“Hey Patti, I’m getting serious about praying
for my family. I’m going to do a 40-day fast and daily rosary, do you want to
join me?” My friend Shellie Rusch asked me this recently. She has six kids and we have a spiritual
sisterhood in many ways.
As a wife and mother of ten, I had eleven
reasons to say yes. Well, twelve including me, and I certainly need all the
help I can get. It was a comforting
idea, to get serious about the spiritual well being of our families and to pool
our prayers and fasting together. It
wasn’t as if we had not always prayed for our families, but this would be
different—something more; something big. We had one intention: for the increased
holiness of our families. In the end, holiness is all that matters so it was
all we would ask for.