These Two Best Practices Extend Beyond the Advent Season

Many families having been executing traditional practices during this Advent season so as to create memories and help form the faith of parents and kids alike.   These activities include lighting candles on the Advent wreath, observing St. Nicholas Day, opening up a window each day on the Advent calendar, and setting up a nativity scene in the home. However, you could combine these and all other Advent and Christmas-time activities and still not help grow your family’s faith lives more than just two fundamental “best practices” that every Catholic family ought to execute – praying daily and going to Mass weekly.

More Catholics than ever these days only attend Mass a few times a year – perhaps a Sunday or two during the Advent and Lenten seasons and then on Christmas and Easter. Similarly, fewer and fewer of today’s Catholics set aside time every day to pray, whether privately and silently or aloud as a family. Whereas, weekly Mass and daily prayer should be undertaken as minimal acts of worship toward our Almighty Father and His Beloved Son because They deserve our praise and it helps us improve our faith lives, these actions improve your health, too!

A Harvard School of Public Health study showed that participation in these two fundamentals of spiritual development during childhood can lead to better health and well-being during early adulthood. Researchers found that those who attended religious services or prayed daily throughout their upbringing reported greater positivity and more satisfaction in their lives in their 20s. The Harvard study also indicated that people were less likely to exhibit depressive symptoms, to smoke, or to use illicit drugs than people raised with less time in the essential, elementary spiritual practices of daily prayer and weekly church-going.

Getting deeper into the study’s results, children who were exposed to religious services regularly (e.g. “going to Mass”) were: 

• 18% more likely to report higher happiness during their young adulthood;

• 29% more likely to volunteer in their communities as they grew older;

• 33% less likely to use illicit drugs.

Similarly, those who prayed daily were: 

• 16% more likely to have a happier outlook in their early adulthood;

• 30% less likely to begin having sex at a young age;

• 40% less likely to contract a sexually transmitted infection.

So, you want to improve the health and future outlook of your kids’ lives in this lifetime, while also improving the chance your family gets to Heaven in the next life? Get to church every Sunday, not just during Advent and on Christmas, but extending into every weekend of the coming new year. 

If weekly Mass attendance would be a new practice for your family, perhaps mom or dad can have a family talk where he or she explains to the children (or the resistant spouse) that going to Mass is the most important thing that a family can do together all week. If your kids can make commitments to get to their sports practices nightly or to practice their musical instruments a few days each week, and if the adults in the family can make commitments to get themselves to the gym for their daily workouts, then in comparison attending Mass once a week is not a difficult commitment to make. Being committed to one hour a week to go to church as a family is not just good for the family’s souls, it also models to the kids what a life of commitment is about.  

Catholic parents also need to make daily prayer a “best practice” with their families. Daily prayer can be as simple as saying an extended grace before one meal a day – be it at dinner or at breakfast (for you busy families who never are able to be home at the same time in the early evening hours).

An easy initial way to start your family praying together is to pray grace at dinner.  Right before you dig-in to the delicious home-cooked meal or the take-out pizza, outwardly give thanks to God for the little blessings that have occurred over the last 24 hours since you spoke to Him at your last family dinner. What is so great about your family saying grace is you can tailor your version so that everyone gets to add in something. Here’s an example: 

1. Mom or dad can begin by leading everyone in making the Sign of the Cross and then saying,”Dear Lord, we thank you for this time our family is together. I am especially grateful for…”
2. Then mom or dad states one thing that he/she is thankful for, and each person around the table adds a similar sentence – “Thank you God for…” or “I am grateful for…”
3. Grace ends with the entire family saying,”Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, from Christ our Lord, Amen.”

Getting in the habit of your family saying Grace before meals is a good way to remind yourselves that everything we have comes ultimately from God. Bonus points if you become a family who says grace quietly yet publicly at a restaurant after your waitress serves you your food. What a terrific witness you and your kids will be to other diners.

Another form of prayer is the Rosary, and a good suggestion is to get a Rosary app on your phone. Then when driving on your commute to work or driving the kids to school each morning you can be praying along while the Rosary app plays in the car.  Praying the Rosary not only can deepen your faith but it can convert your hearts so you and the kids in your carpool don’t start the day listening to the negativity and despair on your car radio’s news station.  Here is one particular Rosary app daily to download on your phone, and you’ll find many other choices out there, most which are free. 

It would be a big expectation to ask parents to pray with their children five decades of the Rosary daily, but a regular pattern of praying could be in the form of a family making it a routine that they will always pray the Rosary aloud together one night a week or making it a habit that they will always pray the Rosary together in the car when taking any road trip that is going to last an hour or longer. At a good pace, it only takes 17 minutes to pray five decades. You can promise the kids they can go back to fighting in the car with their siblings or can put their earbuds back in after the 17-minute timeout for family prayer.

In order to survive as traditional, faithful families in the depraved 21^st century and live counter-culturally, moms and dads must make concentrated efforts to serve, praise, and adore their Almighty Father and His Blessed Son within their families at all times, more than just during special Church seasons and Holy Days.

Whereas Christmas Day is an opportunity to renew your commitment to Christ, and acknowledging there is nothing wrong with fun Advent activities such as opening up a Advent calendar window throughout the four weeks of this season, there is nothing that can renew your and your kids’ relationships with the Lord more than worshipping Him at Mass every weekend and praying to Him daily, 365 days a year.