We’ve often heard the phrase “The family that prays together, stays together.” While this adage—originally coined by the Venerable Fr. Patrick Peyton—has rapidly grown in popularity, the Journal of Family Psychology recently conducted a study to evaluate the true effects of couple and family prayer.
The researchers conducted a national study evaluating 198 diverse families in a manner which viewed family prayer as a ritual within religious families. The results of this study demonstrated seven related themes between couple and family prayer and the connectedness of the individuals.
These themes indicated that couple/family prayer serves as a time of family interaction and togetherness, an opportunity for social support, and a means for passing religious practices among intergenerational family members. Moreover, as couple/family prayer included issues of concern for the individuals, couple/family prayer proved to help reduce relational tension between those praying together, and provided feelings of connectedness, bonding, and unity between the couple and/or family. Lastly, couples and families reported that when they felt disunity within their family, they found it more difficult to pray together.
When families experience this feeling of disunity and difficulty praying together, the results of this study suggested that couples and families increase their practice of rituals such as family meals. The participant results showed that “the place of prayer in family life was interwoven in the context of other naturally occurring rituals,” further stating that, “Perhaps, families may begin by considering family prayer as a family ritual that can become as naturally embedded in family life as are these other rituals. Instead of exclusively focusing on praying together, they may consider improving other family rituals and then extend the family’s ability to come together to naturally participate in family prayer.”
Overall, the results of this study demonstrated that couple and family prayer provided opportunities for togetherness, social support, interaction, and connectedness. As stated by the authors, couple and family prayer provides a ritual that is a “potentially unique pathway to family cohesion.”
For more on how to pray as a couple, check out Praying For (& With) Your Spouse: The Way To Deeper Love and tune in to More2Life—Monday through Friday, 10am E/9am C on EWTN, SiriusXM 130!