Father in Heaven, somewhere today there is a child who needs someone.
I do not know this child’s name.
I do not know the child’s age.
I do not know whether this little one lives across the world, across the country, across town—or perhaps much closer to me than I realize.
But You know.
So today I ask You:
Entrust a child to my prayers.
A child who especially needs someone to remember him or her before You.
I do not mean adoption in the legal sense.
I do not claim this child as mine.
I do not replace the child’s mother or father.
Rather, I ask You to teach me something of spiritual motherhood or spiritual fatherhood—to carry before You a child whom I may never meet and whose needs I may never know.
If I am a woman, enlarge within me the capacity for spiritual motherhood: to nurture, protect, encourage, intercede, teach, console, and love.
If I am a man, enlarge within me the capacity for spiritual fatherhood: to protect, provide, guide, encourage, sacrifice, intercede, and love.
And whether or not I ever become a biological or adoptive parent, teach me that love can become fruitful whenever it is offered to You.
Lord, somewhere there may be a child sitting alone at lunch today.
Other children laugh together while this child sits apart.
Maybe someone has decided that this child is strange.
Too quiet.
Too loud.
Too poor.
Too awkward.
Too different.
Maybe cruel words follow this child through the hallway.
Maybe messages arrive on a phone late at night.
Maybe the child has begun believing the terrible things other children say.
Father, if this is the child You entrust to my prayers, sit beside that child today.
Whisper into that little heart:
You are not what they call you.
You are My beloved child.
Send one friend.
One teacher who notices.
One coach.
One counselor.
One classmate brave enough to sit down beside the lonely child and say:
“Come sit with us.”
Somewhere there may be a child who spends too many hours alone.
Not because the child’s parents do not love them.
Perhaps Mom is working one job and then another.
Perhaps Dad leaves before sunrise and comes home exhausted.
Perhaps a single parent is doing everything possible to keep food in the refrigerator and the electricity turned on.
Maybe an older child makes dinner for younger siblings.
Maybe homework is done alone.
Maybe there is no one in the audience at the school program because missing work would mean missing rent.
Lord, do not let that child mistake hardship for lack of love.
Strengthen those parents.
Give them work with dignity and wages that allow them to be home with their children.
Send trustworthy people around the family.
Grandparents.
Neighbors.
Parishioners.
Teachers.
Friends.
Let someone notice where help is needed and offer it without humiliation.
And tonight, while that parent works another shift, stay near the child who wishes Mom or Dad could be home.
Somewhere there may be a child whose home looks perfectly normal from the outside.
But behind the door there is fear.
Perhaps yelling.
Perhaps violence.
Perhaps neglect.
Perhaps someone touches the child in ways no one ever should.
Perhaps the person who should protect the child is the person causing the harm.
Maybe the child has tried to tell someone and was not believed.
Maybe the child has been threatened into silence.
Maybe the child thinks:
“No one is coming.”
Father—
send someone.
Let a teacher notice.
Let a physician ask the right question.
Let a neighbor hear.
Let a relative believe.
Let a counselor recognize the signs.
Let someone make the call that needs to be made.
Give the child courage to speak.
And when that child speaks, let an adult listen.
Protect that little one tonight.
Somewhere there may be a child behind a locked door.
A child being trafficked.
Sold.
Exploited.
Photographed.
Threatened.
Moved from place to place.
A child whose name has been replaced by a price.
Jesus, You know exactly where that child is.
No locked room is hidden from You.
No basement.
No hotel.
No vehicle.
No computer screen.
No border.
No person profiting from another human being can hide that child from Your sight.
Lord, bring rescue.
Guide law enforcement and those who work to find exploited children.
Expose what is hidden.
Interrupt the plans of those doing evil.
Give investigators wisdom.
Give witnesses courage.
Bring the child safely into the hands of trustworthy people.
And afterward, when rescue is only the beginning of healing, provide patient adults who understand trauma and will not abandon the child when recovery is difficult.
Somewhere there may be a child who is hungry.
A child who knows how to make one box of food last longer than it should.
A child who saves part of a school lunch for later.
A child whose refrigerator is almost empty.
A child who says:
“I’m not hungry,”
because there is not enough food for everyone.
Father, provide.
And do not only provide miraculously when You have already placed food in the hands of people who could share it.
Make us generous.
Somewhere there may be a child sleeping in a car.
A motel.
A shelter.
A refugee camp.
A hospital.
A foster home.
A relative’s spare bedroom.
Or a place that does not feel like home at all.
Stay beside that child tonight.
Somewhere there may be a child in foster care who has packed everything important into a bag.
Maybe this is the first placement.
Maybe it is the fifth.
Maybe siblings have been separated.
Maybe the child does not understand why going home is not possible.
Maybe every adult who says:
“You are safe here,”
sounds like another promise that might eventually disappear.
Lord, protect that child.
If reunification with the child’s parents can happen safely, bring healing and stability to that family.
If kinship care is possible and good, strengthen those relatives.
If adoption eventually becomes necessary, provide a permanent family capable of loving the whole child—including the child’s history, grief, attachments, questions, and birth family.
Somewhere there may be a teenager aging out of foster care who has no idea where to go next.
Do not let eighteen become another word for alone.
Send someone who stays.
Somewhere there may be a child whose mother or father is addicted.
A child who has learned to recognize moods by footsteps.
A child who hides bottles.
A child who takes care of younger siblings.
A child who has become far too responsible far too young.
Lord, bring healing to the parent.
And give that child permission to be a child.
Somewhere there may be a child caring for a sick parent.
