Online Book Club Week 9: Pranking and Praying

Editor’s note: Jump into our online book club! We’re reading Jane Knuth’s The Prayer List…and Other True Stories of How Families Pray. This week we focus on chapters 25–27. Learn more about the book club here. Even though I wrote a book about family prayer, I am not under the illusion that praying together with our loved ones is effortless. It’s not. Sure, we can say rote, memorized prayers at the table and no one […]

Book Club Bonus: The Prayer List Mini-Posters

Editor’s note: In our online book club, we’re reading Jane Knuth’s The Prayer List…and Other True Stories of How Families Pray. Each Tuesday through August 7, 2018, we’ll bring you Book Club Bonus Days—sharing additional stories of family prayer, continuing the weekly conversation, and more. Find all the book club posts here. “God can do anything. This is true. But God doesn’t do ‘just anything’; he’s too wise for that. I think it all depends on the relationship.” “I am […]

Online Book Club Week 6: To-Do List vs. Prayer List

Editor’s note: Jump into our online book club! We’re reading Jane Knuth’s The Prayer List…and Other True Stories of How Families Pray. This week we focus on chapters 16–18. Learn more about the book club here. Dean, my husband, asked me if my prayer list wasn’t just another to-do list, and I said, “Of course not. At least, I hope not. Well…no. I’m sure it can’t be. The irony would be extreme.” You see, my […]

Online Book Club Week 4: Praying Like Children

Editor’s note: Jump into our online book club! We’re reading Jane Knuth’s The Prayer List…and Other True Stories of How Families Pray. This week we focus on chapters 10–12. Learn more about the book club here. Today, I have a story about family prayer that is not in The Prayer List. This one requires a visual, so go put your hands on a set of rosary beads before you read any further. If you don’t […]

Online Book Club Week 3: I Don’t Even Like You

Editor’s note: Jump into our online book club! We’re reading Jane Knuth’s The Prayer List…and Other True Stories of How Families Pray. This week we focus on chapters 6–9. Learn more about the book club here. In chapter 6, Debbie is praying in front of the crucifix in her parish church. Her daughter is asleep, wrapped in a blanket, on the last pew near the door. Debbie’s husband has just died, and she is there […]

Online Book Club Week 2: An Obscure Corner for Prayer

Editor’s note: Jump into our online book club! We’re reading Jane Knuth’s The Prayer List…and Other True Stories of How Families Pray. This week we focus on chapters 3–5. Learn more about the book club here. Admission: I don’t like to be caught praying on my knees in my own house. Church is fine—I pray on my knees there all the time. But if I’m going down on my knees at home, I shut the […]

Online Book Club Week 1: The Freedom of Prayer

Editor’s note: Today we start our online book club. We’re reading Jane Knuth’s The Prayer List…and Other True Stories of How Families Pray. This week we focus on the prologue and chapters 1 and 2. Learn more about the book club here. When I was writing The Prayer List, I asked our daughters (now in their 30s) what they remembered about family prayer from their childhoods. Ellen promptly responded by reciting the prayer we most […]

An Interview About Prayer with Author Jane Knuth

Our online book club starts on Monday! As we get ready to read together The Prayer List by Jane Knuth, I asked Jane to share more about prayer and the book with us. Joe Paprocki: When you inherited your family prayer list, your first reaction was, “Uh-oh.” Tell us more about that reaction. Jane Knuth: Frankly, it looked like a lot of work to me. Aunt Kay spent hours each day praying for people, and […]

A Prayer for Those Who Have Shared Their Faith—Free Prayer Card

While it’s true that there is a private dimension to our faith, faith comes to us through others first. Maybe you remember your parents teaching you mealtime or bedtime prayers or taking you to participate in a service opportunity. Maybe a favorite teacher or catechist showed you the power of imaginative prayer, invited you to a meaningful communal prayer service, or led an activity that made some aspect of the faith “click” for you. Maybe […]

The Six Tasks of Catechesis #4: Teaching to Pray, or Praying Our Faith

The fourth of the Six Tasks of Catechesis is teaching to pray, or in terms of the remembering phrase HELP ME, praying our faith. Read what the bishops say: Conversion to Christ and communion with him lead the faithful to adopt his disposition of prayer and reflection… His prayer was always directed toward his Father. Catechesis should invite the believer to join Christ in the Our Father. Prayer should be the ordinary environment of all catechesis […]

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