10 Points on
Prayer for Engaged Couples
1.
Prayer is not private. You may think, “this is something between me
and God. My fiancé prays too. But it is too private. We don’t pray together.”
Stop thinking that way. If you are married God will indeed judge the eternal salvation
of your soul partially on the kind of relationship you form with one another.
It stands to reason that he wants both of you “in” on the prayer conversation
together. (Coincidently, the same principal holds with that world-wide group of
people that God took to calling his “Bride” - the Church. We need to pray with
the whole Church, with priests, and laity, and parishes, and nuns, and our
brothers and sisters in Christ.)
2.
You need helps to pray out loud together. Taking
turns reading scripture passages out loud, reading devotional books out loud,
reading any prayer together out loud. These are the simplest but the greatest
helps for praying together.
3.
The church wants you to “steal” prayers from
that big communal prayer, the Mass! Yes, first of all, you could read together
out loud any number of the prayers of the Mass. This would be a perfectly
legitimate form of prayer together. But also…
4.
Assimilate the grand meaning of the prayers in
the Mass. Here is some of the “spirit” of the Mass: there are four purposes of
the whole Mass, four things that are expressed in all the prayers together:
Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. Using different terms,
come up with the words to acknowledge how great God is, ask forgiveness for
sins, give thanks for blessings, and make supplications for things you need and
for prayer intentions of other people. The first four words give a helpful
acronym for remembering this: A.C.T.S.
5.
Spontaneity is always a goal to have - openness,
vulnerability with each other in prayer – but it is not the high point. It’s
great if a person is able to just speak to God out loud with the exact thoughts
and emotions that are in their heart or “on their mind.” At first no one is
ever comfortable doing this out loud when others are present. It is good to get
to the point where the words, the thoughts, the feelings are so genuine, and
the presence of God is so valuable, that you just say these things out loud
despite the discomfort. But don’t judge how good of a pray-er you are based on
this aspect. In a similar vein…
6.
If you burst out laughing at some awkward
mistake or gaff in prayer together… join the long line of “experts” who have
done the same (yes, I mean priests and religious sisters and all those who take
their prayers so “seriously” that we chuckle at the thought of them laughing).
7.
If you want to find prayers for your engagement
in the Bible, read C.S. Lewis’s short book about the Psalms, and read/learn
about the book of Tobit.
8.
Prayers that you both have memorized are great.
Memorize some (The Lord’s Prayer is assumed): grace before and after meals. The
St. Michael Prayer. The Hail Holy Queen, etc.
9.
The Rosary. Make a plan to try the Rosary
together. If you have never prayed it out loud with a group (and thus
don’t really know how to pray it at all), find a Church where it is done in a
group. Find a church where it is done before or after Mass. Learn the prayers
of the Rosary. Get a brochure or reflection booklet so that you have the
mysteries in front of you. Just try it, even if it’s one decade a day, over the
phone, in a short car ride, anywhere you can say it. You can’t beat the Rosary
for a family prayer. It’s not really a prayer for beginners, but one has to
begin to start getting good at it.
10. It
is a grace that Jesus has put
the desire to pray in your heart – do not take that for granted! Prayer is a response. God contacted you
first. He found you first. Trust me. If he didn’t, you would not like to think
where you would be. Prayer is a response to what he has done first. It is a
grace that you have the thought about praying. Respond well.
