Prayer for Family
When a family is under strain, pray first and speak second. The oldest wisdom of the Church is that the home is the first place God is met, and the first place he is fought for. What follows is a set of prayers for the moments a family needs them: for a marriage that has grown quiet, for a child who has wandered, for parents watching their grown children leave for another country, for peace at a table that has stopped talking.
A Short Prayer to Start With
Before the longer prayers, a short one. Pray this at the beginning of a difficult day, or after a difficult conversation, or standing at the door of the room where someone you love is sleeping.
Lord Jesus, you were born into a family. You know how a household feels when it is tired, when it is anxious, when it is trying its best. Bless my family tonight. Keep us gentle with each other. Guard the ones under this roof and the ones far from it. Bring us home to you, and to each other. Amen.
A short prayer is not a small prayer. It is often the only kind a busy parent can pray, and God receives it as fully as any other.
The Maronite Family Blessing
The Maronite Church, whose liturgical language is Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic close to the language Jesus spoke, has preserved a tradition of household blessing that runs back to the early Syrian monks. In many Maronite homes, particularly in the villages of Mount Lebanon and in older diaspora families, the parent or grandparent would trace the sign of the cross on the forehead of each child at the doorway before school, before travel, and at bedtime.
The blessing is simple. It calls on the Trinity, on Our Lady of Lebanon, and on the saints of the Maronite tradition to keep the family in peace. What follows is the traditional form in English, as it is commonly prayed today.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May his face shine upon this house. May the prayers of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Lebanon, cover you. May Saint Maron, Saint Charbel, Saint Rafqa, and all the saints of our fathers keep watch over this door and everyone who crosses it. Amen.
In Syriac, the opening line traditionally begins B'shem Abo, w'Bro, w'Ruho d'Qudsho, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Different villages and monasteries preserve slightly different forms of the full blessing, and what is offered here is a common English rendering rather than a fixed liturgical text. Pray it slowly. In some households the parent finishes by kissing each child on the forehead where the cross was traced.
Prayers for Specific Family Struggles
The following short prayers are for the particular strains that families carry. Pick the one that fits your evening, and pray it more than once if you need to.
For a Marriage Under Strain
Lord, you joined us at the altar and you have not left our side, even in the seasons we have felt alone. Where we have hardened, soften us. Where we have grown silent, give us words that heal. Renew the vow we made, and remind us why we made it. Through the intercession of Our Lady, mother of every family, we pray. Amen.
For a Child Who Has Drifted from the Faith
Father, you have known my child longer than I have. You knew them before I did, and you will not lose them. Draw them back by the road only you can see. Give me the patience of Saint Monica, the trust of the father who waited on the horizon, and the silence to let your grace do its work. Amen.
For Family Separated by Distance or Emigration
Lord of every road and every sea, keep our family close in prayer even when the miles are long. Bless the ones who have gone abroad for work, for study, for a new life. Bless the ones who stayed behind. Let no distance be greater than the love you have knit between us. Bring us back to one table, in this life or the next. Amen.
For Family Suffering Illness
Merciful Jesus, you touched the sick with your own hand. Touch our family now. Strengthen the one who is ill, hold the ones who are watching over them, and give the doctors and nurses steady hands. Through the prayers of Saint Charbel, who healed so many, restore what can be restored and give peace where healing is slow. Amen.
For Peace at the Dinner Table
Lord, bless this table and everyone around it. Quiet the arguments we carried in with us. Loosen the words we do not need to say. Let this meal be a small return to the peace of your household in Nazareth, and let us rise from it kinder than we sat down. Amen.
These prayers are meant to be prayed simply, not performed. If the words help, use them. If your own words come, pray those instead. What matters is that the family is named, and God is asked. For the deeper wound of losing a family member, see the prayers for grief. For a household weighed down by fear, see the prayers for anxiety.
How Saint Charbel Intercedes for Families
It is easy to think of Saint Charbel Makhlouf as a solitary figure, twenty-three years of silence in a hermitage above Annaya. He was. But he came from a family, and he never stopped belonging to one. His mother, Brigitta, raised him in the small village of Bekaa Kafra after his father died young. When Youssef, the boy who would become Charbel, left home at twenty-three to enter the monastery, she wept and let him go. The Maronite tradition remembers her fiat, her yes, as part of his sanctity.
