{"id":780,"date":"2011-04-28T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-28T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2011\/04\/to-train-my-family-to-pray-and-lead-them-by-example\/"},"modified":"2017-01-24T18:27:09","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T23:27:09","slug":"to-train-my-family-to-pray-and-lead-them-by-example","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2011\/04\/to-train-my-family-to-pray-and-lead-them-by-example.html","title":{"rendered":"To Train My Family to Pray, And Lead Them By Example"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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-Feast of St. Peter Chanel<\/a>\u00a0<\/div>\n

Joe Six-Pack, USMC here. Yesterday my family put into practice prayers that they learned a long time ago. You see, a line of storms was forecast to hit our area, and everyone took them seriously. <\/p>\n

Wednesday nights are when many parishes hold their C.C.D. classes for the kids. That\u2019s an abbreviation for Confraternity of Christian Doctrine<\/a> classes. The teachers called the house and informed us that due to the weather forecasts, classes for tonight would be cancelled.
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Remember when you were in school and classes were cancelled due to snow? That is the kind of jubilation that my kids reacted with when we received this news. Cart-wheels and high-fives all around! And then Joe Six-Pack crashed the party with, \u201cWell, since C.C.D. is cancelled, we\u2019ll be praying the Rosary tonight.\u201d Dad can be such a killjoy at times, \u2019tis true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Emeril!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

But I\u2019m a Dad, and I have always been a Christian Dad, the one who taught my children to pray the Our Father even when I knew it only as \u201cthe Lord\u2019s Prayer.\u201d And now that I\u2019m a Catholic Dad? Well, I\u2019m not quite the Emeril Lagasse of prayer, but I\u2019ve definitely cranked it up another notch. Bam! Or as we say it around these parts (East Gallilee, er I mean Tennessee), Bhayum!<\/p>\n

How scary was the weather? Well, let\u2019s just say that my 15 year old son sent me a text before I headed home from work with the following words: \u201cBe safe Daddy.\u201d I don\u2019t think he\u2019s called me \u201cDaddy\u201d for three of four years now. Scary weather forecasts will do that to a kid, and even to an adult. \u201cAbba\u201d is \u201cDaddy\u201d as I recall, and Our Lord even pointed that out<\/a> to the Apostles.<\/p>\n

I texted him back that I would be fine, because it was early yet and the cells hadn\u2019t arrived. When I got home, I noticed my wife had prepped some chicken drumsticks for grilling. So I did the only thing that a man could do: I put on my poncho and grilled them. A man has got to eat, and he has to feed his family. Pretty basic stuff, right? I even had a beer while I was cookin\u2019. My motto is \u201cone beer, per man, per day\u201d and I don\u2019t let the weather interrupt that. Ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Solid Oak!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

So, we were finishing up our dinner, which we ate in the formal dining room because the kitchen table was covered with stuff from our pantry. Remember the stairs I built?<\/a> Sheesh, that seems like a hundred years ago. They climb over the pantry below, and as I built them with oak treads, with nails, glue, and screws to boot, I know the safest place in the house is right underneath the stairs. The pantry, then, doubles as the stronghold of Casa del Weathers.<\/i> My wife had made more room for us in case we needed to hit the stronghold. Smart woman! That\u2019s why I married her.<\/p>\n

As I was helping myself to another drumstick and more cheese mashed potatoes, I asked my youngest son to get me a beer. My daughter informed me that she had already gotten me a beer earlier and I said, \u201cyes, but today I\u2019ll have another, because \u201cthe Extreme\u201d<\/a> is thirsty tonight. See, we watched the movie Twister<\/i> a few weeks back to prepare for Spring. I had joked about being \u201cthe Extreme\u201d while I was grillin\u2019 too. \u201cI betcha didn\u2019t know your Dad was \u2018the Extreme,'\u201d I said, but she shot back \u201coh yes I do!\u201d Then the phone rang, the CCD teacher called to scrub the mission for tonight, and the jubilation and high-fives reined supreme.<\/p>\n

