Something that has become more and more apparent as my kids one-by-one enter adulthood, is that while my vocation as Mom never ends, it does change! I remember those days of mothering with littles running around the house. They needed me for the physical things; food, drink, shelter, safety, comfort, and clothing, and they were learning so much in terms of basic skills and interests, subjects at school, and picking up prayers, Bible stories and beliefs of our Catholic Faith.
Jesus, I want what You want
September 26, 2024 by 1 Comment
It’s yet another new season of motherhood for me!
My eldest daughter Emily just got married a few days ago! My next daughter Kelly gets married next summer! My eldest son, Joseph is a brand-new engineering grad, my youngest daughter Bridget has just started University and the youngest of my five kids, Adam, just started high school!
My role as hero-support is changing
With their increasing independence, my role as hero-support is changing too. Sometimes it’s a little bit of tug-a-war. They’re grasping for more independence, but sometimes still huddling close for the comfort of reassurance or a helping hand.
For the most part, I’m excited to help them! I particularly enjoy contributing where my gifts coincide. Throughout the prep time for this last wedding, I was confident in my ability to tackle creative projects, coordinating Kelly’s artwork with Emily’s passion for the wedding theme and the ensuing complexity.
My heart feels different some days. I love it when they come to me for my perspective, but sometimes it stings when they reject it, but still rely on me to make their way work.
Sometimes I’m torn, trying to meet the needs of one of my adult kids, while called and stretched to meet the needs of another.
I can get preoccupied trying to over-plan, anticipate glitches, and take precautions to help things go smoothly for multiple grown-up kids at a time. Their needs and their plans are adult ones and the urgency of their needs often takes priority over my own.
And getting to know them as they mature in their beliefs and hopes and Faith is an honor! We’re still learning from each other, all of us so heavily influenced by our personal experiences.
My husband and I are called upon, often in very different situations for the unique perspective and support we can each give them. When we reflect and talk things through together, my husband and I can form an even clearer picture of the amazing and fascinating young adults our children have become!
We strive to streamline our response: to pray
While we don’t always have the answers to give them in the moment, and our responses are often strikingly more articulate hours or days after difficult conversations, we strive to streamline our response: to pray. We pray together with them and with each other and our most important advice to them should always be to reach out in prayer directly to Jesus.
Our circumstances, relationships, interaction and peace of mind can be ever-changing, but Jesus remains constant.
We are once again reminded that Jesus loves them even more than we parents do. He knows the intricacies and implications way beyond what we know. He knows exactly what is to come and how it will impact their souls.
He wants the best thing for each one of us.
It’s yet another new season of motherhood for me, and incidentally yet another opportunity for a new prompt to pray!
New Prompt to Pray
Every time I begin getting overwhelmed, tempted to worry, and tugged into the familiar habit of over-planning, anticipating what could possibly go wrong, and pre-emptive troubleshooting, I am prompted to pray:
Jesus, I want what You want.
Please soften my heart and all of our hearts to pursue Your Blessed Will.
The Saints Can Prompt Us to Pray
July 25, 2023 by Leave a Comment
The Communion of Saints offers us mentors in our Catholic Faith, patrons of almost anything you can think of for intercession, and models of persistent pursuit of holiness, wholeheartedly seeking virtue, prayer, and union with God. While many of the Saints gave us specific teaching about prayer, we can also look to their particular patronage as a special prompt to pray as they did or to pray for their intercession.
Jesus and Mother Mary
First and foremost, we can always ask Jesus and our Blessed Mother to prompt us to pray! Our Lady wants nothing more than to draw us closer to Her Son. She magnifies the Lord. She mentors us in humility and shows us firsthand how to love and serve God and surrender to His Holy Will.
We can pray for Our Lady’s help to love and serve her Son and draw closer to Jesus through her Immaculate Heart.
St Anthony: Most famous Saint?
We are prompted to pray for St. Anthony’s help when something is lost and must be found. We can also pray, asking for St. Anthony to find a solution for us in our struggles, God’s Plan as we face decisions, healing for our pain or illness, peace when we are anxious, and an indication of where we are to go, when we are lost.