His brother, Beshara, later became a monk at the same monastery of Saint Maron in Annaya, and eventually its abbot. Two brothers under vows, one an abbot in the community, the other a hermit alone on the hillside above it. The family stayed in one another's orbit even in silence. When people today ask Saint Charbel to pray for their families, they are asking a saint who understood what it costs when one person's calling stretches the shape of a home. Pilgrims to Annaya often report that prayers for a family member, particularly for a wandering son or a sick parent, are the prayers most often answered at his tomb. A short intercession is included below, and a longer devotion is offered in the Novena to Saint Charbel.
Saint Charbel, hermit of Annaya, you loved your mother and your brother, and you did not stop loving them when you entered the silence of God. Watch over my family now. Bring back the ones who have wandered. Heal the ones who are sick. Keep the ones who are far away. Pray for us to the Lord you served, and hold us in the peace that filled your hermitage. Amen.
How to Build a Family Prayer Rhythm
Family prayer is easier to keep alive when it has a rhythm. Not a rule, a rhythm: a few small anchors during the week that everyone knows will happen. What follows are practices drawn from the Maronite household tradition and from the wider Catholic life. Adopt one, not all. A single steady practice is worth more than five that collapse in a month.
A Shared Blessing Before Meals
The oldest and simplest anchor. Before the meal, one person prays a short blessing while everyone signs themselves with the cross. In many Lebanese Christian homes the blessing is followed by a small phrase in Arabic, sahtein, meaning "double health," said before the first bite. The blessing takes ten seconds. Its effect on the meal that follows is difficult to overstate.
Night Prayer with Children
At bedtime, a parent traces the sign of the cross on each child's forehead and prays a short blessing over them. A common form: "Angels of God around you, saints of God above you, Christ himself beside you. Sleep in peace." Children remember this into adulthood, often longer than they remember any homily.
A Family Rosary Once a Week
One decade, not five, if that is what your family can carry. Sunday evenings work well. Light a candle. Take turns leading. The Maronite Church prays the Rosary in a slightly different form from the Roman rite, but the shape is the same: Our Lady is asked to keep the family close to her Son.
Praying Names Aloud
Once a week, name every member of the family in prayer out loud. Include the ones who live far away, the ones who have died, the ones who are hard to love. The act of speaking a name in the presence of God is itself a form of blessing.
The Blessing at the Doorway
An old Lebanese Christian practice. When someone in the family leaves the house for a journey, work, or school, the parent traces the sign of the cross on their forehead at the door. It is a two-second ritual that carries a thousand years of memory. It says, quietly, that no one in this family goes out into the world unaccompanied.
For a fuller sense of the tradition these practices come from, see the overview of the Maronite tradition, the church whose liturgy still carries the Aramaic of the first Christians and whose household piety has kept families together through fourteen centuries of exile, invasion, and diaspora.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Catholic prayer for family protection?
The traditional Catholic prayer for family protection asks the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph to guard the home. A common form is: "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls. Watch over our family. Protect us from all harm, in body and in soul, and keep us always in your care." Many Catholic homes also pray the Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel for spiritual protection over the household.
Is there a Maronite prayer for family?
Yes. The Maronite tradition preserves a household blessing that a parent, traditionally the father or the eldest, prays over the family in the morning, at meals, and at nightfall. It calls on the Trinity, Our Lady of Lebanon, and the Maronite saints to keep the family in peace. It is often prayed while tracing the sign of the cross on the foreheads of the children at the doorway of the home.
How do I pray for a family member who's away from God?
Pray with confidence, not with fear. Saint Monica prayed for her son Augustine for seventeen years before his conversion, and the Church holds her up as the patroness of every parent praying for a wandering child. A simple form: "Lord, you have not lost sight of my child. Draw them back by the road only you can see. Give me patience for the waiting." Keep the person's name on your lips daily and trust the timing to God.
What prayer do you say when your family is fighting?
A short prayer for peace in the home is best. "Lord Jesus, prince of peace, come into this house. Soften the words we are about to say. Heal what is broken between us. Give us the humility to be the first to make peace." The Maronite tradition also encourages a moment of silence together before speaking, so that the anger has time to loosen its grip.
Which saint do Catholics pray to for family?
The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is the first and most universal intercessor for family life. Saint Joseph is invoked as the protector of the home, Saint Anne as the patroness of mothers and grandmothers, and Saint Monica for children who have drifted from the faith. In the Maronite tradition, Saint Charbel is often invoked for family healing, and Our Lady of Lebanon is asked to keep watch over households in Lebanon and across the diaspora.
See also: Saint Charbel Makhlouf. Novena to Saint Charbel. Prayer for Anxiety. Prayer for Grief. The Maronite tradition.