Something Borrowed, Something NEW

We went on a marriage retreat this weekend.

No TV.
No technology.
No kids.

Nothing to distract from us focusing solely on growing closer through our marriage and nothing but 3 days of good, ol’ fashioned sacramental study complete with re-learning communication, breaking down long-standing barriers, and lots and lots of prayer. Prayer with Andrew.

Have you ever prayed with your spouse? Sure ya have – just like us, right? We pray with the kids before they go to bed, pray before meals, and nearly unconsciously mutter a Hail Mary or two before hitting the light and drifting off to sleep. Maybe, like us, you get in a Rosary or a Chaplet sometimes (or regularly!). We used to habitually say Night Prayer and when we drove to work together, we would spontaneously pray, just talking out loud to God in anticipation for our days ahead. It’s all prayer and it’s all good (especially when actually awake), but we experienced a different approach this weekend.

The movement behind the retreat encourages daily couple prayer, among other foundational practices like daily individual prayer/Scripture study and daily prayer with your family. While you could choose any of the above methods of prayer for you and your spouse, the approach the retreat leaders introduced to us involved praying as an individual, spontaneously, out loud, with your spouse present. NOTE: Not as innocuous as it seems. It requires soul-baring honesty with yourself, God, and your spouse since you’re allowing each other to sit-in on your most intimate prayers and have insight into the stirrings in your heart. While the prayer is unrehearsed and soul-deep in sincerity, we followed a suggested format, taking turns, to make sure we got all the bases covered:

• Thanksgiving – thanking God for both general and specific blessings
• Petition – bringing your requests to God
• Sacrifices – asking God to reveal to you what it is that He wants you to sacrifice; e.g. excessive computer use, bitterness or anger toward a family member, immoderate spending, etc. If you are prompted with some sort of answer, share it with your spouse and ask him/her to help you sacrifice.
• Forgiveness – consider your behavior toward your spouse since the last time you prayed together. Is there anything for which you need to ask forgiveness? Offenses can be large or small – something as seemingly insignificant as a sarcastic tone or even something you did unbeknownst to your spouse (e.g. deliberately neglecting to tend to their needs out of resentment). Ask forgiveness for these things and when your spouse apolgizes to you, be sure to say, “I forgive you,” to charitably bring closure to it.
• Thanksgiving – thanking God for his graces in your marriage and for the gifts each spouse is to the other; also, asking his furthered blessings upon you as a couple. Conclude your prayer with one of your favorite traditional prayers like the Our Father, St. Michael Prayer, Prayer of St. Francis, Hail Mary, etc.

photo by Search Influence

I can’t articulate or emphasize enough how praying in this manner for just three days helped Andrew and me. I confess that I was pretty hesitant to dive in because, though Andrew is my husband, I was having difficulty talking to God on my own, so you can forget about having an audience. But we did it – taking turns we spoke to God, going along each point and giving each other an encouraging hand-squeeze when it started to get tough. It takes humility to bare your soul like that and to even be perfectly honest with yourself about your shortcomings or what you’ve done against your spouse; but through humility comes forgiveness, grace, and joy that you experience with the help of your spouse. It will take practice for us to speak freely and comfortably, but after just a few days, we’re progressing and realizing the dignity and presence of Christ in each other.