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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

 

5A Praying with Your Children

• What did you find helpful or interesting in this section of the film?
• Have you been able to pray with your children and teach them to pray? What works and what doesn’t work for you as a family?
• How have your children responded? What do you think prayer means to them?

 

5B Personal Prayer as a Parent

• What did you find helpful or interesting in this section of the film?
• Did you pray as you were growing up? Who taught you to pray and what did you learn from them?
• What does prayer mean for you today? Which way of praying do you find most helpful? What can get in the way?

 

SOME KEY IDEAS FROM THE SESSION

Fr Stephen writes: “Prayer is not complicated. We turn to God and ask for his help. We thank him, we praise him, we say sorry for the things we have done wrong. We can use our own words, like a conversation; or we can use the words that Jesus gave us in the Our Father, or some of the other beautiful prayers from the Christian tradition.

As a priest, I know how much I need to pray each day. Life gets so busy, and if I don’t have at least a bit of time to pray, things begin to unravel, and I can lose sight of what it’s all about. I think it’s the same for parents. You need some time to pray, for your own sanity. And your children need to have an experience of prayer in the home. The prayers they learn as children will sustain them for a lifetime. And your example, as someone who believes and prays, will speak to them more than a thousand words.”

Young children love to pray. They have an instinctive trust in God, and a natural desire to talk to him and ask for his help. Older children also appreciate times of prayer and quiet – if they have grown up in a home where prayer is part of normal life.

Prayer allows us to give thanks for the good things in our life; to ask for God’s help in our difficulties; and to seek his peace and forgiveness when we need it. It helps us to know that we are not alone, and that God is our loving Father.

God is real, loving, holy, and close to you. Be confident of his love. You can also pray to the Virgin Mary and to St Joseph, who know about the ups and downs of being parents.

As parents, we often feel we are too busy to pray. There is never a quiet moment. And if we do have any space, we are often too tired to do anything other than watch TV or scroll through our phones or reach for a drink.

But we need to pray, just as every Christian does. We need little moments when we can turn to God and ask for his help, even if these are snatched from the rush of the day. And our children need us to pray. They need they help of our prayers. And they need to know that we, as their parents, have someone looking after us and after our family. It doesn’t all depend on us as parents. It depends on God.

You could try to make just one moment to pray each day – a moment to yourself, for your own personal prayer. It’s hard to find the space for this in family life, but it makes such a difference. It might be before the kids are up, or when they have gone to bed. Just to have a few minutes to kneel down and pray.

What can you do in your personal prayer? Talk to God, in your own words, as you would to a close friend or a loving parent. Be completely honest, and natural. Tell him what you are thinking and feeling. Tell him your hopes and your fears and your worries. Ask him to help you and those you care for. Entrust your intentions to him. Pray for the needs of the Church and of the world. He always listens to us. And he always answers us in some way – even if that answer may be difficult to hear or to understand.

As Christian parents, it’s good to know some common prayers, so you can use them in your own life, and turn to them when you are stuck. It’s good to use these prayers with your children, so they become familiar with the great prayers of the Christian tradition, and these prayers become part of their life.

It can be helpful to memorise certain prayers, so that we can use them at different times of the day and of the week, and so that our own personal prayer does not become too narrow. These prayers are especially useful and powerful when we do not know how to pray; or when we are worried or afraid; or when we are facing special trials or temptations.

These prayers help us to enter into the depths of Christian prayer. They take us beyond our own personal concerns, or help us to express concerns we didn’t know we had. The important thing is to pray them with sincerity, with attention, with our whole heart and mind – and not just to rush through them.