Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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Leocea
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Posted: Oct 24 2009 at 12:37pm | IP Logged Quote Leocea

I really want to start praying with my husband. We converted together in 2006, but do not pray together outside of grace and Mass.
For someone of so many words , I am finding it hard to approach him about this. I don't want to sound silly or weird, I guess.
I also feel that with so much going on, his mother on hospice, my grandmother ill, general life with a family of 7, etc., we could use the blessings prayer together would bring.

What would you suggest? I say a decade of the rosary daily, but am looking more for prayers to God or Jesus. My dh is not as comfortable with the rosary as I am, and I know when he prays, he prays to God or Jesus. Just not outloud, or with me.

Thank you!

Your sister in Christ,

Leocea

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JodieLyn
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Posted: Oct 24 2009 at 12:44pm | IP Logged Quote JodieLyn

Well one way to approach someone with something like this.. is to simply ask them.. not tell them.

"I've been reading about how beneficial it is to pray together. Would you pray with me?" type of thing.

You can always start small and short with something you're both comfortable with like an Our Father, you dont' have to start elaborate.

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LLMom
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Posted: Oct 24 2009 at 1:35pm | IP Logged Quote LLMom

You might suggest a novena or some other recited prayer first. SOme people tend to be uncomfortable praying "from the heart" together. I recently wrote a letter to my husband and mentioned praying again together because we had slipped away from it. He was very positive about it and then took the initiative to begin again.


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ekbell
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Posted: Oct 24 2009 at 3:01pm | IP Logged Quote ekbell

As for the how-to, Advent is a good time to start as there are plenty of prayer books and meditations available with a bit of hunting.

Our advent meditations have been something that I've been able to get my husband involved with (Light candles on the wreath, person leading chooses a prayer, read from scripture (Jesse tree), close with leader's choice of advent song)

An possible idea for continuing prayer together might be something based on the format of the Liturgy of the Hours as they are well suited for praying in company.

The Magnificat magazine offers good short morning, evening and night prayers focused on the mass readings and feasts of the liturgical year and loosely based on the format of the Liturgy of the Hours. As someone who was having trouble restarting praying the Liturgy of the Hours, I've found the Magnificat prayers doable and very enriching.

This site Daily Prayer edited by Fr Victor Hoagland has an even simpler weekly cycle of short morning and evening prayers. (The whole website is well worth looking over, particularly the children's prayer section.)

The Booklet Daily PrayersISBN 0882714475 also contains these weekly prayers if you would prefer book format.
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missionfamily
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Posted: Oct 24 2009 at 4:58pm | IP Logged Quote missionfamily

My husband and I have been blessed to have an active prayer life together since the early days of our courtship. Because of this we are now most often able to pray together spontaneously, alternating conversation, prayer, Scripture reading, and even praise songs.
But in even now we go through times when this type pf prayer is awkward or uncomfortable--in times when we are out of sync about a big issue or one of us is quite anxious. Since Bryce's death, I have had a difficult time praying spontaneously this way. I need a "crutch" to lean on. For us, this is the time we turn to the psalms. Reading them aloud, alternating verses between us, reciting the Glory Be together at the end--we read two or three at a time. Then we each go back and share the one verse that stood out to us and share why. THat usually gives us enough a glimpse into each other's hearts that conversation can flow from there. We end by praying for the intentions of one another's hearts. When we are able, we actually pray aloud spontaneously for one another. But if we are not comfortable on any given day, we simply offer the other person's intentions to the Lord, each reciting an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be for the other.
Hope this helps.

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SuzanneG
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Posted: April 10 2010 at 4:15pm | IP Logged Quote SuzanneG

I've had a couple conversations IRL about couples praying together, and I remembered this thread and thought I'd post a few of the on-line articles that have a variety of reasons, ways, methods, and resources:

::Catholic Herald Article
::Catholic.net Article
::Catholic Digest
::For Your Marriage
::Praying as a Couple
::Catholic Spritual Direction-Praying with your Spouse. And there are a couple other noteworthy "Marriage Posts" under the category Marriage Spirituality from this same blog.

A friend of mine recently brought this up to her husband by printing out one of the articles and giving it to him, which led to further conversation about it. I think it was this one: Catholic Marriage Resource Centre

And, I ran across this a couple months ago and wondered if anyone had ever heard about it or had this offered in their parish: Together with Jesus Couple Prayer Series. There is some more background information about it here.

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