Lift Up Your Hearts
I.Liturgy of the Hours
Online PDF free download copies.
One Volume Christian Prayer, Liturgy of the Hours. $37.00 Our Lady of Grace Bookstore.
Night Prayer. 8-10 min.
-The examen of conscience can be a time of careful and loving evaluation of how everyone is loving each other in Christ.
-Choose hymns you prefer to sing and teach new ones to your children. (Search the web for hymns and safe youtube presentations of hymns you do not know.
-Teach Marian prayers and antiphons for the close of Night Prayer.
-Help family to quiet down after Night Prayer by leading them off to bed or quiet reading afterward.
Try Morning Prayer. You can follow the Office as it is, but only use one Psalm if time dictates a shorter recitation. The other option is the Magnificat. Don’t forget the advantage of teaching your children to use the actual Liturgy of the Hours.
- Contemplative Prayer.
Each child and/or parent should find their own “sacred space” to spend 5 min. (use a timer, if necessary) gazing at a sacred image of Christ.
A parent selects a passage from the Gospels that show Jesus doing something. Read the passage out loud and give any commentary you can. Then send everyone to think about God.
The wise 5 min. Rule of Beginning Contemplation.
- Don’t say anything to God.
- Just look at the image before.
- Think about who He is…his perfections, etc. Loving, Merciful, Mighty, Redeemer, Forgiving…
- Don’t say anything or ask for anything. Just sit there with Him.
When the timer rings, gather everyone and share publically if it seems the right thing to do or let the children share privately with you. Encourage them to keep growing in this.
III.Praying the Scriptures Together
- Select a passage from the Gospels or the Acts of the Apostles.
- Read it our loud.
- Pause for a minute for everyone to think about it.
- Have one of the children read it our loud again inviting them to think of one thing that “strikes them” in the passage. Pause again.
- Repeat this one more time. Help them to imagine themselves being present
- when this is occurring. Older children who can write could jot down what their impressions were from ‘meditating’ on this scripture.
- Discuss how we can apply any lessons learned to our life today.
- Recollection.
This is the practice of calling to mind God’s Presence by pausing for a moment in thought and placing yourself anew before Him.
-Calling to mind that He is, indeed, with you.
-Calling to mind his perfections. Holy, Loving, Merciful, Pure, Almighty, Faithful, Provident, Forgiving, Redeeming…
-Short prayers you prefer.
-The short Offices from the Liturgy of the Hours, the Angelus, Divine Mercy Chaplet.
-a song of praise.
-loving sighs to God, the Blessed Mother, saints and angels.
-the exercise of keeping a particular Gospel passage or scripture before you during the day.
(St. Francis to his friars) “Take special care so as to not extinguish the spirit of prayer.”
- The importance of hymns and songs of praise for a vibrant life of prayer.
(Pope Benedict XVI) “Music uncovers the buried way to the heart, to the core of our being, where it touches the being of the Creator and the Redeemer. Wherever this is achieved, music becomes the road that leads to Jesus, the way on which God shows his salvation.” (p.137, A New Song For The Lord)
“Musical expression is part of the proper human response to God’s self-revelation, to his becoming open to a relationship with us. Mere speech, mere silence, mere action are not enough. That integral way of humanly expressing sorrow or joy, consent or complaint which occurs in singing is necessary for responding to God, who touches us precisely in the totality of our being.”(p.126. A New Song For The Lord).
-Find 5 hymns that you want to teach your family.
-Go over it daily for a week.
-Explain as best you are able the meaning of the verses.
-If you don’t have any hymnals or songbooks, go on the internet to get the texts.
-Learn from healthy youtube presentations.
-Put together your own family song supplement books.
-Work on gathering traditional hymns, contemporary praise and worship songs, Latin hymns, Marian hymns, Lenten, Advent, and Christmas Hymns. (If you have a copy of the Liturgy of the Hours, it will contain a number of hymns).
- Watch over the spiritual lives of your children. The Holy Spirit. BVM.