Ten prayers that every Catholic child should know

Da Paolo Tessione - December 7, 2019

Teaching your children how to pray can be a daunting task. While in the end it is nice to learn to pray with our own words, an active prayer life begins with committing some prayers to memory. The best place to start is with common prayers for children which can be easily memorized. The children who are making their first communion should have memorized most of the following prayers, while the grace before meals and the guardian angel's prayer are prayers that even very young children can learn by repeating them every day.

The sign of the cross is the most basic Catholic prayer, even if we often don't think so. We must teach our children to say it reverently before and after their other prayers.

The most common problem that children have in learning the Sign of the Cross is to use the left hand instead of the right; the second most common is touching the right shoulder before the left. While the latter is the correct way for Eastern Christians, both Catholics and Orthodox, to make the sign of the cross, Latin Rite Catholics make the sign of the cross by first touching the left shoulder.

We must pray to our Father every day with our children. It is a good prayer to use as a short morning or evening prayer. Pay close attention to how your children pronounce words; there are many opportunities for misunderstandings and misrepresentations, such as "Howard be your name."

Children naturally gravitate towards the Virgin Mary and learning the Ave Maria early makes it easier to encourage devotion to Santa Maria and introduce longer Marian prayers, such as the Rosary. A useful technique for teaching the Ave Maria is that you recite the first part of the prayer (through "the fruit of your womb, Jesus") and then your children respond with the second part ("Santa Maria").

The Glory Be is a very simple prayer that any child who can make the Sign of the Cross can easily memorize. If your child has difficulty remembering which hand to use when making the Sign of the Cross (or which shoulder to touch first), you can practice further by making the Sign of the Cross while reciting the Gloria, as Eastern rite Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.

Acts of faith, hope and charity are common morning prayers. If you help your children memorize these three prayers, they will always have a short form of morning prayer available for those days when they don't have time to pray for a longer form of morning prayer.

An act of hope is an excellent prayer for school-aged children. Encourage your children to memorize it so they can pray for the Act of Hope before taking a test. Although there is no substitute for studying, it is good for students to realize that they should not rely on their strength alone.

Childhood is a time full of deep emotions, and children often suffer from real and perceived injuries and injuries from friends and classmates. While the main purpose of an act of charity is to express our love for God, this prayer is also a daily reminder for our children to try to develop forgiveness and love for others.

The Act of Contrition is an essential prayer for the Sacrament of Confession, but we should also encourage our children to say it every night before going to sleep. Children who have made their first confession should also do a quick self-examination before saying the act of contrition.

Instilling a sense of gratitude into our children can be particularly difficult in a world where many of us have an overabundance of goods. Grace Before Meals is a good way to remind them (and ourselves!) That everything we have ultimately comes from God. (Consider adding Grace After Meals to your routine as well, to cultivate a sense of thanks and to keep those who died in our prayers.)

As with devotion to the Virgin Mary, children seem predisposed to faith in their guardian angel. Cultivating this belief when they are young will help protect them from skepticism later on. As the children grow older, encourage them to supplement the Guardian Angel prayer with more personal prayers for their Guardian Angel.