I have already mentioned one of several family recipes passed down through my family—some odder than others. Among our favorites are my dad’s grandmom, Nanny Rayer’s, meatballs and sauce and my mom’s grandmom Avery’s blueberry muffins. The recipes are considered sacred in a way. Are these Nanny’s meatballs? Are there great grandmom’s muffins? If the answer is no, you are most certainly disappointing someone. The question is if the specialness is in the recipe itself or who it links us to. I feel it is probably a mix of both.
This passing down of recipes made me think about passing down the faith and specifically about family prayers. Our nightly routine as a family or whoever happens to be available in the family on a particular night consists of the following: Singing the Hail Mary, saying the Guardian Angel Prayer (from my childhood), and saying Wisdom of God be with me, always at work within me (a prayer from our oldest daughter’s early Catholic school years). Everyone gets to say personal petitions which range from thanking God for a great day to praying for a friend’s lost pet to praying for those we love. Those petitions are followed by a Glory Be. And we close by singing a song from Joe’s childhood prayers which incorporates Psalm 18: Praise the Name of Jesus, He’s my rock, He’s my fortress…
We try our best to pray as a family, but sometimes I am praying long after the little ones have gone to bed with my teenager or sometimes Joe prays with the boys and I pray with the girls in order to expedite a late bedtime. The prayers remain a thread of connectivity even when we aren’t praying together at the exact same time. We pray the same prayers. We pray prayers that connect us with our extended family who live far away. We pray prayers even when we’ve punished the kids or had a disagreement with them. God naturally pulls us together.
The prayers unite us even when our hearts are rebelling against each other. It made me also think of all the ways we as Catholics are united in prayer—at Mass, in Liturgy of the Hours, praying the Rosary and so many other prayers many of us know by heart. The prayers unite us not only to each other in the present moment, but also to generations passed, ancestors we never knew who were Catholic. Some prayers unite us to other Christians, such as the Our Father. They unite us to the future, future family members who if tradition carries on might be saying the very prayers we say today, and then most importantly they unite us to heaven. We know the angels and saints pray along with us all of the time, but most especially in the Mass.
Today it is Mama Mary’s birthday. I intend to make a family recipe of Joe’s called a Hawaiian wedding cake aka Busy Day Birthday Cake. It is delicious as it is easy—a 9×13 pineapple cake with cream cheese frosting. If you email me, I will send the recipe because I am not certain if it’s an invented recipe or if it belongs to someone from long ago who would rather not have it publicly published. All I know is that it served my husband’s family of ten very well for many birthdays and it has in turn served our family of six very well.
Today, it will be uniting heaven and earth as we sing Happy Birthday to our beautiful, heavenly mother along with the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and all the angels and saints. May you look at your family prayers as a recipe to unite you to all those you love dearly both in heaven and on earth, until the end of time.
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:20 NAB
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