Family Devotions

This is to help you as a family to make the most of your time together. Whether at mealtime, in the car, or a random moment more than one of you are together, use this platform as an opportunity to share traditional and contemporary prayers to grow in faith together.

When adults love God our children see and live the faith through witnessing that love. Families who pray together grow in faith together, bringing each other closer to God.

Create a Family Litany of Saints!

The Catholic Church has several public litanies – a form of prayer with a series of petitions for certain intercessions or occasions. The Litany of St. Joseph is featured under our Catholic Tradition prayer life option.

Create a personalized Litany of Saints for your family! List of your patron saints – the saints whose names are shared in our families, schools, and parishes; your confirmation saint; patron saints of our work, desires, or struggles; and saints who we feel connected to and respect their life story. Download the template or make your own. Frame it and display it as part of a prayer table or centerpiece.

A Prayer for the Family by St. Teresa of Calcutta:

Heavenly Father,

you have given us the model of life in the Holy Family of Nazareth. Help us, O Loving Father, to make our family another Nazareth where love, peace and joy reign. May it be deeply contemplative, intensely eucharistic, revived with joy.

Help us to stay together in joy and sorrow in family prayer. Teach us to see Jesus in the members of our families, especially in their distressing disguise. May the eucharistic heart of Jesus make our hearts humble like his and help us to carry out our family duties in a holy way.

May we love one another as God loves each one of us, more and more each day, and forgive each other’s faults as you forgive our sins. Help us, O Loving Father, to take whatever you give and give whatever you take with a big smile.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, cause of our joy, pray for us.

St. Joseph, pray for us.

Holy Guardian Angels, be always with us, guide and protect us.

Amen.

House Blessing

(The following prayer is part of a tradition held on Epiphany Sunday. To read an article about it check out our archived e-bulletin from Jan. 3, 2020)

“Visit, O blessed Lord, this home with the gladness of your presence. Bless all who live or visit here with the gift of your love; and grant that we may manifest your love to each other and to all whose lives we touch. May we grow in grace and in the knowledge and love of you; guide, comfort, and strengthen us in peace, O Jesus Christ, now and forever. Amen.”

Traditional Grace Before Meal:

Bless us, O Lord! and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Aspirations – simple little phrases to refocus on God – repeated several times a day – let it become a beautiful habit of prayer.

Examples of those:

  • Jesus, I trust in You.
  • Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.