A child’s faith is simple. A child’s faith is sure. A child’s faith can question, yet remain confident. Children can do this, because, for the most part, they themselves are innocent. They do not know the sorrow of the world, so they can pray with utter faith. When an adult insists on praying with this childish faith, it goes from being simple to dangerous.

Dangerous faith – that faith that makes no sense to all the sensible grown-ups of the world. Dangerous faith is a faith that persists in believing in a God that does not always seem to make sense. Dangerous faith is bold. It is not easy to attain or to practice. Dangerous faith dares to challenge all that the world holds to be true or real.

Dangerous faith is what we are called to.

How can we practice dangerous faith? Like all worthy things, it is relatively simple. Prayer is the work we are called to, the path we take to dangerous faith. Prayer is not just a lifting up of our hearts when we are in need, when we are happy, or when we need it. Prayer is a labor, practiced even when we do not “feel like it”. Dangerous faith insists that prayer is our conversation with a God we can’t see, feel, hear, or, unless you are a Thomistic scholar, prove.

Prayer is the work we are called to as individuals, and as families. Parents are the first educators of their children. This means parents teach not only the ABC’s, how to share, and how to clean up after one’s self, but also how to pray. While children may have an innate sense of God and faith and an ability to approach God in a simple way, it is also a parent’s job to guide their children to God through pray, both formal and informal.

This can be an intimidating thing, especially if one is not already praying regularly. There are some simple ways to add prayer to a regular part of any family’s life, with excellent results.

Grace before meals is one of the easiest ways to pray together. Just choose one meal a day to do this as a family. You can use a formal mealtime prayer or just use your own words. The main point is to come together as a family and give thanks.

Night prayer- My husband and I decided to pray with our oldest child every night, from the time he was born. And we did. Sometimes he did, sometimes I did, but every night one of us would walk that active baby around the room, and whisper prayers. We fell into a sort of pattern that we have come to use the last 8 and ½ years. We started by thanking God for our day, then we asked His blessing on us and forgiveness for what we did and did not do. After this we prayed for others, then ask different saints to pray for us (ex.“St. Luke – pray for us”). We ended with a formal prayer – the Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, or Angel of God. We varied our formal prayer just so we, the parents, would not get bored.

This pattern seemed to work for us, and took only 5-10 minutes a night. We did it as part of our bedtime routine, a natural flow to our evenings.

One night, when our oldest was a little over 2, he chimed in on the Hail Mary with us. We were amazed. We had never sought to teach him formal prayers, in the “repeat after me” way. He had just learned through repetition and routine. Of course, he is a very verbal child, so we did not place any expectations on our other two children.

Sure enough, around the same age, both our other boys started in saying the Hail Mary with us. They have learned all those formal prayers simply through our simple, non-threatening night prayer!

Read Bible stories together – There are so many baby and children’s Bibles out there. You can read Bible stories to your children from a very early age. Make these a familiar part of their lives.

Say the rosary – One decade of the rosary takes just about 10 minutes. The kids love to hold the rosaries, and to lead the prayers once they are a little older. This is a great way to pray as a family, and to pass on a Catholic faith tradition.

Let your child see you pray– Children imitate what they see, so let them see you pray or reading your Bible.

Be open to talking about God. Learn to make faith vocabulary a normal way of talking in the house. God becomes a normal part of life instead of feeling like a formal relation we always have to dress up for.

Give your child a blessing at any time; Especially before important events, like a first day of school. Just place your hands on your child’s head and say, “May Jesus bless you this day. (make the Sign of the Cross) In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

There are so many ways to pray. These are just a few. It is important to do this with our children. Prayer gives us a foundation on which to live dangerous faith. It is not always easy to remain faithful in prayer. Even the most holy men and women fail in their responsibility to pray. When this happens, we must keep going, not give up in same. Remember the Prodigal Son? God always welcomes us back with joy, no matter how long we have been gone.

So, go, and pray. Pray for that dangerous faith that leads us to a childlike simplicity with God. And let the children lead us.

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