Some families are Franciscan in their spirituality; some are more Ignatian. Some families draw their inspiration from the Rule of St. Benedict. And some families are just winging it.
Here are a couple of pages from the Fisher Family prayerbook:
Parents' Morning Blessing
Father of mercies, we ask you to bless these children, which, with some uncharacteristically poor judgement, you have entrusted to our care. Make them strong enough to follow your ways, kind enough to spread your love, and smart enough not to repeat what Daddy said about people with Obama bumper stickers on their cars. Let these children be a beacon in a dark world. Let them be a shining witness for the culture of life. And let somebody come by with another few bushels of hand-me-downs, because the boys all grew out of their pants again last night.
Amen.
Children's Prayer Before Meals
Bless us, o Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are going to refuse to eat for no particular reason. We enjoy all the individual ingredients therein, and have secured promises from our mother that there is not even one little bit of onion in this dish, and yet we will not eat thereof. We don't know why we act this way; we just do.
[Anoint dish three times with ketchup, so they will be useless as leftovers.]
We beseech thee, o Lord, to make lots of Cheese Nips appear in the cabinet, so that we will not have to go hungry. We depend on your kindness, o bountiful God. We thank you for never trying to get us to eat eggplant, and we call upon your just judgements when our mother appears before your courts, and beg you to remember that she did, in fact, try to get us to eat eggplant.
Amen.
Prayer When Preparing a Pet for Christian Burial
Lord, we pray that the neighbors don't notice we're doing this again.
Amen.
Prayer Before Mass
Almighty God, as we approach your altar to participate in the divine sacrifice of your only-begotten Son, we wonder what we think we are doing here. We are jerks. We are incredible hypocrites. We spent the morning primping in front of the mirror, shrieking at the kids, and pouting at our husbands. We approach you with fear and trembling, and wonder if there's any possible way we could be reconciled to you in your goodness and your glory.
Then we behold the crucifix; and we say, "Oh."
I mean,
Amen.
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As usual, you keep me real and yet keep me longing for the Divine. Thanks!
I love the “Prayer When Preparing a Pet for Christian Burial.”
I distinctly remember one time at Mass, as a small child, when there was a long, quiet pause during the Consecration, and thinking the lack of sound meant there was nothing more to keep us there, I stood up and joyfully (and loudly) proclaimed: “YAY! It’s done!”
I think my mother died a little bit that day.
This must go into your ‘Best Of’ file!! Simply awesome.
Too funny! No one likes eggplant huh? The prayers are realistic and humorous but respectful and humble, that’s all HE asks of us. Thank you for sharing these special prayers with us.
Beautiful, Simcha - My kids are older now, but still turn their noses up at most of my kitchen concoctions, and only come home hungry when I haven’t cooked something new and nice that day…
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I love your prayer before Mass. We go faithfully, despite the struggles in our lives, the toughest one for me, (and most likely to make me act non-Christ-like) being getting to church on time.
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Well, the food thing can go either way. My pickiest eater has turned into a gourmet cook. She eats things that I have never even heard of, and you can’t find any of the normal stuff that we have in our kitchen in hers. You could starve to death there if she’s not there to cook.
I guess I will add that this particular daughter had some sort of prenatural ability in her pickiness. When we had tuna casserole, which contained green peas, she managed to eat everything except the peas which each maintained there original position on the plate, thus meaning that some peas were actually hovering above the plate.
I love this column, Simcha.
AMDG
I can only say “Amen.” to all of it.
The funniest things have the realities of our living in them. I’m glad I finished my coffee before reading. The “Prayer Before Mass” made me laugh and laugh and then cry a little - in a good way. Thank you!
Simcha, please make your column a little more dry and boring. My husband is going to ban me from reading it if I spit any more of my morning coffee on the computer monitor from laughing.
Love this one! Once again, you have summed up perfectly what the rest are thiking!! May God continue to bless you- you are truly a blessing to us!
This is so awesome. I am reminded of the story my mother in law tells about my husband, when he was five years old, going up with her as she received Communion; it dawned on him, suddenly, that he was not going to get a Host, and he planted his feet in front of the priest and shrieked, “I WANT A GOD COOKIE!” My poor mother in law scooped him up and carried him, yelling, “GOD COOKIE! GOD COOKIE!” out of the church.
This has got to be one of your best, funniest and, yet, most spiritual columns. Thank you for posting it, and God bless you and your family.
Well, Christian Pet funerals are not too bad ...
When my two oldest boys were little, we had been reading Norse Myths together and discussing the Vikings and their culture. When the boys’ pet tarantula (yes, tarantula) expired a few days later the oldest - who was about 7 at the time - convinced his sibling that this would be an excellent opportunity to give their beloved “Shelob” a proper Viking Funeral.
Afterward, during the interrogation phase, I discovered that my two erstwhile Vikings had rummaged through their toybox and found a damaged plastic replica of Johnny Depp’s pirate ship from Pirates of the Caribbean, the “Black Pearl.”
Stuffing the Black Pearl’s hulk with a combination of toilet paper and paper towels, the boys placed the remains of Shelob on the deck, lit the paper, and then pushed the ship into the middle of the pool. In an effort to add an appropriate degree of solemnity to the occasion, they both started singing “Jesus Loves Me” - the only hymn they both knew (and by that I mean they knew the first three words and then there was confused mumbling and humming) - and it was this “singing”, along with a faint whiff of melting plastic, that initially attracted my attention.
Needless to say, clean up was a blast ... and that night we altered our reading plans.
Nothing wrong with Christian Pet funerals ....
