These 5 important prayer points for the family will give you an idea of what to pray for when you are praying for your family. Use these prayer points to help guide your prayer for your family.
Prayer is the best weapon we possess. It is the key that opens the heart of God.
Padre Pio
Evil is all around us. It has been since the fall of Adam and Eve. The attack on the family is rampant, with mothers looking for fulfillment in careers rather than in raising their own children and young babies being torn from the womb for simple convenience.
Family is the core of society, and without family, society crumbles. That is why it is so important to have a weapon like prayer to fight!
5 Important Prayer Points for the Family
But what exactly should we be praying for in the first place? Below are five prayer points for the family to get you started.
1. Pray for your family’s health.
God is the giver of good health, as well as of every other good thing. Therefore, it is fitting to pray to the Lord for the health of your family. This can include their physical health, their mental health, and their spiritual health.
All three are important. Though, I would argue that spiritual health is the most important of the three. The health of your soul determines where you will be in eternity. In the end, it doesn’t really matter how many hours you spend at the gym or whether you break free of postpartum depression in one year or in twenty. These things matter to an extent, but eternity is a heck of a lot longer than one or twenty years. So pray to God for the health of your family, but most of all for the health of their souls.
2. Pray for your family’s safety.
The safety of your family is another great thing to pray for. We all long for safety and stability in our own lives, and if we love our family, we also hope for the safety of our spouse and children. With the recent release of the movie Sound of Freedom, I am sure the safety of your children has been bumped up on the list of priorities in your mind. So pray to God for the safety of your family.
3. Pray for your children.
Among your family members are your children, and they probably make up the majority of your immediate family. But even if you have only one child, it is still just as important to pray for them.
You can pray for their health and safety specifically. Or, you can pray for them to grow up to love and serve the Lord with a big heart. You can even pray for their obedience, which in turn will help your family to be more unified under God.
Also, don’t forget to pray to be good parents for your children. Pray for your children, but also pray for your relationship with your children.
4. Pray for your marriage.
But before your children, comes your marriage. A healthy family begins with a healthy marriage. Children find security in their parents’ love for them when their love for each other is clear.
It is also a mother’s and father’s job to demonstrate to their children how a Godly marriage should look. A daughter learns from her parents how she should treat her future husband and how she should expect to be treated by her future husband. And a son learns from his parents how to treat his future wife and how he should expect to be treated by his future wife. So, pray to the Lord for a healthy marriage on which to build a healthy family.
5. Pray for your family’s salvation.
Last, but certainly not least, is your family’s salvation. Though I touched on this above when I talked about praying for your family’s spiritual health, it still deserves its own category. The whole point of praying at all is so that we may glorify God. In fact, at the heart of every one of our prayers, should be our intention to glorify God whether or not our prayers are “answered”.
God hears all of our prayers, but he only answers them in accord with His will, and His will is far superior to our will no matter how holy we are. God made us, and so He knows us and what we need better than anyone. He alone knows exactly what we need for salvation if salvation is what we choose – because it is a choice – so pray to God for the salvation of your own soul and the souls of your family members (and friends and enemies) above all else.
What is a good prayer for the family?
Now, you can pray any prayer you like for these prayer points. It doesn’t have to be a special prayer. Whether you pray alone or with your family, you can pray the “Our Father”, the Rosary, or simply pray, “Lord, please bless my family in these areas….” But if you would like a specific prayer to pray for your family, then here is a prayer to the Holy Family:
Grant unto us, Lord Jesus, ever to follow the example of Thy Holy Family, that in the hour of our death Thy glorious Virgin Mother, together with Saint Joseph, may come to meet us, and we may be worthily received by Thee into everlasting life. Who livest and reignest world without end. Amen.
The Holy Family is a great intercessor for your family because they are the role model for the family. More specifically, if you are a mother, you can pray to Mother Mary to help guide you in attaining the virtues necessary to be a good mother. And if you are a father, you can pray to St. Joseph to help you to be a virtuous father for your children. And we can all pray to Jesus to help us be good sons and daughters of God.
Choose a family patron saint.
Another option is to choose a family patron saint. My family’s patron saint is informally St. Rita’s. I say “informally” because my husband and I never sat down (or knelt down) and asked St. Rita to be the patron saint of our family. But I often pray to her for our marriage and family.
I started praying to her when my husband and I were having an impossible time finding a priest that would say a Traditional Latin Mass for our wedding. My husband was primarily the one who wanted the Traditional Latin Mass, but I have come to love it too. Because St. Rita is the patron saint of impossible causes, I prayed to her, and we happened to find a priest fairly soon afterwards who was willing to say it for us. Now, we ask St. Rita to pray for us every night at the end of our daily rosary.
Feel free to choose a patron saint for your own family. Choose a saint your family feels drawn to, or choose a saint that fits your family’s goals in terms of virtues you would like your family to have. Or, make the Holy Family your patron saint because they are always a great choice!
Conclusion
In this article, we went over five important prayer points for the family and some good prayers to pray for your family. We also talked about choosing a patron saint for your family. In whatever manner you choose to pray for your family, whether you are praying by yourself or with your family, remember that God hears all of your prayers, even if He doesn’t always answer them in the way we would like. But most importantly, remember to keep praying for your family because, “prayer is the best weapon we possess.”
What is your favorite prayer to say for your family? Let me know in the comments below!
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