Catholic Family Devotions using Our Feast Table

I showed you last week how we (finally!) set up our child friendly feast table in our home.  Today, I’d love to show you how we’ve made it a part of our daily life and how I’ve made the feast table work for us by using it in our simple Catholic Family Devotions.

After setting up the table at the beginning of January, I quickly realized it might just sit there and not actually feed my children’s souls the way I intended.  After running it over in my mind awhile, God planted the seed to start a family devotion time that would center around the feast table.

(Epiphany feast table.)

Confession.

While it has long been on my heart to have a daily family prayer time, I have really struggled to make it a reality in our home.  Was it my lack of organization? The season of life? Busyness?  Laziness?  Over complication?  I can’t uncover the root cause, but I finally feel like the time has come to solidify family prayer (beyond meal times and bed time) as a daily habit.

In past years, I’ve been very good about waking before the children and having some daily quiet time.  But as the number of little ones has grown and their rising times have shifted earlier and earlier (6 a.m. anyone?), I’ve been struggling to get take time at the Lord’s feet.

Wasting time daily with God is an important  NECESSARY part of our walk toward holiness.  Don’t believe me?  Start reading the saints and listening to Godly people of our own age.

I know from experience that turning to God first thing in the morning sets the tone for the day and helps us hear His still small voice throughout our daily duties.  The reality of being a mother of little ones means I don’t always get that quiet time FIRST like I need and want.

Our new family prayer habit kills two birds with one stone.  First, I get to turn to God first thing.  Secondly, I model and foster the habit of devotional life to my children.

I still have “back-up” times (nap-time, bed-time) for personal alone time with God, but this family devotion time helps me START with God everyday.  Family prayer time is NOT a substitute for quiet time alone at the Lord’s feet!

We’ve had family prayer time everyday the last week, and already it is something I WANT to do.  God has been faithful and has heaped Grace upon Grace during this prayer time.  Against all odds, I come away from this time with my children refreshed and at peace.

How do I make this work for my family?

Still struggling getting a prayer time going in your family?  Here is my secret:  simplicity.

Prior to this time, I was apt to attempt perfection or try to do too much.  Just the thought of reading a whole chapter of the Bible and adding in lots of “extras” to our devotion time stole my peace.  As a result, I would think Lord, I don’t have the time and energy to do this today.  We’ll get back to you tomorrow.  Only, we never did get back to Him.

This time around, I’m focusing on making family devotion time a habit.  It will happen everyday.

What our Devotion time looks like…

1.  Opening prayer

We light a candle (each kid gets a day in turn) to set the mood and get out a mat for each child to sit on (we use old placemats).  Our opening prayer is short and sweet.  We make the sign of the cross and ask God to be with us during our time together.

2.  Saint of the Day OR Bible Passage

If it is a feast day (which I know from a quick glance at my planner) we read a short summary of the saint.  I write the saint’s name on our picture frame using dry erase markers.  We also turn to the picture of the saint in our One Hundred Saints book.  If I had time the night before, I will often read about the upcoming day’s saint in the bigger book so I can fill in more details about their life.  We say a little prayer asking for the qualities and virtues of the day’s saint and then finish by saying (in example) “ME:  Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.  ALL:  Pray for us.”

Here are the books we use for saint days:

 

 

 

 

 

 

OR

On days that are not feast days, we read a passage (literally a section under a heading) from the Bible.  We discuss what God might be trying to tell us in the passage.  We are currently working through the gospel of Mark using my son’s Catholic Children’s Bible.  Really any translation would work, but we use this one because we are really trying to bring it to the kids’ level.

 3.  Memorize scripture.

We then take some time to memorize a short scripture passage.  At one time, my son (age 5 at the time) and I memorized the first chapter in James, but right now we are keeping it very simple with just a short passage.

We are working through Catholic Icing’s ABC scripture memory cards for Young Catholics.  I was going to make my own, but I love that these are all ready done for me!

 

4.  Prayer

We then take turns praying for different intentions and for the things we learned in our saint or Bible time.

5.  Listening for the spirit

To me, this is the meat of our prayer time together.  As parents, we need to teach our children not only to talk to God but to listen.  Stepping out of our role as teacher and letting the Holy Spirit inspire our children with prayer intentions, praises, and prophecy is a beautiful thing!

After we have gone around and said prayers, I pray specifically that God would open our hearts to His Holy Spirit and fill us with inspiration.  We then sit in silence for a minute.  After the minute is up, we talk about anything we thought, felt, or saw during that time of listening. 

(Here is this guy stuttering out what He felt during our silence)

I’ve been amazed at how the kids have responded to this as well as what they share after the silence.  Here are some of the things I’ve heard in the last week:

“Jesus wants us to give Him our hearts.” (2 year old)

“I feel filled up with peace!” (8 year old)

“Jesus, I give you my heart and everything I have.” (4 year old)

I myself feel a deep sense of peace and comfort after our silence before God.

Are you like me?  Do you struggle to make family prayer time a reality in your home?  If so, I’d love to encourage you to begin building this time into your family’s schedule.  It has been such a source of Grace for us and I know it will be for you too!

My kids have noticed a difference in my demeanor and I have noticed something different in them too.

Don’t get discouraged! 

Don’t try to be perfect! 

Just jump in and DO it! 

Be faithful! 

God WILL reward you!

Want to learn more about our feast table?

• Here is where it all began
• Here are all the posts on our Feast Table including posts for every month (so far!)

Tell me where you are on your journey with family devotions!

Other posts you’ll enjoy:

Catholic Preschool Must Do’s

Marian Must Reads for Young Catholics

Reasonable Expectations and Simple Strategies for Mass with Littles

Why we choose MODG for our Catholic Homeschool