Family prayer

“ In an age when, amongst our peasantry in particular, family prayer is so extensively and mournfully neglected—when the farmer, the manufacturer, the mechanic, not to mention the more elevated orders, have ceased to obey the injunction laid upon all Presbyterian parents in baptism—it is refreshing to look back to the time when the taking of the book, as it was termed, returned as regularly as the rising and the setting of the sun—when the whole household convened together, morning and evening, to worship the God of their fathers. ”

“ If you occupy the responsible station of a parent; if God has made you the head of a religious household, and you profess to stand and live on the Lord’s side, then, tell me, have you not by implication vowed to maintain regular family worship? Besides, the benefits and privilege of prayer develop the obligation of the family to engage in it. Is not every privilege a duty? And if it is a duty for individuals and congregations to pray, is it not, for a similar reason, the duty of the family to establish her altar of devotion? ”

“ Many seek by the most frivolous excuses, to justify their neglect of family prayer. Some will urge the press of other duties, alleging that other engagements prevent it. This is false. God lays upon you no engagement that is designed to supersede the necessity of prayer. Besides, you will find that you really waste more time than it would require for family devotion. And further, can you spend your time to better purpose than in family prayer? ”

“ Family prayer also fails when the whole day is not in harmony with it. A family prayer, to be worth anything, ought to be twenty-four hours long. It ought to give the pitch to all the day's work and behavior. The day when we get thoroughly mad upsets the morning devotion. The life must be in the same key with the devotion.
Family prayer is infinitely important. If you are a parent, and are not a professor of religion, and do not feel able to compose a prayer, get some one of the many books that have been written, put it down before you, and read prayers for the household. ”

“ The Rosary is especially popular as a form of family prayer, and no Catholic father or mother should allow a night to pass without assembling the children, and offering together to the Mother of God this tribute of praise and of supplication. Surely every family can consecrate a quarter of an hour each day to this practice, which will bring down on the family as a whole, and on each member in particular, the richest graces that Mary’s sinless hands can bestow, and will be at the same time a pledge of her gracious and powerful protection in life and in death. ”

“ Supposing it could be proved that such a provision would work to the discouragement of family prayer, it would plainly be wrong to advocate it; no priesthood is more sacred than that which comes with fatherhood. But we must face the fact that in our modern American life family prayer, like sundry other wholesome habits, has fallen largely into disuse. If the Church can, in any measure, supplement the deficiencies of the household, and help to supply to individuals a blessing they would gladly enjoy at their own homes, if they might, it is her plain duty to do so. ”

“ Indulgenced Prayer for a Christian Family
GOD of goodness and mercy, we commend to Thy all-powerful protection our home, our family, and all that we possess. Bless us all as Thou didst bless the Holy Family of Nazareth.
O Jesus, our most holy Redeemer, by the love with which Thou didst become man in order to save us, by the mercy through which Thou didst die for us upon the cross, we entreat Thee to bless our home, our family, our household. Preserve us from all evil and from the snares of men; preserve us from lightning and hail and fire, from flood, and from the rage of the elements ”

“ I consider that his family should take a part in family prayer. I do not consider it necessary for the man to be the mouthpiece all the time. I think it is just as acceptable to God our Eternal Father, for the wife to take her part in prayer, and for the boys and girls to take their part in the same exercise. It seems to me there is something very shocking that young men should be allowed to grow up until they are about twenty years of age and have it to say that their father never asked them to pray in the family circle. ”

“ This constitutes, and these are the duties of family religion—duties which no Christian head of a family, whether father or mother, can be excused from performing. They are [Pg 49] duties which all who take upon themselves the responsibilities of the family should feel it a privilege to observe.
The duty of family prayer, especially by the one or the other head of the household, as the leading exercise of the family religion, should be performed with seriousness, order and punctuality. ”

“ Of course in families of the Episcopal church the collect for the day would be the right prayer to use. It is sometimes necessary to use prayers prepared beforehand; some persons never acquire the ability to pray aloud, even in their own families. But halting sentences that are your own, that your children recognize as yours, may mean more to them than the finest flowing phrases from a book. Use the prayers from the book, not as a substitute, but as an addition. ”

“ They must answer to God for every blessing there enjoyed. If they turn a deaf ear and a cold heart to all the entreaties of their parents, and resist those saving influences which are brought to bear upon them, and as a consequence, become outcasts from society and from heaven, then let me warn them that, every prayer they heard at the family altar, every lesson given, every admonition delivered, and every holy example set them, by their pious parents, will be ingredients in that bitter cup which it will take eternity for them to exhaust! Oh, children of the Christian home! ”

“ It is barely possible that because of conditions family prayers may not be conducted to-day as in other days, but there is at least time for a verse of scripture and a prayer out of a full heart, and the influence of even so brief a service will keep the members of the household from many a failure.
Church attendance is not what it once was. The old-fashioned family pew is a thing of the past in too many cases. ”

“ Even the pagans offered sacrifices every day for the good of the household, and you know the Jews had morning and evening sacrifices; so it seems to me family prayer is such a beautiful offering on the altar of the hearthstone. ”

“ To this if we add, the constant use of family-prayer, by those who are masters of families, and the setting times apart for private addresses to God, with a daily seriousness of behaviour: he who uniformly practises this outward religion, has the form of godliness. There needs but one thing more in order to his being almost a Christian, and that is, sincerity. ”

