Praying the Passion With Boo

Nan said I should try to clean the house while the kids are asleep - because its so hard to do while they are both awake. While they are awake, they are within inches of my body, and its hard to get anything done. Friday is usually when I clean, because the house is dirty enough for me to get mad about it, and then Lee goes to work so I actually have time for it.

So Livvy went to sleep early, because she was having a snit fit. But Boo decided it was a bonding night. He wanted to help me - with laundry, with cleaning the kitchen. But I didn't want to bond. I wanted to pray.

I pray a lot with the kids now. I have many memorized prayers that I say with and for them every night. I don't know anyone else who likes memorized prayers, but they have helped me out so much. Because I have such a short attention span, if I would try to talk to Jesus in the past, I would get distracted within a few minutes - I have the same problem talking or listening to my darling husband who is sitting right next to me. But I like to say poetry, I like to form beautiful words with my mouth - like singing, but a little different. The kids never really liked me to sing to them (tragedy), but they love me to pray with them. They will ask for prayers by name, or even just ask me to pray longer. And because we are all getting so comfortable with prayer in general, our spontaneous prayers are blossoming as well.

Here is a little prayer I wrote for Olivia.

Jesus bless these little toes,
That run and walk and dance and play
Jesus bless this little nose,
That peeks at me throughout the day,

Jesus bless these fingers, too
For every meal and every mess...
Jesus bless this child of mine,
Bless, bless, bless.

It is accompanied by tickles on the appropriate body parts and then we draw a cross on her body with the bless, bless, bless.

It's her favorite.

Anyway.

I've been praying the Rosary for longer than I've been going to Mass. When I first started praying it, I didn't own rosary beads. I used the Virtual Rosary program on the computer to learn it, then counted the prayers on my fingers while taking long walks with the kids. Most people, and of course when I say most people, I mean that tiny pocket of civilization that occupies the Harrisburg, PA area, who happen to touch my particular life), don't really know what the Rosary is. When Jon saw Elijah playing with one, he sdaid "Tell Mommy that doesn't work." Work for what, I wonder? Do most people think it is a ward of good luck? More people do understand that it is for praying, rather than a sort of superstitious charm. Some people know that each bead is a prayer. But most people (in my world) do NOT know that the Rosary is actually a daily meditation on the life of Jesus. Each day has a set of five mysteries that are assigned to it. Monday and Saturday are the Joyful Mysteries, Tuesday and Friday are the Sorrowful mysteries, Wednesday and Sunday are the Glorious mysteries, and Thursday has the Luminous Mysteries. The Sorrowful mysteries are on the Passion.

So last night, Elijah and I prayed through the Rosary together. Instead of silent meditations on the mysteries, I narrated the events through for him. Since the mysteries end with the crucifixion, I narrated two extra mysteries for him - the Resurrection and the Ascension. That was where he lost his attention span - but seven decades is pretty good for a four year old! He really was able to follow along the story, and even helped me fill in some of the details. There is a proper response to the prayers, but of course he doesn't know it. He has one prayer, already memorized, one that was my favorite for a long time:

Oh my Jesus,
Forgive us our sins,
Save us from the fires of hell.
Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy.


That's the prayer at the end of each decade, so when we get there, I let him say that one. In the meantime, he is making me teach him the Lord's Prayer, which is another very good one - and it is said at the beginning of each decade. So he hears it a lot :) I love that learning it is his idea.

And with all that praying, we got way more done than I would have just by myself. Boo is my very good buddy :)