Fr. Todd 12/28/25

Dear Sacred Heart and St. Mary on the Lake,

                 We celebrate this weekend the feast of the Holy Family.  A great way to celebrate this feast day is to revisit the famous phrase “The family that prays together stays together” popularized by Fr. Patrick Peyton.  (His own story is rather amazing- use this link if you want to learn more about his life: https://www.fatherpeyton.org/ )

                 This weekend let us examine how we are praying together as a family.  When it comes to prayer the most important marker is simply showing up!  We can’t gauge how “effective” a particular time of prayer was.  That is left in the hands of God but we can show up.  But I do love this bit of wisdom I found helpful: “The times of prayer that we look forward to, that are filled with a felt presence of God, in which the time flies by, are God’s gift to us.  The times of prayer that we don’t look forward to but pray anyway, that are dry and arid without a sense of God’s presence, in which the time crawls by, are our gift to God”. 

 So, pray!  I am more and more inspired by my parents who made up our family prayer time that suited what we were able to do.  We prayed a decade of the Rosary, each said one thing we were thankful for, one thing we wanted to pray for, and Dad would read the Gospel of the upcoming Sunday.  They were certainly not all “prayerful feeling” and often quite messy.  But those times planted very important seeds of prayer in my life that have since grown and bear great fruit.  Don’t be afraid to make up a time of prayer- do what works and stick to it.  Anything that is new will be awkward at first but will become more and more comfortable as time goes on. But they also helped us get comfortable to.  As time went on, they would have us take turns leading parts of the Rosary so we would become more comfortable ourselves.

 The modeling aspect of this is so important.  We learn from watching.  As a child seeing my parents pray was of great value.  This is true from watching them at Mass, even if we were misbehaving, to seeing them lead prayer before meal, or our family prayer time.  Going to confession as a family has this dual purpose.  Not only is this Sacrament a powerful encounter with Jesus it is incredible for us as kids to see our parents also approach this sacrament.  By seeing them unafraid to bring their sins to God we grow to have that same confidence to run to Him in our times of need.  One family I heard of, responds to time of tension in the family by heading up together to the confessional line.  The evil one loves to divide us- that simple step breaks those spirits that thrive in division and tension.  They then come back, much better off.

 A practical note in all of this is that private prayer, while important, can’t be the sole marker of our life of faith.  Have the people closest to us ever seen us praying?  This is not prideful- let them see so they can follow your example!  It is a great gift we give when they get a glimpse into our relationship with God.

 Pray together, stay together!  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the Holy Family, pray for us!

God Bless,  Fr. Todd