@Karen, my second oldest has also had this meltdown. When he was younger, that is, he would become upset that he went up there but did not receive Eucharist. He has some special needs and Mass is hard enough for him, but I had to carry him out more than once as he yelled “I want Communion!!”
Okay, Kevin, if I were in charge of the reward for best comment, yours would be it.
AMDG
This is fantastic. I cannot stop laughing at the “Children’s Prayer Before Meals”
GET YOUR HIDDEN CAMERAS OUT OF MY HOUSE.
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Ahem.
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I mean… great post!`
Hilarious. @Kevin, pricless. ...“and help them to be smart enough not to repeat…” —a couple of years ago, I was driving, and my ten y.o. suddenly shouted, “JACKA$$ ALERT!” making me almost jump out of my skin. He was waving an accusatory finger at someone’s Obama bumper sticker. He explained earnestly, “that’s what Grandpa does.” Grandpa got a sound scolding that evening. He bowed his head like a chastened school boy, but he couldn’t hide the smirk on his face.
Thanks for the mirth! Much needed!
And they say Catholics has no sense of humor. Keep it up Simcha, from one parent to another. Thanks for making me smile :)
Ah, Simcha, thanks for my first real giggle of the day (it was the pet funeral that finally sent me over the edge). And thanks everyone for the great comments. I don’t I’ll ever forget the God Cookie and the Viking funeral!
@Karen - This past Sunday was First Communion at our parish. I was trying to explain a little bit to my girls(3 and 5-next-month) before Mass. My older daughter has a reasonable understanding of communion for someone her age, but my younger daughter started saying, “Is Jesus a cookie???” over and over, with both girls shrieking with laughter. Fortunately, this was at home before we left for church, but apparently it is a common thing among preschoolers!
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Also, along the lines of the meal prayer, this is hilarious parody of Biblical food laws based on the behavior of kids: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/02/laws-concerning-food-and-drink-household-principles-lamentations-of-the-father/5013/
In offering the grace before the meal, my niece once gave thanks to God for the food, her parents, her sisters and family, before saying, “Thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing…” Her father cut her off with an Amen at that point. You may not be surprised to find out that my sister, her mother is one of the last great fans of ABBA.
Superb.
Thanks…you have made me laugh aloud again!!!!
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!!! This is SO REALISTIC!!!!! If we said these prayers as a family (which we should) we would add, St. Jude of Impossible Causes, pray for us. ;) ~shalimamma at lifevictorious dot com
Bravo! More! More! (I perceive a book here!)
Loved the beginning, some are Franciscan,some Ignatian. A wise priest once told me that not everyone finds a particular spirituality that suits them, but rather many people take a little from each.
You may enjoy this Atlantic piece from many years ago: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/02/laws-concerning-food-and-drink-household-principles-lamentations-of-the-father/5013/
Thanks for the laugh today… prayer before meals fits quite well in my house… I should adopt it!
My children, bless them, will tolerate onions. But eggplant, anathema! Guess we all have our limits. That was not the only part of these prayers that was more than a little familiar! Thanks again for summing up on behalf of so many of us.
Amen! Amen!
(You should talk to my mother about eggplant. Her method takes about 30 years, but it works!)
Beth
I am a Nana now, but totally relate to this article and the comments.
Once, I had to remove an obnoxious six year old boy from Mass after multiple hissed warnings. As we walked down the aisle during the offering song, he screamed (with all of his latent theatrical talent…)
“Don’t beat me, Mommy! Please don’t beat me like the last time!!”
We limited corporal punishment to rare dangers like running into streets, but this kid was going for the sympathy vote anyway! No, he did not get “beaten”, then or ever before or since, but he had quite the essay to write and an apology to deliver to our bemused but straightfaced pastor!
NICE!!!!!!!! Thanks for sharing!!
Simcha, your humor pretty much stupifies me! (Is stupify a word?!) LOVE this article. Thanks for being such a wonderful instrument of the Holy Spirit!!!
I would like to share this prayer I found on the internet with the writer of this blog and all readers of this blog: God bless this rocket house and all those who dwell within this rocket house.
Wow. Our politics don’t align one bit (in our family it would be “what Daddy said about Romney”), but we share a devotion to our Savior and this? Took my breath away.
Whose name means “Joy”: Thank you for the honest and delightful disclosure in this post. God delights in families who take this stuff (Him) seriously, yet themselves lightly. Ah, for a direct and clear connection to the Divine Perspective!
Oh. My. Goodness.
Thank you so much for the laugh-out-loud. DH and I truly enjoyed it.
“We are incredible hypocrites. We spent the morning primping in front of the mirror, shrieking at the kids, and pouting at our husbands. ”
Brilliant. Glad to know I’m not alone
It’s funny, the ONLY thing I know of that my husband will NOT eat is eggplant…
Thank you for the chuckles : )
Oh my! This and the comments were hilarious. My kids and I laughed so hard over the Viking funeral and the “God Cookie” because in our house it was “God Chips.” and I almost wet my pants over grandpa and his “Jacka$$ Alert”. Thanks everyone for a wonderful morning! I can’t wait for more comments!
Karen,I Too Reacted in a Similar way like your Husband Over a Decade Ago about Communion(I am a Aspie),BUT it was when My Teachers promised make My First Communion happen did I STOP whining and pouting about it.
So funny, I love all of them. Thanks.
this is great!
I say, there’s an entire book to be written here. How about to good old Saint Anthony, in petition to intercede in finding the book/sock/flute/other sock/lunch/homework/phone/fork/favorite thingy. Oh yeah, and find my marbles St. Anthony. I know I’ve been losing my marbles for quite some time now. Can I get an Amen?
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