After I post this, I'm really hoping I'll come across some feedback about teaching your children mental prayer because this is something the Lord has been nudging me to introduce to Joseph. Even St. Therese practiced mental prayer when she was a little girl, yet she didn't even know that's what she was doing. I recently asked my good friend if she was doing anything like this with her little girl - who is Joseph's same age - and she had said that it was funny I brought it up because it was something she has felt like the Lord has been calling her to begin developing in her own daughter. But here's the thing, how? This is all SOOO new to my husband and I, yet we feel like the Lord is asking us to begin developing in our son the habits necessary for mental prayer so that a solid foundation will be laid for their prayer life as they grow and mature.
Sheesh Jess, why are you doing this now???
Well, for one, we feel the Lord is directing us to. So....we need to obey His inspirations. That's the simple explanation! But it also makes sense to begin developing the habits necessary for mental prayer now (around 5-6 years of age) because of a few reasons.
1. Their imaginations are INCREDIBLE! Our imaginations are a gift from God to help us meditate upon our Lord and His life. Our imaginations can serve a good purpose: We can use it to think about holy, good, and pure things. Or it can serve an evil purpose: to think and "daydream" about impure things, revenge, hurting others, sin, etc... I will tell you what, children have INCREDIBLE imaginations. Joseph will get lost in "dinosaur world" for at least a half hour when he pretends to be a T-Rex (he actually told me he wanted to grow out his nails so they would be long like a dinosaur's...Obviously I said no and I had to break the news to him that he was not a dinosaur). John-Paul has an amazing imagination too - I watched him once play for a half hour with his water bottle and a bowl turned upside-down on top of it....it was some type of rocket ship. I love listening in on the sound effects and conversations he has by himself during his imaginative play. Or I've seen him take two simple little foam blocks and fit them together to make an "airplane" and zoom! He's off - and gone in his own little imagination - for the next 30 minutes....with two foam blocks! I don't know about you, but I get bored after 1 minute trying to play with them and keep up with their imaginations. Shows how dull mine is... It's one area what I learn from them in. I wonder how vivid their thoughts of God are when I read them Bible stories and stories of the saints?
2. Around 5 or 6 years, children are ready to sit for periods of time (varies with each child) and focus on something. They're apt to ask questions about things.
3. They possess a beautiful humility. Humility is a necessary condition of our prayer. Children are incredibly humble compared to us adults. They don't feel nearly as embarassed as we would to "open up" in prayer and say out loud to the Lord the things they are feeling and need - even forgiveness.
4. The biggest reason: Prayer is necessary for salvation. If there's ONE THING that we should teach our children, it should be prayer. St. John Chysostom declared, "As the body cannot live without the soul, so the soul without prayer is dead and fetid." St. Augustine and St. Alphonsus Liguori - both Doctors of the Church - give us a memorable admonition: That he who prays shall be saved, but he who does not pray shall certainly be damned. St. Teresa of Avila said that if she could climb to a mountain top to have her voice heard by the whole world, she would do it for the sole purpose of exclaiming out: "Pray! Pray! Pray!" So many souls are either lost or go backwards in the spiritual life because they either do not pray, or do not pray with those conditions necessary to make our prayer pleasing to God. Those conditions are attentiveness, humility, confidence in God, resignation to the Divine Will, and perseverence in our prayer (inspiring 15 minute talk about that here). God gives us every single grace we need to attain heaven, but the key to unlocking this grace - this treasure - is our prayer. Prayer is the root of our relationship with the Lord, it is our lifeline. If it's necessary to teach our children one thing, it's how to pray.
How?
I came across a blog of one homeschooling mother who is raising 4 rambunctious boys and had ran a quick question by her about setting a path for your children that leads them to contemplative prayer as their spiritual life matures. But other than that, I haven't had much to go off of. It's all so new to Bill and I. I'm just trusting in God for the grace and praying each day that the Holy Spirit inspire their prayer lives as they grow. We are definitely feeling called to do this, but not equipped. But that's how God works - He doesn't call the equipped, He equips those whom He calls. Our job is to simply be faithful.
Remote Preparation in children for deeper prayer
In the meantime, over the past couple months, I have thought of various things that help "clear the path" for deeper prayer.
1. Limit media exposure. I've written a post in the past about why we limit screen time for our children. When we leave the TV on for substantial amounts of time - even just as background noise - or the radio, iPad, and the like, it erodes our children's imaginations and makes them more antsy and anxious. These things, when children are exposed repetitively and consistently, create a passive and dull imagination that breeds boredom in our children and a lack of creativity. This deters our children from being active and creative. It erodes their ability to focus and be still because of the overstimulation. I'm personally not even a fan of all those blinky, flashy, talky kids' toys. I don't mind a few, but wooden blocks, toy cars, costumes, shovels, books, etc... all fare well for us.
