If the prayer of a mother, Saint Monica, was so pleasing to God, how will be that of the whole family, praying for the same purposes! "Family prayer," writes Pope John Paul II, "has its own characteristics. It is a prayer "made in common", husband and wife together, parents and children together (...). To the members of the Christian family the words with which the Lord promises his presence can be applied in a particular way: 'Truly I say to you, if two of you agree on earth to ask for anything, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them (Mt 18:19 ff.). 8 Family members are united, among themselves and with God, more strongly through common prayer.
The essential content of this prayer is family life itself: "joys and sorrows, hopes and sorrows, births and birthdays, parents' wedding anniversaries, departures, separations and returns, important and decisive choices, the death of loved ones, etc., point to the intervention of God's love in the history of the family, as they should also point to the favourable moment of thanksgiving, imploration, and the family's trusting abandonment to the common Father in heaven. Moreover, the dignity and responsibility of the Christian family as the domestic Church can only be enlivened by the unceasing help of God, which will be granted without fail to all who ask for it with humility and trust in prayer.
The center of the Christian family must be placed in the Lord. For this reason, any event or circumstance which, with only a human vision, would be incomprehensible is interpreted as something permitted by God, something which will always redound to the good of all. Thus, the illness or death of a loved one, the birth of a handicapped brother or sister, or any other trial, is warned with an eternal sense of relief and does not lead to discouragement or bitterness, but to trusting more in the Lord and abandoning oneself completely in his arms. He is the Father of all.
Today we ask Saint Monica for the constancy she had in prayer and to help all families to preserve this treasure of family piety, even if in many places the environment and customs that are spreading are not favorable. This situation, on the contrary, should lead us all to a greater commitment to make God the center of every home, starting with our own. In this way, family life will be a foretaste of Heaven.