That is, until \u201cthe Extreme\u201d said, \u201cWell, since C.C.D. is cancelled, we\u2019ll be praying the Rosary tonight.\u201d The natives were not happy. But I outrank them, see, and when an extra hour gets freed up to practice our faith, I grab it. And then the first storm cell made it\u2019s presence felt, and we headed into the strong-hold, just like in the movie Thunderheart<\/a><\/i>. And trust me, hearts were thundering in the pantry at this point. <\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t have time to grab our rosaries, but after years of training, we didn\u2019t need them. And that is the point of this post. In the Marines, we trained constantly in peace-time and<\/i> during war-time. Training is non-stop; \u201cit ain\u2019t training, unless it\u2019s raining.\u201d And when we were in the pantry, the prayer training we had been practicing all these years, paid off. Did our prayers stop the storm? Stop tornadoes from ripping our house apart? I don\u2019t know. Many who prayed lost their homes and businesses<\/a> in Alabama.<\/p>\n

No. The praying did what nothing else can do. It provided comfort and courage during the worst storms we have ever lived through. Did you see the news that some atheists are calling for atheist chaplains<\/a> to minister to them in the military? I\u2019m not sure what good that would do, or in what way they can be ministered to by atheist chaplains. \u201cWorried are you? Here you go lad, read a little of Cormac McCarthy\u2019s The Road,<\/i> and be of good cheer.\u201d Hmmm.<\/p>\n

Here is what we did instead. In the stronghold, we held hands and we prayed the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be. And when the storm abated, we sang the Gloria and left our refuge. Twenty minutes later, we went right back in and did it all again. We even said the Nicene Creed, after I botched the Apostles Creed (rookie!). We sang the Gloria again though, which we all know by heart. <\/p>\n

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At one point, I noticed that my daughter had stopped praying with us. She started listening to the ruckus that was going on outside instead. I noted the signs of panic in her eyes, and her tears started flowing as her fears rose up. As the boys and my wife kept praying loudly, I reached for her hand and said,<\/p>\n

\u201cHoney, I need you to keep praying. We all need you to pray along with us.\u201d <\/p>\n

She squeezed my hand, and mentally and physically she backed away from the precipice of fear and panic, and joined the rest of us in saying our prayers. She had faith in me, see, just like she did when I helped her learn to swim in the deep end of the pool, or ride her bicycle without training wheels. <\/p>\n

But the faith isn\u2019t in me, but in the example I was setting. And she knows that now more than ever. Her faith, our faith, is in the Lord. And we cried out to Him in the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be. And no matter what happened that night to our property or our bodies, the importance of why we pray was apparent to her, and to all of us. We cried out to our Heavenly Daddy, \u201cAbba Father!\u201d because we need His compassion and peace when our courage is tried.<\/p>\n

We were like the sleeping disciples who woke up on the boat in a storm on the Sea of Galilee (Mark 4:34-41). We cried out to the Lord, like they did, and our souls were comforted. I\u2019m not going to go into much more detail. Suffice it to say, \u201cyou play the way you practice.\u201d And when it comes to prayer, when you practice it during the peaceful times, and you or you children think it is a waste of time, or boring, and even pointless, keep at it. <\/p>\n

Because when the trying times arrive, as they most certainly will, all that peacetime prayer training will pay off.<\/p>\n

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-Feast of St. Peter Chanel\u00a0 Joe Six-Pack, USMC here. Yesterday my family put into practice prayers that they learned a long time ago. You see, a line of storms was forecast to hit our area, and everyone took them seriously. Wednesday nights are when many parishes hold their C.C.D. classes for the kids. That\u2019s an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,41],"tags":[82,95,64,57,38,13,11,122],"class_list":["post-780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-living","category-praying","tag-clarity","tag-confusion","tag-faith","tag-family","tag-fathers","tag-personal-history","tag-prayer","tag-thankfulness"],"yoast_head":"\nTo Train My Family to Pray, And Lead Them By Example<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"-Feast of St. Peter Chanel Joe Six-Pack, USMC here. 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