2. Get them accustomed to periods of silence. Do I mean that you need to lock them in a room silently by themselves for 10 minutes? No. But what I do mean is letting times of rest and silence be ok. Not every moment has to be stimulated. Music doesn't always have to be playing in the car. We don't always have to entertain. Let your home be a place of primarily peace, meaning right order (for the most part - I know this isn't always possible!)
3. Bring the children to Mass (of course!). And adoration when you can. Enough said here.
4. Avoid the "busy lifestyle" of running here and there, doing this and doing that (to the best you can!). Overfilling our days and agendas can create an anxiety of mind that is overkill. Dr. Ray Guarendi - who has counseled thousands of parents and families - in his book Raising Good Kids warns of this overactivity. He refers especially in regards to its threat to family life. He says, "Rethink your activity schedule. Cut back, even eliminate, those 'quality' pursuits that, while perhaps desirable in themselves, can accumulate and push aside the more valuable things of family. Don't chase the good at the cost of the best." This overactivity can also threaten our time to pray. Not only does it tempt us to push aside prayer altogether, but the do-do-do, run-run-run mentality can cause us to become overanxious.
5. Build up your children's moral imagination. Let them ponder stories and characters that reflect goodness, virtue, beauty, and the like. Spend time in nature. Read classic fairytales, read books that are wholesome, look at sacred art and holy cards, etc... StoryWarren is an excellent site that provides resources and blogs about fostering imagination in our children. Here's a podcast on how illustrations nourish the imagination and another one on heroic virtue and holy imagination.
6. Be a model of prayer yourself. Let them "catch" you praying on your own so that you model to them how necessary a personal prayer life is. Once in a while - however it spontaneously works out - if Bill or I are spending some personal time in prayer, we'll let one of the kids sit in with us. I'll just gently wave John-Paul over as he peaks in the door or comes out of his room early in the morning and invite him to sit quietly next to me. "Good morning John-Paul! *kiss and hug* Would you like to sit here with me? Now listen, one rule, I'm praying to the Lord right now, so if you want to stay out here with me, you must sit quietly." Then he might model whatever I'm doing - reading a Bible, talking in my own words - and I'll listen in sometimes on his own quietly uttered prayers as he sits next to me. Sometimes he'll sit quietly next to me. Or sometimes he gets up and tells me he wants to eat, haha.
Developing Habits of Mental Prayer
Mother Teresa said, "If you wish to pray better, pray more." Teaching prayer is probably going to be something we help them grow in (and we ourselves learn to perfect and grow in) throughout our entire lives.
Now Joseph is still so young, and still such a spiritual infant in many ways. But there are ways to start cultivating habits of prayer now so that deeper prayer becomes more of a natural progression as he matures in his spiritual life. This is my prayer, this is my hope!
But what is mental prayer you ask? Many people think prayer is prayer. But what they do not understand is that the principle end of prayer is to grow in our love of God. There are also different levels of prayer, as many Doctors of the spiritual life - such as St. Teresa of Avila, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Francis de Sales, and St. John of the Cross - all assert. The highest level of prayer is contemplation and within in that, this highest level of prayer is called "mystical marriage" with our Lord. Beautiful! Vocal prayer - those prayers we may read and say out loud - is merely just the beginning. If this is all our prayer is, we are still spiritual infants.
Dan Burke in his book Navigating the Interior Life sums up what the many Doctors of the Church define mental prayer as:
The form of prayer in which the sentiments expressed are one’s own and not those of another person, and the expression of these sentiments is mainly, if not entirely, interior and not externalized (e.g. not vocalized). Mental prayer is accomplished by internal acts of the mind and affections that are a loving and discursive (reflective) consideration of religious truths or some mystery of faith. In mental prayer the three powers of the soul are engaged: the memory, which offers the mind material for meditation; the intellect, which ponders or directly perceives the meaning of some religious truth and its implications for practice; and the will, which freely expresses its sentiments of faith, trust, and love, and (as needed) makes good resolutions based on what the memory and intellect have made known to the will.
St. Teresa of Avila considered the practice of mental prayer so important that she deemed it the "gateway" to all other high forms of prayer. Mental prayer is meditation. Here is an incredible two-part talk on meditation that I highly encourage you to listen to. It was so helpful for me! Mental prayer is NECESSARY. It can be meditation upon some Gospel passage, meditation upon God's goodness and love, meditation upon God's care in giving us the saints to guide us, meditation on the beauty and tenderness of our Blessed Mother which is really a reflection of God's beauty and tenderness toward us, etc...
There are different "methods" of entering into mental prayer such as Lectio Divina or the Ignatian method or Carmelite method. There is no right or wrong way - it's what is preferrable to you. (Just make sure it's part of the Christian tradition and not something new-agey, then you'll be opening yourself up to the demonic).
