Praying at Home

"For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

Matthew 18: 20

Praying at home

The children learn to pray in many different ways in school. We have formal prayer books for each year group to pray and use at home which are on the website and in the home prayer bag. We have also attached some links to websites that you can use at home to pray with your family. There is also a lot of quiet, peaceful music online that we sometimes use in school when praying with the children.

Prayer Bags

At St Joseph’s each class will send the prayer bag home with a different family each week. The prayer bags will reflect the liturgical season. Resources and prayer cloths will change to reflect the current liturgical season.

We hope you will find the Prayer Bags help you as a family to come together to pray because prayer is an important part of the life of our school.

Jesus said that wherever two or three people gather and remember him, he will be there with them. He knew from his own family life with Mary and Joseph how important it was to share his life with his family.

We hope that the prayer bag will help you to come together for a few minutes each day over a week to share something very special in the presence of God.

At St Joseph’s we offer our young people the chance to live, work and pray together. Every child’s home is also a school of prayer, a place where all the family can come together to reflect and share what you believe. Whatever your own faith we invite you to take this chance and share and pray for what is important to you.

How to use the Family Prayer Bag

There are four parts to the Family Prayer: We Gather, We Listen, We Respond, We Go Forth (This format is followed through in your child’s prayer and liturgy at school.) A liturgy planning board has been provided to help you follow this process.

We Gather

This is about creating a holy space within your home for the family to gather round. This might be on a floor or on a table. Choose a place in your home which suits your family. In the Prayer Bag are a number of items to place in the holy space. We use religious symbols as part of our prayer to remind us that when we pray we are truly I the presence of God. If you can safely provide your own candle for this focus space it would be a welcome addition but a battery operated candle has been provided. There is a prayer journal for you to record your liturgy and your child to share their experience with their class in school.

We listen

An important part of our family prayer is listening to the Word of God. Through the words of scripture God speaks to you as a family. It is important that everyone listens carefully to the reading.

We Respond

Once you have listened to the reading you will be asked to think, talk and share your thoughts about it. You might even like to have a short time of silence to think about what you have heard. You will be asked to make up your own prayers and to share some well-known prayers of the Church.

We Go Forth

The last part of our family prayer will include ways in which your family can live out what you have prayed about by the love and care that you show one another.

Year One's Prayer Bag Journal

Prayer & Learning Resources for Home and School

CAFOD Browse CAFOD’s collection of prayers on poverty, bidding prayers, and short Catholic prayers on a wide range of themes and throughout the liturgical year.

The Mark 10 Mission The Mark 10 Mission provides weekly videos leading children to encounter Jesus. They help school children experience the Word of God, pray and sing together.

CAFOD's Children's Liturgy Prayers and resources for children's liturgy catechists and for families.

Catholic Kids-Loyola Press Teach Catholic children about the Catholic faith with fun games and prayers. Find Catholic information for kids at Loyola Press.

The Catholic Kid Lots of lovely ideas for how to pray the Rosary for children.

Lectio Divina Lectio Divina is a form of prayer that involves meditating on scripture. The name isLatin for ‘sacred reading’ and it dates back to the early Christian Church, around the time of St Benedict. In Lectio Divina a scripture passage is slowly read and meditated upon four times, in complete silence.

Prayerful meditation for children Be still and know that I am God. Meditation is a prayerful quest for God “engaging thought, imagination, emotion, and desire”

Mission Together Across the world, Mission Together encourages children to pray. This is because prayer not only unites us to God our Father, but through God’s love, prayer unites us with other people too. And it does not matter where those people are. They could be praying together in the same place, or praying together but in different towns, or in different parts of the world!