We pray for St. Michael’s intercession when we face temptation or aggression, blatant evil or spiritual attacks. We can renounce lies and negative thoughts that lead us astray or steal our peace.
St Joseph
St. Joseph kept his family safe by listening to the messages he received, following God’s Will and trusting in Him. We ask St. Joseph to make us humble and obedient and to help us to recognize and trust in God’s Plan.
When we are concerned for our marriage or family or specific loved ones, we can pray for St. Joseph’s help or St. Monica’s intercession.
St Therese
We pray for St. Therese’s help when we’re frustrated by our littleness and sin.
St. Therese would remind us that our littleness endears us to God! We can run to Jesus like a little child and let St. Therese show us the way!
St Gertrude
We pray with St. Gertrude throughout the month of November (and all year long!) for the Holy Souls in purgatory and for sinners:
Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen. Pray With Us!
Go-To Saints When We’re in Distress
We pray for St. Jude’s or St. Rita’s intercession when we face a desperate or hopeless situation.
When we pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet, we pray for the assurance of God’s Mercy. We imagine Jesus giving us the words, as He gave them to St. Faustina.
We can ask Brother Lawrence and St. Benedict to remind us to pray as we work and throughout all of our daily tasks. We can ask them to prompt us to remain mindful of God’s Presence.
We can ask for the intercession of St. Raphael, St. Andre, or St. Peregrine (or any of our other favorite patron saints or Blesseds) when we need healing.
When we need courage, we can ask for help from St. Michael, St. Joan of Arc,
St. Lawrence, St. Lucy or any of the Saints and Martyrs.
We can ask St. Teresa of Calcutta to help us to serve others and to see the Face of Jesus in each person we encounter.
As we prepare for confession, we can ask for help from St. John the Baptist,
St. Ignatius or St. Padre Pio to help us examine our conscience and to reveal our sin to us.
When we need to trust in God, we can choose to repeat the words with St. Faustina and St. Kateri: Jesus, I trust in You, and consciously surrender our concerns to Him.
This article first appeared on CatholicMom.com as part of an on-going research project. See the first article here:
The Saints Were Prompted to Pray: Are you?
The Saints Were Prompted to Pray. Are YOU?
April 18, 2023 by Leave a Comment
There are so many ways to pray! We have such a rich tradition of classic prayers and devotions, but we can also speak spontaneously to God in familial conversation. We are told by Jesus and by St. Paul to pray without ceasing and yet we are easily distracted and sometimes forget to pray.
I have become fascinated with learning what the Saints taught about Prayer!
Reading their teaching on prayer, there seems to be a consensus that we don’t need a list of rules or instructions to pray, but we need humility and perseverance. We should strive to pray from the heart with focus and intention.
And if want to try and pray without ceasing, we need to build a habit of prayer, and prompts to pray are helpful to do just that!
While I have written quite a bit about how we can be prompted to pray, I have been researching how the Saints were prompted to pray!
Perhaps what prompted these Saints to pray, can help us in our own habit-making quest to pray without ceasing!
St. Benedict was prompted to pray at specific times of day and night, but he also used visual cues as reminders to pray. He would make a point of praying every time he walked under one of the many arches at the monastery of Monte Cassino. (Giacomo Cardinal Lecaro, Methods of Mental Prayer. Westminster: Newman Press, 1957)
Is there a house or a statue or a piece of Sacred Art that you pass by every day, that can prompt YOU to pray?
St. Ignatius of Loyola was prompted to pray about specific events or actions of each day, through The Daily Examen, reflect on them and let them guide and transform him.
Are YOU prompted to pray The Daily Examen before you go to bed each night?
St. Teresa of Avila
Pray More Women’s Retreat
February 6, 2023 by Leave a Comment
I just curated our first-ever St. Mark’s Women’s Ministry Weekend Retreat this past weekend and it was packed with prayerfully-chosen videos of Fr. Mike Schmitz and Fr. Casey talking about why we pray and how we pray MORE.