But we see that the essense of this is tranquilly pondering and thinking about some aspect of our Faith, the Lord and His perfections or His life, etc...
What We're Doing to Develop Habits of Mental Prayer with the kids
So given that this meditation is the gateway to deeper prayer, we're doing our best to foster this for the reasons I explained above. Here's how we are going about it...
1. We are keeping it simple and gentle. 15 minutes of deep reflection is not what we expect.
2. Timing is everything. Since Joseph is 5 years old, I've strategically placed our "imaginative prayer" before bedtime. As the kids get older, it may become optimal to move this, but for now, this is working; there's no anxiousness to go off and play, no distractions, the baby and Teresa are quietly sleeping (or I'm nursing him as we do it, lol. But we don't hear a peep - he's eating, he's happy...)
3. We begin with a prayer in our own words, asking the Holy Spirit to help us pray and listen to what He wants to tell us so that we can love God more. A minute of just restful silence. Then I tell the kids to use their imaginations to think about the story I am going to read them.
4. I read a Bible story from a good Catholic children's Bible I found (and like for their age). As I read the story, I made elaborate with more vivid imagery, reaching their senses, to the best I can. Really it's whatever comes to my mind - it's impromptu! I'm not great at this, lol I'm trusting God will give me the grace to get better... Sometimes I'll pause in the reading and say, "Wow, imagine how St. Joseph felt....." and leave silence. Or I'll utter a prayer associated with what we just read i.e. reading the sentence about how the shepherds knelt to adore the Infant Jesus, it will follow with "Lord, let us adore you with the great love and amazement they had in their hearts." Sometimes (actually very often) the kids will ask questions - very sensible ones - and then we get "Mom, are there dinosaurs in heaven?" or "Mom, what is that thing next to the light?" (smoke alarm)... Those cute, random, wandering mind questions! We don't expect perfection, we just want to build up their holy imagination and their prayer - questions, affections and all - with the Lord throughout that meditation process. Me and the kids have some very good conversations together when we do this at night. Death, devil, hell, heaven, angels, saints, and all! There's always a tactful way to explain things to children that are age-appropriate.
5. At the end, I lead the kids in a prayer of our own words, thanking God and tieing the prayer in with the Bible story. I leave room for the kids to say their own prayer and then tell them to close their eyes, think of Jesus in their heart, and love Him as much as they can in their heart! *Silence for them to do just that* Sometimes after, I'll ask what part of the story they liked and why.
This nightly prayer (after our family night prayer) is what I do with Joseph and John-Paul when they go to bed (because they both share the same room anyway). I believe it's also important that each parent model prayer and invite their children into their own prayer. The family also needs to pray together every day. I'm excited because Bill has come up with a beautiful idea for a time of unique family prayer together to do once a week or so. I think it will have to be something that we do after the two littlest ones go down though! We haven't started it yet because he just brought it up a week ago, but at this very moment, he and Joseph are doing something "secretive" in our homeschool room and I saw they high-jacked our Our Lady of Fatima statue from the family altar...
Trusting in God to bear the fruit
Here's the thing. I don't know what I'm doing. This is all new to me. Bill and I both feel this is something important to begin encouraging and developing in Joseph, yet we aren't super sure how to go about it. But I do know we are being nudged by the Lord.
As a mother, I know I won't have all the answers and the plans all laid out, but I do know I'm called to be faithful to God when He leads me and to trust that it's Him who will bear the fruit. St. Therese paved out the way of "spiritual childhood" - simply trusting in God with a childlike confidence. She said that "what offends Jesus, what wounds His Heart, is lack of trust." Fr. Jacques Philippe in commenting on St. Therese's "little way" said that "what pleased God in St. Therese was her love, her own littleness, her inner poverty, her blind hope in God's mercy, her humility and her trust in Him This is what unfailingly makes us pleasing to God, draws down His grace upon our souls and makes us the objects of His tenderness and love." I highly recommend reading The Complete Spiritual Doctrine of St. Therese - it was SO inspiring!
Realizing our own littleness and trusting in God completely is something we are all capable of doing. This can be our treasure which draws down God's graces upon us. This is what I'm doing: trusting in the good Lord with this. I desire ardently that my children reach heaven one day. I know the means necessary for heaven is prayer. Thus, I desire deeply that my children learn to pray and more importantly, LOVE to pray. In the end, I can do all I want but it is nothing without God's animating action. It is God's grace working in my children and through Bill and I, and God's grace alone, that will allow this to happen. In the end, prayer is a work of the Holy Spirit, so I must call upon Him to teach our children to pray and place in them a love of prayer. I must teach my children to ask for the same. All I can do is just struggle to be faithful to God and place confidence in the fact that God will bless our sincere and prayerful efforts.
I trust that it is He who will bear the fruit of the seeds He is asking us to plant!
