Marriage Matters: How to start a regular prayer practice with your spouse

Marriage Matters: How to start a regular prayer practice with your spouse

As a child , I never saw my parents praying together as a cou- ple. It did not bother me because, as a family, we did go to Mass on Sundays, prayed before meals and said our prayers before bedtime. My parents were loving and respectful towards each other, and perhaps they did pray as a couple in private. I’ll never know because I never asked, and now they are both gone.

It was not until I married that it dawned on me how important it is to pray as a couple
— often and in front of the children, too. Here are three tips on how to start praying regularly with your spouse.
 
  1. Keep it simple and short
My beloved husband and I not  only  began praying for each other when we were courting; we also prayed with each other — quick little prayers such as: “Lord, help us   to be humble and undistracted listeners as we share in conversation this day,” or, “Lord, remind us of your love for us, and let us give thanks and praise!” Especially when you are first beginning a prayer practice, don’t feel you have to be creating elaborate, spontaneous prayer. My husband (and perhaps most men) did not feel comfortable praying “in the spur of the moment.” It took awhile before he decided that it was not only OK, but good, to offer spontaneous prayers as a couple.
 
  2. Create routine
Our children are grown now, and we still pray, pray, pray. We pray as we rise each morning a “prayer for our spouse.” When we see each other off to work, we bless each other on the forehead, and, with a good-bye kiss, we part in peace to our respective day’s journey. We pray a simple prayer at the end of each day, even when we are too tired to pray. The desire alone to  say  “I’m  grateful for this day and good night Lord” is  in  itself a prayer offering we give together before falling asleep.
 
  3. Remember God in good times and bad
Our prayer routine as a couple continued in our early years of marriage as our family began to grow. With the birth of each child, we had a splendid opportunity to pray before, during and after each birth. We stood strong by the grace of God (and prayer) when we almost lost one of our children before birth, and when our last baby came early and did not survive. Prayer sustained us during the grief and the sorrow, knowing God would restore our hearts and give us acceptance and peace in his divine design for us.
 
Each time that we faced a crisis in our marriage, we knelt down and prayed in silence, because God  knew  our  situation; but we had to be humble and submit to the greater plan, for “We knew that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Rm 8:28) And, in fact, the Lord, in his  great  and wonderful plan for our marriage, did deliver us from our ills and helped us  to  grow closer to one another by our spiritual prayer bond.