On January 9, 1909, a very
famous man by the name of Patrick Peyton was born in a little town in Ireland.
And, as he recounts in his biography, one of his earliest and fondest memories
was seeing his father and his mother praying the Rosary. As he himself says: “I
saw my father with the Rosary beads in his hands and my mother holding hers. My
older brothers and sisters and I knelt around them, praying.”
This became a tradition in his family until he was 19 years old, and they never missed a day, whether sick or healthy, poor or working hard, and, as a result, he says: “Because of the daily family Rosary, my home was for me a cradle, a school, a university, a library and, most of all, a little church.”
In 1928, he and his brother left to go to America, leaving his family behind in Ireland. Yet, when he got here, God called him from being a janitor in St. Peter’s Cathedral to being a priest. However, 2 years before he was set to be ordained, he contracted Tuberculosis and nearly died.
When he was ready to give up hope, someone said to him: “Mary is alive. She will be as good to you as you think she can be. It all depends on you and your faith.” It was enough to rekindle his zeal, and, as a result, he was miraculously healed.
Not long afterward, he was ordained a priest and, as a result, looked for a way to express his thankfulness for all the graces he had been given. He said that while he was on retreat God gave him the answer: The Family Rosary Crusade, a crusade that began on the radio, featuring some of the most famous radio and TV personalities of the day, from Bing Crosby to Loretta Young, who as Fr. Peyton put it: “gave their names, fame, time and talent to glorify the Rosary and dramatize its mysteries on film, on the radio and on television.”
You may have never heard of Fr. Patrick Peyton, who is now known as a Servant of God, a step towards sainthood, but you most likely have heard a phrase that he has made very famous: “The family that prays together, stays together.”
Had he not seen his parents holding that rosary in their hands, he may have never understood the full power and the great importance of family prayer, of placing God and His Holy Mother in the midst of the family, of bringing them to the center, and, making the family a place of holiness and peace.
In fact, this is what Jesus did, He placed Himself, from the very beginning, into the middle of a family, and by being born of a family, made it holy, not just by sanctifying it by bringing Himself in their midst, but by inspiring them to prayer, so that St. Joseph and Mary would, from the very first moment of His birth, worship Him and from that worship, understand what it means to be a family that prays.
While it may seem almost like an ideal for us today, especially since, statistically, 70% of families are classified as dysfunctional, this is the model that is given to us.
Granted, they had their ups and downs and two of the three were free of sin, but, today, we are not meant to look upon each person individually, but who they were collectively, who they were as a family, as a mother, foster-father and child, because then we see what being a family really means, it means living our lives of individual holiness, of striving for holiness and living our individual vocation, as mother, father or child and coming together to reinforce the holiness of one other.
In fact, both Mary and Joseph came to see that, as parents of Jesus, there were great moments of joy and rejoicing and great moments of intense pain and sorrow.
Yet, it was only their prayer that intensified this joy and became the strength during their sorrows, because, they realized, as we should, that prayer puts God in the middle, and a family is joined and kept together when they kneel before the child Jesus, as Mary and Joseph. In fact, this is why the early Church Fathers would call the family, the “domestic church.”
Because, it wasn’t so much what they endured, but, how they responded to each situation, how they prayed and learned in joy and in sorrow.
This is why Fr. Patrick Peyton’s simple phrase is more relevant and timeless than even he may have recognized and why we should look to this Holy Family, and ask them to intercede for all families, including our own, knowing that, by doing so, the same truth Fr. Peyton discovered can be true for all, that, indeed: “The family that prays together, stays together.
This became a tradition in his family until he was 19 years old, and they never missed a day, whether sick or healthy, poor or working hard, and, as a result, he says: “Because of the daily family Rosary, my home was for me a cradle, a school, a university, a library and, most of all, a little church.”
In 1928, he and his brother left to go to America, leaving his family behind in Ireland. Yet, when he got here, God called him from being a janitor in St. Peter’s Cathedral to being a priest. However, 2 years before he was set to be ordained, he contracted Tuberculosis and nearly died.
When he was ready to give up hope, someone said to him: “Mary is alive. She will be as good to you as you think she can be. It all depends on you and your faith.” It was enough to rekindle his zeal, and, as a result, he was miraculously healed.
Not long afterward, he was ordained a priest and, as a result, looked for a way to express his thankfulness for all the graces he had been given. He said that while he was on retreat God gave him the answer: The Family Rosary Crusade, a crusade that began on the radio, featuring some of the most famous radio and TV personalities of the day, from Bing Crosby to Loretta Young, who as Fr. Peyton put it: “gave their names, fame, time and talent to glorify the Rosary and dramatize its mysteries on film, on the radio and on television.”
You may have never heard of Fr. Patrick Peyton, who is now known as a Servant of God, a step towards sainthood, but you most likely have heard a phrase that he has made very famous: “The family that prays together, stays together.”
Had he not seen his parents holding that rosary in their hands, he may have never understood the full power and the great importance of family prayer, of placing God and His Holy Mother in the midst of the family, of bringing them to the center, and, making the family a place of holiness and peace.
In fact, this is what Jesus did, He placed Himself, from the very beginning, into the middle of a family, and by being born of a family, made it holy, not just by sanctifying it by bringing Himself in their midst, but by inspiring them to prayer, so that St. Joseph and Mary would, from the very first moment of His birth, worship Him and from that worship, understand what it means to be a family that prays.
While it may seem almost like an ideal for us today, especially since, statistically, 70% of families are classified as dysfunctional, this is the model that is given to us.
Granted, they had their ups and downs and two of the three were free of sin, but, today, we are not meant to look upon each person individually, but who they were collectively, who they were as a family, as a mother, foster-father and child, because then we see what being a family really means, it means living our lives of individual holiness, of striving for holiness and living our individual vocation, as mother, father or child and coming together to reinforce the holiness of one other.
In fact, both Mary and Joseph came to see that, as parents of Jesus, there were great moments of joy and rejoicing and great moments of intense pain and sorrow.
Yet, it was only their prayer that intensified this joy and became the strength during their sorrows, because, they realized, as we should, that prayer puts God in the middle, and a family is joined and kept together when they kneel before the child Jesus, as Mary and Joseph. In fact, this is why the early Church Fathers would call the family, the “domestic church.”
Because, it wasn’t so much what they endured, but, how they responded to each situation, how they prayed and learned in joy and in sorrow.
This is why Fr. Patrick Peyton’s simple phrase is more relevant and timeless than even he may have recognized and why we should look to this Holy Family, and ask them to intercede for all families, including our own, knowing that, by doing so, the same truth Fr. Peyton discovered can be true for all, that, indeed: “The family that prays together, stays together.
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