- Have children or are considering starting a family
- Face challenges in praying with your family
- Feel time-constrained
Summary:
The author, Dr. Miraville, is a Mariologist who teaches at the Franciscan University of Steubenville and is a father of eight children. He wrote this book as a guide for families seeking help in living Our Lady of Medjugorje's messages.
He does this by taking some of the main themes of Mary's messages and explaining what has worked for him, in incorporating them into an often busy family life. Topics include: praying the Rosary together, fasting as a family, keeping peace, and spiritual conversion of family members.
Why I'm Recommending this Book:
It has paid instant dividends in my own life, on two fronts. One of those is prayer with my wife.
Our greatest takeaway from our recent pilgrimage to Medjugorje was that it is imperative to pray together. This has been no easy task for us.
The bottom line is that we have different styles of praying, with one of us feeling more meditative when praying swiftly and the other feeling more in the Spirit when praying slowly. It actually led to us reasoning it's better if we pray separately, and we've known this is in direct contradiction to what Our Lady of Medjugorje asks. This book has addressed that issue.
Miraville highlights that everyone, dependent upon how they connect with God and their level of spiritual development, prays differently, and that it's necessary to embrace those differences and not use them as a source of division, especially when you have several family members praying at once. He goes on to give clear instruction on how to embrace the differences and keep everyone developing their spirituality together.
The second front where this book has paid instant dividends is in alleviating my concerns about how Our Lady of Medjugorje's messages might fit into an increasingly time-starved environment in our home.
My wife and I already have little free time during the week, based on our work schedules, and find it challenging enough to do all Mary asks of us through her messages to the world. We've wondered how possibly starting a family together would impact our time even further.
I am confident this book will be an oft-read manual to family prayer, if we start that family, as really every chapter is relevant and gives great, realistic and practical advice for all types of possible situations which might arise.
You can purchase a new or used copy of this book here.
Have you read this book? Has it impacted your life, if so? Share with others your experience, using the "comments" link below.