“ The recovery after the operation had come too late in life to bring about any expansion of public or private devotions. Family prayers were reduced to the recital from memory of an exhortation, a confession, and an absolution, followed by the Lord's Prayer and a benediction. Services in the church were limited to Morning and Evening prayers, with Communion on the first Sunday in the month, and a sermon following Morning prayer. ”

“ Much time has been wasted in trying to formulate a rational basis for prayer. When a child in the smaller family no longer asks his father to accede to his wishes, when he no more pleads with his father for his brother or his sister, then it will be time enough to inquire if, in the larger family which we call humanity, we may do without prayer. ”

“ Prayer is the very soul of holiness.
It has been the sense of the Church from the days of the apostles to our own, that this first miracle of our Lord, performed at the urgent solicitation of His Mother, gave a new and solemn sanction to the institution of matrimony. The sanctity and happiness of family life, the unity and permanence of the tie which, in the Christian home, binds to each other the father and the mother, the parents and the children, is the foundation of Christian society, Christian civilization. ”

“ The aim of this selection is to furnish a set of Services that will take in all the great subjects of Family Prayer, and so short that the busiest household may have time for its devout utterance. It will be found suitable for those who have hitherto neglected the duty of Family Prayer. ”

“ The true family consists of husband, wife, and children. And that the family may be a home, union and peace must dwell there. To have this, religion must be the prevailing spirit of the family. Anything and everything that tends to keep alive and promote this, should be used and encouraged, and there is nothing that has a more happy tendency in this direction than regular and stated family worship. Therefore family worship ought to be established in every Christian home. There are three different kinds of prayer that should be observed in the home. ”

“ Is there, out of heaven, a sight more deeply interesting than a family, gathered at morning or evening prayer, where the worship is what it ought to be?"
It is hardly to be supposed that any pious heads, or pious members, of American households, are in doubt whether family worship be a duty. We are rather to take it for granted, as a duty universally acknowledged among Christians, nature itself serving to suggest and teach it, and the word of God abundantly confirming and enforcing it, both by precept and example. ”

“ A heartfelt prayer is never offered in vain, and with that blessing resting upon them, we may be sure the efforts of the again united family were not fruitless. We may be certain, too, that, with the love of God binding them together and strengthening their love for each other, there could be no happier household than that to which we must now say good-bye. ”

“ Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, ye mothers in Israel, and fast, and hunger and thirst after righteousness. Pray for and with your little children in your apartments. Is it enough for a father to gather together his wives and children when he is at home, and pray with them? That is his duty; and every mother should take pattern by his example, and with their own offspring follow his example and call down the blessings of heaven upon them, and they will learn from her. While they listen to her prayers, they will learn to lisp from her mouth the words of prayer and thanksgiving to God ”

“ But the fact today is that family worship is so rare as to be counted phenomenal wherever found. The instances, though not general, were common a generation ago. Many are living to whom family worship afforded the largest part of their conscious and formal religious education. Following the morning meal, or, occasionally, the evening meal, the family waited while the father, or the mother in his absence, read a portion of the Scriptures and offered prayer. ”

“ The highest family life is that consecrated by Religion. The household where God is acknowledged, from which the members go regularly together to the house of God, within whose walls is heard the voice of prayer and praise, is the ideal Christian family. In such a family the father is the priest, daily offering up prayers for those whom God has given him, at the family altar. He makes it his duty, and regards it as his privilege to bring up his children in "the nurture and admonition of the Lord," and by personal example and teaching to train them up as members of the household of faith. ”

“ Who will ever keep before us as he does the "Our Father," which makes all the rest of the Lord's Prayer and all prayer possible and helpful? No wonder that mothers held out their children to receive his blessing as he left us, and then went home weeping, whilst even strong men brushed away tears from their eyes. ”

“ It is well known that in some Christian families in the world, it is the custom to make the reading of the scriptures a part of the family worship, and our Elders when visiting in such families are called upon to read the scripture lesson before engaging in prayer—an example that could be followed with profit in our own family worship. ”

“ To every child of God there ought to be a time and place for private prayer, a personal communication with the Lord. When families have their family worship in the morning, the evening, before retiring, is a suitable time for private prayer. ”

“ By this we mean Religion in the household; in other words, the inculcation and observance of the duties of religion in American families, in their organized capacity as separate religious communities. Family religion, in this sense, implies the acknowledgment of God in the family circle, by the assembling of all its members around the domestic altar, morning and evening, and by united prayer and praise to the God of the families of all flesh ”

“ Is it not a matter of daily experience that the family of a religious, particularly the parents, receive abundant graces, that God leads them in various ways to greater fidelity in His service, to a love of prayer and higher perfection? Parents of religious frequently become religious themselves at heart, and though not clothed with the habit, they share in the "hundredfold" promised to the child.
"It is the glory of a large and happy Catholic family to produce a vocation," says Rev. ”

“ Not least among the many excellences of this prayer is its suitability to all classes of men — to every condition of life. It is the devotion of the family circle. Many of us will remember the old homestead of long ago, where, at the quiet evening hour, our good parents and their little ones knelt around the hearth and joined with simple fervor in reciting the Rosary. ”