 hours per day."

What would our lives be like if we gripped in our hands a small prayer book, Bible, a crucifix, or a rosary and we looked to it as compulsively as we checked our phone for texts and social media? Why does the idea of carrying around a small prayer book or rosary seem laughable when carrying a phone these days looks like an actual extension of our bodies? What if when we felt that restlessness and desire for escapism, we let out an ejaculatory prayer to God instead of seeking the mindless Internet?

I ask these questions of myself: I have no answers, just know that my husband and I will keep trying (and stumbling) daily, putting one foot in front of the other, to have the right priorities.