A child grieving a mother.
A child grieving a father.
A child grieving a sibling.
A child who has already attended more funerals than any child should.
Hold that child when everyone else has gone home.
Somewhere there may be a child whose parents are divorcing and who secretly believes:
“Maybe this happened because of me.”
Tell that child the truth.
Somewhere there may be a child with a disability who is excluded.
A child who learns differently.
Moves differently.
Communicates differently.
Looks different.
A child whom others underestimate.
Surround that child with people who recognize not a diagnosis first, but a person.
Somewhere there may be a child in a hospital tonight.
A child frightened by machines and needles and unfamiliar faces.
A child receiving difficult treatment.
A child whose parents are sleeping in a chair beside the bed.
Or perhaps a child whose parents cannot be there.
Jesus, sit at the bedside.
Somewhere there may be a child living through war.
A child who knows the sound of explosions better than the sound of playground laughter.
A child who left home carrying only what could fit into small hands.
A child separated from family.
Protect the innocent.
Bring peace.
Bring food, medicine, shelter, and safe passage.
Reunite families wherever possible.
Somewhere there may be a child who has done something wrong and now believes that means they are wrong.
A child angry at everyone.
A teenager making dangerous choices.
A child everyone has labeled:
trouble.
Jesus, look beneath the behavior.
Send adults who can hold boundaries while still seeing the wounded person underneath.
Somewhere there may simply be a child who is lonely.
Nothing dramatic enough for anyone else to notice.
No headline.
No emergency.
Just a child who wonders:
“Does anybody really see me?”
Father, see that child through me.
And if the child You place upon my heart is someone I actually encounter, give me wisdom.
Spiritual parenthood must never become possession.
Teach me proper boundaries.
Teach me to respect parents and guardians.
Teach me to recognize when a child’s needs require trained professionals or authorities rather than trying to become the rescuer myself.
But do not let caution become an excuse for indifference.
If I should speak, make me speak.
If I should listen, make me listen.
If I should report danger, give me courage to report it.
If I should provide a meal, let me provide it.
If I should support an exhausted parent, show me how.
If I should tutor, mentor, volunteer, donate, foster, advocate, encourage, or simply remember a child’s name, make me willing.
Lord, perhaps I have spent years longing to become a mother or father.
Perhaps my arms are empty.
Perhaps infertility has made me wonder what will ever become of all this maternal or paternal love.
Do not tell me that another child can simply replace the child I long for.
That would diminish both.
My grief is real.
My desire for motherhood or fatherhood is real.
But while I wait, do not let love remain locked inside me.
Let longing make my eyes more attentive.
Maybe somewhere there is a child who needs precisely the kind of small act I am capable of giving today.
A prayer.
A meal.
A ride.
A backpack.
A winter coat.
A birthday remembered.
A seat saved.
A word of encouragement.
Someone in the audience.
Someone saying:
“I am proud of you.”
Someone who notices.
Someone who stays.
Lord, make the Church rich in spiritual mothers and fathers.
Give every parish adults who notice the lonely child.
Give schools teachers who see beyond grades.
Give neighborhoods people who pay attention.
Give foster families support.
Give exhausted parents help before they collapse.
Give teenagers trustworthy mentors.
Give children safe adults.
Let no child who enters our churches wonder whether anyone there would care if they disappeared.
Mary, teach us spiritual motherhood.
You noticed need.
You pondered.
You accompanied.
You stood beneath the Cross when remaining there was painful.
Teach us to stay near suffering without making ourselves the center of someone else’s story.
St. Joseph, teach us spiritual fatherhood.
You protected.
You worked.
You listened to God.
You acted.
You brought Mary and Jesus to safety.
Teach men again the beauty of fatherhood expressed through protection, sacrifice, steadiness, tenderness, responsibility, and presence.
Blessed Fulton Sheen, pray for us.
St. John Paul II, pray for us.
St. Teresa of Calcutta, who taught the world to recognize Christ in those who seemed forgotten, pray for us.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of the little and the forgotten, spread your mantle over every child who needs protection tonight.
And Jesus, You said:
“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.”
Give us eyes to recognize You.
Father, today I spiritually adopt in prayer one child known to You.
I may never know the child’s name.
I may never know the circumstances.
I may never know whether the child is five or fifteen.
I may never know whether my prayer was offered during the worst night of that child’s life or simply during an ordinary lonely afternoon.
But You know.
So every day, when I remember this child, I will pray:
Father, find my spiritually adopted child today.
Protect this child.
Feed this child.
Comfort this child.
Send good people to this child.
Remove this child from danger.
Strengthen this child’s family where possible.
Heal what has been wounded.
Let this child know that he or she is wanted by You, known by You, and infinitely precious to You.
And if someday You place a real child before me who needs something I can give, do not let me become so busy praying for an unknown child that I fail to love the one standing in front of me.
Let prayer become action.
Let spiritual motherhood become tenderness.
Let spiritual fatherhood become protection.
Let compassion become service.
Let service become love.
And let love lead every child back toward You.
Until every child has someone who notices.
Someone who protects.
Someone who prays.
Someone who cares.
Someone who can reflect, however imperfectly, the love of the Father who never forgets His children.
Jesus, protect the children.
Mary, be a mother to the motherless and remain beside every struggling family.
St. Joseph, be a protector to those who need protection and strengthen fathers everywhere.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, cover the children beneath your mantle.
Blessed Fulton Sheen, pray for us.
Always remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
Holy Family! Help us to be a holy family and pray for us!
Amen.