We read out a few beautiful reflections from Jerry Windley-Daoust’s Imagine You Walked With Jesus: A Guide to Ignatian Contemplative Prayer, leading the ladies through prayer journaling with the journals we gifted them.
Read my REVIEW of this Treasure-of-a-book here: Imagine You Walked With Jesus {Book Review}
Top THREE Praise & Worship songs:
Permission by Found Together
I Can Only Imagine by Mercy Me
Amazing Grace (These Chains are Gone) Chris Tomlin
I also created the Pray More Workbook and each of the ladies received a copy, along with their new prayer journals, which they had an opportunity to embellish with prayer prompt labels from this
Special Bundle
Imagine You Walked with Jesus: A Guide to Ignatian Contemplative Prayer {Book Review}
January 31, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Imagine You Walked with Jesus: A Guide to Ignatian Contemplative Prayer
by Jerry Windley-Daoust
Our Sunday Visitor
This book is a treasure!
Windley-Daoust provides all the context of first-century Palestine, including what the buildings looked and felt like, what clothes the people wore, and what food they enjoyed, as well as insights into the Jewish culture of the time. He provides prayer to help us receive the specific Scripture and then ‘sets the scene’ with helpful detail about the context, given the culture and any special references alluded to within the Scripture. The author then extends a few questions to prompt reflection and consider how the story applies to our lives. He encourages us to reflect and prayer-journal or share with a prayer group.
I love how the Holy Spirit can help us to use our imagination for more personal prayer! The 40 carefully chosen Scripture selections offer wonderful opportunities to imagine ourselves within the Scripture and allow Jesus to interact intimately with us.
This would be an INCREDIBLE daily prayer exercise for LENT, and if we intentionally invoke the Holy Spirit to guide us, I think this imaginative and inspired prayer journaling is guaranteed to develop our personal relationship with Jesus!
Order YOUR copy today:
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Imagine You Walked with Jesus on Amazon:
BE the Prompt to Pray
July 11, 2022 by Leave a Comment
As a mom of three young adults, my Mom-responsibilities are evolving as they face big decisions.
While it is a blessing when they want to talk about their concerns and choices, it is becoming increasingly clear that I can’t easily jump in and fix everything. I don’t have ready-to-go advice. I’m the kind of person who is more likely to think of the best answer, hours after mulling it over.
Sacred Heart of Jesus, I trust in You
May 31, 2022 by 1 Comment
The monthly devotion of June honors the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Delving into this devotion, we reflect on the profound love Jesus has for each one of us. While the Devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is classic and traditional, the Divine Mercy of Jesus devotion is somewhat new, revealed to St Faustina in 1931. Both devotions however focus on the Love and Mercy of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Adding “Sacred Heart of Jesus” to “I trust in You” reminds us of the unconditional, infinite Love Jesus has for us and His Love for us is the reason He pours out His Divine Mercy upon us.
The following reflection was focused primarily on the Divine Mercy of Jesus and the associated quick and powerful prayer “Jesus, I trust in You”. We are called to pray “Jesus, I trust in You” throughout the day, especially during times of struggle or doubt or fear.
Sometimes, praying “Jesus, I trust in You” feels empty and ineffective, or at best, like wishful thinking. When we pray “Jesus, I trust in You,” all the while coordinating our best backup plan just in case, we’re not actually trusting in Jesus, but in our own feeble strength or attempt to control.
“Jesus, I trust in You” is meant to be an active prayer. We practice this prayer by reinitiating our prayer of surrender when we become anxious and by choosing with our will to let go of our concerns, placing them in the Lord’s capable Hands.
5 Ways to Mean What You Pray:
“Jesus, I trust in You”
- When we pray “Jesus, I trust in You,” all the while coordinating our best backup plan just in case, we’re not actually trusting in Jesus. Don’t plan while you pray.
