Being a mother is no easy task; there is no doubt in my mind that every woman who has ever been a mother in the history of mankind can testify to this.
Among the many prayers we as mothers say or exclaim, I've found these 6 to be my most repetitive ones and I'll share why.
First on a side note, I love our Lady. All the saints had a strong devotion to the Blessed Mother and all the holy and devout mothers and women I know today have one too. I think devotion to Mary is critical and necessary for our sanctity and vocation as being a mother and wife (as well as for every Christian). She was the Mother of God, for crying out loud. I think she knows a thing or two. As Catholics, we honor her and have a devotion to her because she played no small role in raising our Lord. As a mother, preserved free from sin by the anticipated merits our Lord won on the Cross, she loved Him perfectly and was therefore also His first and perfect disciple. So you'll see I go to her a lot
#1. "Mother, help me with....(the small stuff)."
In parantheses, I put the small stuff meaning any little thing we know we need extra grace from God for in our motherly duties. So for example, I'm not a fan of crafts or "fine motor skill" activities, but I know my kids need these at this point in their stage of development. Growing up, I was a tomboy, I prefered to lead around a pack of boys in my neighborhood, play sports, and avoid dolls and dress-up. So I have no inclination toward crafts. Plus, if you look around on different "mom blogs" for various crafts to do with pre-school children, I find that I am not particularly drawn to doing the type of craft where you spend an hour making a paper bag puppet. I prefer simple. "Mother, help me do more fine motor skill things with my kids; I hate doing crafts and coloring, they're boring, but I know these things are important for my children , so help me find a way to incorporate these things..." Very informal, but very to the heart of things. Yours may be any little thing! Another thing, I am not a fan of all those corny nursery rhyme songs (And I am a corny person myself you know). In fact, I think they are downright annoying. But I know they are very important for young children because they help with memorization and learning. "Mother, help me to do more songs for the kids...they're so annoying but I know I should be doing them more." So simple! The Lord in His goodness always then inspires something in me, or brings my eyes across something I need to see/know/or do as an answer to my prayers.
Mothers, you need to know that by your vocation of being a mom, the Lord has already given you every single grace you will need to raise your children in love adn bring them to heaven! The thing is, we often forget to draw upon that wellspring of grace and don't ask...so we neglect or miss out on that supernatural aid!
#2. "Mother, change my heart about whatever needs changed right now."
Haha, this may seem like a vague prayer! But sometimes, because we are limited human beings and tend to view ourselves in a more-than-favorable light, we don't see ourselves fully - weaknesses and all. So sometimes, I can sense something is off inside of me - maybe I shouldn't be such a neat freak or whatever and be so caught up in all the little messes; or I can sense that I need to change something, but don't really know exactly what it is... so my prayer becomes something like the above.
#3. "St. Joseph (insert child's saint here), please help me raise Joseph (insert your child's name here) in accord with the unique way God made him."
Each of our children were named after a particular saint. You and your children have a patron saint too even if you didn't name them after one. If you don't know it, you need to ask God who that is - that saint will start "showing up" in your life through various ways and things. The saints pick us, we don't pick them. The saints are invaluable because they are our family in heaven. The saints know what it was like to live on the earth, they knew the experience of being completely human and what it was like to go through struggles on earth to fight temptations, they experienced life's joys and endured through its sufferings. But what they also know is what it's like to now experience perfect and complete love and joy in heaven. And because they're there in heaven already, then they'll be praying and pleading before the throne of God for your son/daughter. That saint has a special relationship with your child and he/she is your child's best friend. So it is very efficacious to go to them. "St. Joseph, please preserve Joseph's holy desires and protect his purity as he grows...." We have noticed that Joseph likes to "play Mass" at home; this is a good thing for him, for his soul, for him to cultivate a love for the Mass, and God-willling, perhaps it will be an instrument that points him along the path to the priesthood (but who knows, we just pray that Joseph will do God's will no matter what that is). So I ask St. Joseph to protect these holy desires. Our enemy, Satan, will also try to do anything to destroy them. John-Paul also has a very stubborn and strong will. The Lord made him that way, it's a good thing if it's channeled in the right way. "St. John Paul II, please help John-Paul be strong-willed for the truth and for the Lord." See? Having a strong will only becomes troublesome when it becomes inclined toward sinful ways.
