I often wonder as a parent, where I am going wrong. I found this article and the answer is clear; I need to pray for my children. It was written 137 years ago, but the message struck a chord. I have copied the main points below. (I know the language needs updating, but bear with it.) I do pray for my children, but am I doing enough? If I am honest the answer is no. Check out Pray For Children. It is a new initiative, which seeks to encourage parents (and others) to pray one hour each week, before the Blessed Sacrament, for children. Just one hour, out of one hundred and sixty eight hours in the week.
by William Scribner (1873)
You should pray for your children because:- Their salvation is so great a prize that it is worth all the pains which your prayer to secure it for them may cost you.
- Few will pray for them if you do not.
- No one else can pray for them as you do.
- Your omitting to do so will be perilous to them and to you.
- You will then find it easier to perform other parental duties on the performance of which God has conditioned their salvation.
- By their salvation, granted in answer to your prayers, your Saviour will be glorified.
- You have a strong encouragement and incentive to do so in the explicit promise of God that, if you are faithful to your trust, he will be their God.
- You my then expect, as a result of your prayers, that the power of God will counteract in some measure the evil you have done them.
- There will be critical periods in their lives when without your incessant prayers, offered with reference to such times, they my be left to act most unwisely if not disastrously.
- It will lead you to a better understanding of them.
- It will increase your holy desires for them.
- No other means will be so effectual in enabling you to overcome the difficulty you experience in talking with then on religious subjects.
- You will thereby secure for then God's aid in the efforts they my make to yield you their obedience.
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