PRAYER IS CONVERSATION WITH GOD / MARCEL & STEPHANIE BORMANS

PRAYER IS CONVERSATION WITH GOD

MARCEL & STEPHANIE BORMANS

“Prayer is conversation with God”: this is my favourite description of prayer. Why? Because it is simple, both as a sentence and as a concept. Yet how difficult it can be – the difficulty not so much in finding particular words and formulas that suit us, but more so in the effort of making time for regular prayer.

My wife Steph and I have found that established prayer times are a simple way to foster prayer in our family, the habit starting from before our children were born all the way through until it was time for our children to take ownership for their own prayer lives. It is great when the prayer times we have established are mirrored in wholesome TV and movies, our children recognising that prayer was not just a Mum and Dad ordinance: “Look, it’s happening on screen as well.” The easy prayer times to establish seemed to be prayer in the morning, prayer before bed, prayer before meals, and Sunday Mass. Led by us but with the encouraged input of our children, we’d have both of us praying together with them or we would take turns to pray with our children so that they would see the way Mum prayed and the way Dad prayed and recognise that while we may pray differently, it is okay and normal. We are sure that these early experiences of prayer are what will remain in the

memory of our children and what they will take with them into their own marriages and family life.

I mentioned earlier that prayer can start with your child while in the womb, but let me go back further. To pray for your children before you are pregnant, before you are married, before you even have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, that is a good thing, because God is outside of time and space. For him it is no problem to hear and answer our prayers no matter when they are sent.

Steph and I also went through a period of time, while living in Te Awamutu and then in Dargaville, where we had many of the praise and worship songs from the CD series “Worshipping Under Southern Skies” printed out in large print on A3 paper. We used this for leading children’s liturgy at church on a Sunday but we also used it at home and would gather the kids, put on the CD, and together sing the songs. It was a lovely and innocent time (and a bonus was that it helped our children with their reading). There is no doubt that music uplifts the soul in a different way to spoken prayers. Exposing our children to this type of prayer was important because we know that not all of us pray in the same way, so this opened our children’s understanding to a different form of prayer.

We also went through a phase of praying the Rosary. This wasn’t the easiest, keeping the kids still and focused. Sometimes, similar to when we were taking our kids to Mass, we wondered if it was worth it because the distractions were so great and the frustration on our part could become so present that a serene and meditative mindset was nowhere to be seen.

As a couple, Steph and I have always said our night prayers together in bed after we have prayed with our children at their bedsides. Having five children, I would take care of the three boys and Steph would take care of the two girls, with some interchange as mentioned earlier, and some prayer with both of us present at the same time. And then there were times when one of the children would say, “Mum (or Dad), I haven’t had my prayers said yet” - but they had; they wanted the other parent to also pray with them.

Reading of scripture, song, formal prayers like the Our Father, Hail Mary, the Rosary, or informal and spontaneous prayer, prayer at the bedside, in the lounge, around the dinner table, in the car (always before a trip out of town), with candles, without candles, with a prayer focus set up or with nothing, prayer has so many forms but always it ought to be that “conversation with God” because then our children (and ourselves) can see that God is not a distant God but a God who is able and willing to help us, to bother with us, to share in what we are going through, as someone real and close to us.

Steph likes to read scripture, to meditate, to sing praise and worship songs when she has her personal prayer. I like to attend daily Mass and to contemplate the mystery of the Eucharist in Eucharistic adoration.

‘There were times when one of the children would say, “Mum (or Dad), I haven’t had my prayers said yet” - but they had; they wanted the other parent to also pray with them.’

It is fair to say that our children have all responded to prayer in different ways. From being respectful and getting involved through to being disruptive during prayer time and claiming that it is a waste of time. This causes us some pain but we also recognise that it is part of growing up. While Steph and I have, at times, become very frustrated with these attitudes and I have raised my voice more than a few times, we always have the hope and expectation that our children, through what we have instilled in them through our example and our practice, will use prayer, will see prayer as normal, will return to lives of prayer when they are ready. We recognise that our children have to return to prayer in their time and to not have it forced upon them. We do not want to push them away from God and, to be quite frank, we know that God will touch them and they will respond in due course. We never stop praying for our children and they know it. We never stop praying for each other, and they know it. We never stop conversing with God in our preferred way, and they know it. The seeds are sown but it is God who makes those seeds grow. To other families, I’d say this: take courage, take heart. Give a good example of prayer and love. Trust God with everything else.