All these various prayers are not uttered in a long string of litanies every morning (the most important ones are though). They can be uttered throughout the day as you come across them. Say a little prayer to their saint for whatever the need may be. That's it. As a mother, these type of prayers happen "as you go" throughout the day and notice various things.
#4. "Mother, make up for where I am lacking."
No mother is perfect. We are all sinful. Our Blessed Mother, however, was not. So where perhaps I lose my temper and yell (then after the fiasco is finished, ask the Lord to forgive me), I also ask Mary to make up for where I am lacking as a mother and ask her to fill up that void with her love. May her tender, motherly love towards my children make up for all the areas I am lacking and sin. I heard a beautiful piece of wisdom on a family retreat we just went on. This mother had shared how she had learned to remind her children, "(Insert child's name here), I am a sinner. Daddy is a sinner. We are all sinners. But Jesus and Mary are perfect, go to them always." I think this is a good hit with reality. When our children are little, they emulate us and admire us. They think we are heros, that we are perfect. But we are not. So while for a time they will think this when they are young, as they grow up into more of their own independent-thinking person, they will realize our weaknesses. It is stupid to try to conceal them, or not ask our children for forgiveness where we do wrong. What a lack of humility on our part. So what are they going to do as they grow older and by our weakened, sinful nature, we let them down, we disappoint them, we criticize them, we argue with them, or accidentally hurt their feelings? Who will they go to? Parents aren't perfect. Well, rather than the children turn in on themselves, or feel hopeless, angry, sad or alone, they will know to bring this to Jesus and Mary. They will have recourse to prayer to Jesus and Mary when the number one people they love (and who love them), let them down. This is invaluable thing to teach our children in life because NOTHING, NO ONE, in this life will fulfill us perfectly and make us perfectly happy (despite how we tend to see these things romanticized in unrealistic movies, tv shows, and music).
#5. "Mother, help me show my children how to pray and love Jesus."
Children pick up incredibly on the things they see, especially when they are young. You can be rooted in an interior life all you want, but this internal prayer - when one has children - needs to also learn how to become an outward expression. Children learn from what they see and then imitate. We need to pray out loud. They need to see us kneeling, holding and silently praying a Rosary, kissing a crucifix as we walk by it, going to daily Mass with them (if you are able...this is the Eucharist - the source and summit of our faith - because it is Jesus Himself at the Mass!). They need to see us giving a kiss to a picture of our Lord, listening to Christian music, blessing ourselves with holy water, making the sign of the cross, reading Scripture, and so on. We need to randomly sing songs to Jesus, ask for forgiveness out loud sometimes (when it seems prudent and appropriate), we need to make spontaneous aspirations of prayer, "Lord I love you...Lord help me be patient" in their presence. This is how they will learn! Beg for this grace from our Lady. Even though Jesus was God, Joseph and Mary raised Jesus in His perfect humanity from the time he was a baby. They had to show him what it looked like to be faithful to God. Teaching our children how to pray, how to enter into relationship with our Lord, is the most fundamental and MOST IMPORTANT thing we will EVER teach our children. Sometimes we slack and get into our comfort zone, and neglect to do these outward expressions. So we need to ask our Mother to obtain the grace for us to do these things always.
#6. "Lord, give my children the grace to love the Holy Mass, the Rosary, and the Church."
For our family, we have honed in on these things being pillars of our faith. The Mass (a sacramental life), the Rosary, and the Church are all INDISPENSABLE in becoming closer to Jesus. They are the 3 things that all of the saints had in common. Asking the Lord for the grace to develop a love for these things will certainly help!
Every mother is different, but I have noticed in time, that these are my most often uttered prayers. What are yours?
God bless! Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners how and at the hour of our death. Amen.
