A prayer for my children
A prayer composed for 1765 Regina
A prayer for my children
Father, these children were Yours before they were mine.
You knew them before I did, and You love them more than I can.
I bring them to You now, each one by name.
Bring each of them to the grace of baptism, and keep that grace alive in them.
Guard them where I cannot follow; reach them where I cannot reach;
give them a faith of their own that nothing in this world can take.
Forgive me what I have done badly as their mother, and make good what I could not.
Let not one of them be lost.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, hold them. Their holy angels, keep them.
And bring us all home together. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Why a mother's prayer matters
Scripture does not treat a parent's prayer for children as a pious extra. In the Lamentations of Jeremias the command is given in the dark:
Arise, give praise in the night, in the beginning of the watches: pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands to him for the life of thy little children
Job, the Book of Job tells us, rose early after his children's feasts and "offered holocausts for every one of them. For he said: Lest perhaps my sons have sinned" (Job 1:5, Douay). The Catechism places this kind of prayer in a long line: it runs back to Abraham. To pray for someone else is the habit of a heart that has learned God's mercy, and a Christian's prayer for others is joined to Christ's own (CCC 2635).
The Church also asks mothers to teach their children to pray, not only to pray over them. "Parents have the mission of teaching their children to pray" (CCC 2226). St John Paul II quoted St Paul VI's question to mothers in Familiaris Consortio: "Mothers, do you teach your children the Christian prayers?" (FC 60). Your prayer for them and your prayer with them are one work.
Pray for each one by name
Job offered sacrifice "for every one of them". Do the same. Name each child before God — the toddler, the teenager, the one who no longer calls, the one you lost. A child who has died is still yours to pray for and to entrust to God's mercy, as the Church herself does (CCC 1261; see Catholic prayer after miscarriage). A few practices that keep the names before Him:
- Say each child's name in your morning offering, before the day takes them.
- Ask each child's patron saint to pray for him or her. The Catechism teaches that the saint whose name a Christian receives at baptism is a model of charity and an assured intercessor (CCC 2156).
- Keep each child's baptism day as well as the birthday. It is the day they were born to God.
- Write your intentions for each child in a prayer journal, and mark the prayers that are answered. Some answers take years.
Under the care of their angels
See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.
The Catechism teaches that the angels watch over every human life and pray for it, from a child's first days to the hour of death (CCC 336). The prayer below is short enough to be a child's first: pray it over each bed, and teach it once they can talk.
Prayer
Prayer to the Guardian Angel
Angel of God, my guardian dear,
To whom his love commits me here,
Ever this day be at my side,
To light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.
Latin
Angele Dei, qui custos es mei,
me tibi commissum pietate superna
illumina, custodi, rege, et guberna. Amen.
A mother's blessing
A mother may bless her children. The Catechism teaches that "every baptized person is called to be a 'blessing,' and to bless". Some blessings may be given by lay people; the more closely a blessing touches the sacraments and the life of the Church, the more it is kept for the ordained: bishops, priests and deacons (CCC 1669). A mother's blessing is a prayer asking God to bless her child. It is not a priest's blessing and does not replace one.
Scripture gives the words. At night, trace a small cross on each forehead and say:
Prayer
The blessing of Numbers 6
The Lord bless thee, and keep thee.
The Lord shew his face to thee, and have mercy on thee.
The Lord turn his countenance to thee, and give thee peace.
When a child is in danger, or far from God
Some nights the worry will not quiet. Remember first whose love is greater than yours:
Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? and if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee.
Then go to the Mother of God in the prayer Catholics have long kept for the hour when nothing else is left:
Prayer
The Memorare
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession, was left unaided.
Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful;
O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions; but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.
Latin
Memorare, O piissima Virgo Maria, non esse auditum a saeculo quemquam ad tua currentem praesidia, tua implorantem auxilia, tua petentem suffragia, esse derelictum.
Ego tali animatus confidentia, ad te, Virgo virginum, Mater, curro, ad te venio, coram te gemens peccator assisto;
noli, Mater Verbi, verba mea despicere, sed audi propitia, et exaudi. Amen.
For a child who has left the faith, the Church gives you St Monica. She wept for her son Augustine for years. When she begged a bishop to talk him out of his errors, he refused — he judged the young man not ready — and told her to pray instead. When she pressed him with tears, he answered: "Go your way, and God bless you, for it is not possible that the son of these tears should perish" (St Augustine, Confessions III.12.21). Monica took it "as though it were a voice from heaven"; it was a bishop's word to one mother, not a promise the Church makes about every child. Augustine was baptized at Milan years later. Her feast is 27 August.
Keep it small enough to keep
A mother's day is not her own. Build the prayer onto things that already happen:
- Morning: the children's names in your morning offering.
- Bedtime: the Guardian Angel prayer and the blessing, one child at a time.
- One weekday: the Memorare for the child who most needs it this week.
- Feast days: each child's baptism day and patron's feast marked at the table.
- When you can: one decade of the Rosary together. Familiaris Consortio calls the family Rosary one of the best prayers in common a family can pray (FC 61).
Questions
Can a mother bless her children?
Yes. The Catechism teaches that all the baptized are called to bless; some blessings may be given by lay people, while those that touch the sacraments and the life of the Church most closely are kept for bishops, priests and deacons (CCC 1669). A mother's blessing — for example the words of Numbers 6:24–26 with a small cross on the forehead — is a prayer asking God's blessing. It does not replace a priest's blessing or the sacraments.
What prayer can I say for a child who has left the Church?
Pray for that child by name every day, and ask St Monica, who prayed for years for her son Augustine until his conversion, to pray with you. The Memorare is a good daily prayer for this intention, and a novena to St Monica can be timed to end on her feast, 27 August.
Who prays for my children besides me?
Their guardian angels (Matthew 18:10; CCC 336), the saints whose names they bear (CCC 2156), the Mother of God, and the whole Church. You are not praying alone.