To use polite words about it, praying the rosary with the kids has always been something of an interesting occasion. Who am I kidding, everything is an “interesting occasion” with a passel of little kids around. Still, we keep trying. We give up and shelve it from time to time but we always go back to trying to teach them to pray the rosary.
Why do we do this?
I think my primary reason I want to put this prayer method deeply into their hearts and minds is that it contains the primary parts of the Gospel. If, for some reason, my children find themselves isolated from the faith in some way, (desert island, lost in space, difficult peer group, war torn country with renewed persecution of Christians, or many other possibilities) I want them to have a basis of faith to fall back on.
Of course they have the grace of God with them always. But the Mysteries of the Rosary contain the most important points of the Gospel. If this is all they have someday, they will be well equipped.
I’ll save a full explanation of the Rosary for another day, but this is my reasoning for imparting this to my children.
In a renewed effort to bring the rosary to their hearts, I started saying one decade with them sometimes at bedtimes. We don’t do it every night. I make a note of which mystery we are on with Google Calendar, since that is where the details of everything else go too.
Rather than round up rosaries, pass them out, endure the swinging around, fighting over who got which one, dropping them, and the constant asking of which bead we are on, I did something different. It was a spur of the moment idea, but it is working really well. I told them the mystery like a story, including as much detail and wonder as I could. We prayed the Our Father. Then I held up my hands so they could see them, fingers extended, and put down one finger for each Hail Mary. To my surprise, they did the same and followed along easily.
I’m sure this isn’t a revolutionary idea, but it is changing how we can pray together.
One story. Ten fingers. Engaged children. Family prayer.
Thank you, Jesus!
This Post is Brought to you in participation with Sunday Snippets – a question is asked every week and this week’s question was: Do you have any suggestions regarding the Rosary? Books? Audios? Ways to pray it?
Find others’ answers at This That and the Other Thing.
Great idea.