Calming the Child

Sometimes God calms the storm, and sometimes He lets the storm rage and calms His child

A framed version of this hung on a wall in my childhood home and I always loved it. A recurring concern of mine lately has been what I feel is a lack of peace in my home. My husband and I have discussed it several times. He feels it too but not quite as strongly as I do. We have come up with several things to try that might help the household to feel more peaceful and for everyone in it to be happier overall. But, the strong message I've been getting the past few days is that if I am in tune with God, He will give me peace no matter what is happening around me. So obviously I'm not in tune with God. Today, in an effort to rectify this, I spent some time with one of my favorite devotional books - God Calling. This is a great book to use for quiet time. I am always amazed at how perfectly the entries fit whatever I am going through. As I was reading today's entry the verse Matthew 18:20

"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them"

popped into my head. I started thinking - so if you're alone God isn't present? What's that all about? I know that is not true but it's what I was thinking - I'm weird. Anyway, all of a sudden I realized that it doesn't matter because when you are a part of a family, you are hardly ever alone. And then I realized that my family has a special opportunity to always have God present with us as long as we are gathered in His name. And then it hit me that not only do I need to be in tune with God to have peace, but my family needs it too. We need to gather in His name through prayer as a family so that He is present with us and can bring us peace. He will calm each child in our family - even if the storm rages on.

We have prayer time every night before bed but a lot of times it happens while they are still running around getting their dolls or just trying to avoid going to bed. Most of the time I am exhausted and just want to get them down so I can work on getting the baby down and subsequently myself! I am guilty of rushing through the prayers and doing them while there is other chaos going on even if no one is paying attention. I'm horrible at remembering prayer before meals. And a morning prayer would probably do WONDERS for our day.

So I'm going to make this a Lent activity. I'm going to try for:

*a morning offering - I found this cute one for children on Two Hearts Design (the cute clipart is from there as well and they do beautiful design work!):

Good morning, dear Jesus, this day is for you. I offer you all that I think, say, and do. Amen.

*prayer before meals - God is Great or Bless Us O Lord

*bedtime prayer - Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep and then we say:

"Dear Jesus, please help everyone and thank you for everything"

*And then once a week, I'd like to get the girls together to do at least a decade of the rosary.

I think that sounds doable!

Feel free to share what you're family does in the way of family prayer!

He Leadeth Me - Fr. Walter Ciszek

I have gotten the chance to read a lot lately. One of the books I'm in the process of reading is He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter Ciszek a Jesuit priest who spent 20+ years as a prisoner in Russia. This book was recommended to me by one of my favorite bloggers, Jen at Et Tu?. She has a great post here that explains the book beautifully.

This book is so deep and meaningful. I am only on chapter 6 but that is because I have to think about and process each chapter for a while after I read it. This would actually be a great book to use for a prayer group or book club.

For example, last night I read about the time he spent in Lubianka Prison - known among prisoners as the place where men were broken, body and spirit. The prisoners were in cells by themselves 24/7 except for the 2 minutes they got to go to the bathroom and empty the buckets they used as toilets and the 20 minutes of exercise time they got if it was nice outside. Oh yeah, and then there were the times you got to go and meet with the interrogators...the next chapter goes into more detail about these horrific sessions. Other than that, it was almost total silence except for when a guard would slip you the tiny ration of food you got each day. Fr. Ciszek talks about how much he learned about prayer during this time. It was almost all he had to do to fill the time and keep himself from going crazy. He learned to:

"purify my prayer and remove from it the elements of self-seeking"

I don't know about you, but if I'm stuck in a room all by myself for hours and days and years on end with no interaction with other humans and barely enough food to keep a bird alive, I just don't think I'd be worried about purifying my prayer! But Fr. Ciszek was and explains so beautifully how to pray during suffering and trials, not for your own needs to be met but for the grace to offer up the sufferings and to endure them. Wow!

Another interesting thing he mentioned was that even with total silence, total lack of stimulation from any outside elements, and all the time in the world on his hands, his mind would still be distracted from prayer. At first I thought, well at least it isn't just me but then I realized that despite the fact that he was distracted by hunger pains, anxiety about his future, not knowing if he would ever get to leave this hell he was in, he figured out a way to subsist on prayer. I have none of these very real problems facing me - only self imposed distractions that keep me from prayer time with the Lord.

I hope to share more from this book. Like I said, each chapter is a new lesson...about prayer, God's will, how to handle suffering. It goes on and on. I got it from the library but am realizing that I'm going to have to shell out the bucks to buy this book because I can tell I will go back to it again and again as sort of a handbook or textbook.

I was happy to see upon Googling Fr. Ciszek that he is up for canonization. He is in the very early stages but you'd better believe that this inspiring man is going to become one of my intercessors!

Novena Prayer for Conversion from Contraception

Fr. Euteneuer has posted a novena for prayer for conversion from contraception that starts tomorrow and goes to the Feast of the Annunciation. Also, read his piece The Church Will Not Be Hannitized about the response to all of what has been going on with Sean Hannity. He has received "more than 1250 emails and dozens of other communications which have run clearly 90-10 in favor of the Church’s teaching"!

Novena Prayer for Conversion from Contraception
Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer
March 15, 2007

This prayer is to be prayed prior to the Feast of the Annunciation (this year Monday, March 26th) from Saturday, March 17th to Sunday, March 25th, 2007 inclusive, as a novena of conversion for those who use or promote contraception

Heavenly Father, “from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name,” (Eph 3:15) grant conversion of heart to our world, our society, our families and especially to our own hearts regarding the sin of contraception.

We believe, beyond a doubt, what the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church teaches about this moral evil, and we wish to be a light to the nations to make the truth known wherever this evil practice and ideology has taken root.

Call us to be faithful to your command to “Be fruitful and multiply!” so that we may advance the civilization of life and love that you wish to create for the human family.

Bring to conversion those who, in public or private, lead others into the sin of contraception and who erroneously teach that it prevents abortion. Help us all to be purified of the lies and distortions of the culture of death by obedience to the truth and bring us all to the fullness of truth through the guidance of your Church.

We ask this through the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, in whose fertile womb your Blessed Son found his home on earth.

Amen.