- When we pray “Jesus, I trust in You,” we can’t expect that things will work out exactly the way we want, but we need to have expectant Faith that He will work all things for good. We need to be humble and docile and remain open to His Will and His Best Plan for us.
- When we pray “Jesus, I trust in You,” we’re not simply seeking His Advice to carry out our own plans in the best way possible. He’s not a Consultant: He’s in control.
- When we pray “Jesus, I trust in You,” but are inclined to continue to fret, we need to practice putting the prayer into action. We need to deliberately arrest our useless and damaging train of anxious thought. We can deliberately redirect our thoughts, choosing to be grateful for our blessings in the present moment.
- When we pray “Jesus, I trust in You,” we need to deliberately choose with our will to trust in Him and let go of our concerns. If our anxious thoughts return, we need to remind ourselves that we’ve handed our worries over to Jesus. We reinitiate our prayer of surrender over and over again.
When we pray “Jesus, I trust in You,” all the while coordinating our best backup plan just in case,
we’re not actually trusting in Jesus. #equippingCatholicfamilies
Want to read MORE about the Sacred Heart of Jesus?
Finding My Integrity with the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus by John. J. Spitzer M.D.
Sacred Heart Gifts available at Little With Great Love
Saints of the Sacred Heart Podcast Series by Little With Great Love
Bring Jesus’ Heart into Your Home with this One Prayer by Prayer Wine Chocolate
What is the Sacred Heart of Jesus
The Time I met Jesus on a Park Bench
September 20, 2021 by Leave a Comment
So much of what we do each day is experienced through our senses. In conversation with others, we hear them, we see them, we experience our surroundings (even if we’re on Zoom!) and it is tangible. When we pray in mental prayer, from the silence of our hearts, we can lose sight of Whom we are praying to, perhaps sabotaging our efforts to be vulnerable, desensitizing ourselves, and impersonalizing our relationship with Jesus, because we can’t easily perceive or imagine His Presence.
While I may have previously mistrusted my imagination to unduly distract myself in prayer, I have recently discovered an increased intensity and intimacy, when I ask the Holy Spirit to creatively guide my imagination in prayer.
I imagine approaching Jesus Who is sitting on a park bench. His Arm is extended across the backrest and He’s gesturing for me to come and sit with Him, a little sideways on the bench so that we are face to Face. I think it’s safe to say that the current Chosen series has no doubt influenced the Jesus of my imagination, with his smiling face, focused gaze and His brotherly teasing. When I meet Jesus on the park bench these days, He looks an awful lot like Jonathon Roumie and kind of acts like him too!
With every word I imagine He speaks to me, He reassures me of His Love for me and His intimate Knowledge of my circumstances. He recognizes my deepest feelings and the innermost desires and intentions of my heart. He answers questions I haven’t even asked yet! He teases me gently, making light of my insecurities (affectionately) and expertly putting into focus what most matters: my personal relationship with Him.
When I’m anxious, He reminds me that I can get through anything if my eyes are focused on His and I trust in Him. I can get through anything when He is with me. And He is always with me. I can use my imagination to experience His Presence more personally, more strikingly, more tangibly.
When I have felt myself in the midst of a panic attack, He held me close to His Chest, my ear to His Heart, so that my breathing gently calmed and quieted to match His Heartbeat. I melted into His Embrace, comforted and equipped once again to trust in Him completely.
I recognize that my worry, my stewing, and my panic relieve nothing and only exacerbate my anxiety.
I am prompted to actually surrender my concerns to Him.
It’s a choice of the will.
It’s an active willingness to pray and to trust.
It’s saying the words and meaning them.
It’s directing my focus on Him, rather than inward on myself.
It’s moving on, switching tracks, and even deliberately distracting myself from destructive thoughts.
It’s a choice to remain confident that He will take care of the rest.
It’s a conscious effort to bundle up my worries into a heavy little package and leave it on the bench beside Him, or at His Feet
and then just talk to Him…and listen as He responds!
Excerpt from the upcoming new release: Prompt Me to Pray with the Saints by Monica McConkey
Arma Dei: Equipping Catholic Families
