Daily prayer is something that people can easily forget, said Nancy Bandzuch, mom of five and founder, with her husband, Bill, of Catholic Sprouts, a Catholic ministry for parents.
Especially in a home with kids and kids’ stuff, Bandzuch said, “distraction is all around us.”
“It’s one of those things that we can easily forget, or get to the end of the day and be lying in bed and think ‘oh, we did all of these things today, but we didn’t do that.’ It’s like with anything; we need a little bit of an extra reminder.”
Nancy Bandzuch
Bandzuch recently joined “Practicing Catholic” radio show host Patrick Conley to talk about the value of having a special space in the home as a reminder to pray, and where the family can gather to pray together daily. “If you walk by your little prayer corner, your prayer table or whatever, it might be something small,” she said. “It’s that sort of gentle reminder that you said this was important. You said you were going to do it, so let’s do it.”
In the Bandzuch household, the family gathers at a designated prayer time each evening. “It’s the last thing we do when kids are in jammies and teeth are brushed, and we all gather to pray a rosary together,” she said. “And I’m not going to claim it’s perfect, and we’re disciplining while doing it, certainly. But we’ve been doing it for so long in the same place. And the rosaries are right there waiting for us.”
The family has an image of the Blessed Mother and of Jesus on the cross to look at while praying, she said, “even if I have to continually be reminding my squirrelly 5-year-old to do it,” Bandzuch said. “It’s just the routine of not having to explain or pull kids where they need to be every night because they know ‘you’re in your pajamas, your teeth are clean.’”
Before they prayed the rosary, family members prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet together. The chaplet is much shorter than a rosary and a simple prayer for children to learn quickly and to lead, Bandzuch said. “It’s one of my favorites,” she said.
“So be gentle with yourself, allow your kids to share what they like and what they want to do.”
Bandzuch said a big sticking point in creating a prayer space can be “I don’t have the right materials” or “I don’t have the right space or want to get this little home project done before I set up a prayer space.” She suggests doing something now, however simple. “Even if you don’t have a crucifix to put there now, you can have your child draw one and hang it up. And it’s still a beautiful thing to look at and meditate upon.”
Families do not need to spend money or clear out a room, she said. “We can give ourselves permission to just make it imperfect and simple, but do it,” she said, giving examples of using a bookshelf or a windowsill.
To hear more of Bandzuch’s ideas on how to create a simple prayer space in your home, and to hear the full interview, listen to this episode of the “Practicing Catholic” radio show. It airs at 9 p.m. June 25, 1 p.m. June 26 and 2 p.m. June 27 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the latest show also includes interviews with Archbishop Bernard Hebda, who addresses the July lifting of the dispensation to attend Sunday Mass, a dispensation that’s been in place since March 2020, and Allison Spies, who describes the 1941 National Eucharistic Congress in St. Paul.
Listen to all of the interviews after they have aired at:
soundcloud.com/PracticingCatholic
tinyurl.com/PracticingCatholic (Spotify)
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