Inspiration
I recently pinned this prayer style attributed to Pope Francis and I absolutely love it! If you click on it you can see a full size version form the blog, "With a Hopeful Heart". Summing it up, the prayer technique is as follows:
Thumb: Closest to us, so reminds us to pray for those who are close to our heart.
Index: Also known as the pointer finger. As such, it reminds us to pray for those who point us in the right direction. This includes our Church leaders, our Elders, our teachers, etc.
Middle: This is for our government and those who lead us, since it is our tallest finger. Some of my students took issue with this, as the government and the population of students I serve don't always get along so to speak. However, we talked about how hard it is to make good decisions, and since our government doesn't always make the right choices, we need to pray that they get the wisdom they need to figure out what is right and good for our country/city/etc.
Ring: As our weakest finger, it is for those who are the weakest in our world. This may be the poor, or the sick. I also included little children because that seemed to connect with my students.
"Pinky": Our smallest finger, it reminds us of ourselves. Once we pray for others, our problems often look small in comparison.
Thumb: Closest to us, so reminds us to pray for those who are close to our heart.
Index: Also known as the pointer finger. As such, it reminds us to pray for those who point us in the right direction. This includes our Church leaders, our Elders, our teachers, etc.
Middle: This is for our government and those who lead us, since it is our tallest finger. Some of my students took issue with this, as the government and the population of students I serve don't always get along so to speak. However, we talked about how hard it is to make good decisions, and since our government doesn't always make the right choices, we need to pray that they get the wisdom they need to figure out what is right and good for our country/city/etc.
Ring: As our weakest finger, it is for those who are the weakest in our world. This may be the poor, or the sick. I also included little children because that seemed to connect with my students.
"Pinky": Our smallest finger, it reminds us of ourselves. Once we pray for others, our problems often look small in comparison.
Part One: Praying with our Words
After going through the fingers, we each created a prayer of our own using the following template.
Part Two: Praying in Color
A couple years ago I bought the book "Praying in Color for Kids". It is a simple and quick read, mostly art itself. It has great ideas for how to get kids to pray using art and drawing, which is great for students who are weak in the area of literacy. One of the ideas is also to use the hands to pray. This was less formulaic, I just told the kids to trace their hands, and pray while they color. The children took it very seriously for the most part. Some used no words, some used many.