Morning Prayers, More and More

When we first started officially homeschooling, I instituted morning prayers. From the beginning, Kansas Dad thought the second prayer "Watch O Lord" lent itself too much to the evening to be the best part of our morning ritual, but I really liked it, so we kept it for a while.

Recently, though, we switched. At our parish, we always say the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel at the end of mass. I thought including it in our morning prayer would help First Son and First Daughter become familiar with it, so they could recite along with everyone else. We still say our morning prayer, just follow it with this one instead of "Watch O Lord."

Because "Watch O Lord" was a bit long, I didn't expect the children to memorize it, but they had! Kansas Dad usually reads and prays with the older two at bedtime. There's an elaborate ritual involved: one book from each (Kansas Dad is reading snippets from The Book of Virtues as his choice each night), then lights out and rocking for one song with First Daughter, then rocking for one song with First Son (they take turns picking the music; First Daughter always picks Junior's Bedtime Songs while First Son always picks Rock-A-Bye Veggie), then Kansas Dad prays for God and his angels to watch over all the kids (and so on), then each of the kids prays whatever they like, then Kansas Dad prays something more traditional like a Hail Mary.

Well, it turns out First Daughter has been reciting "Watch O Lord" as her prayer a great many evenings. It is such a sweet sound to hear her little voice recite the prayer!