- Feb 5, 2002
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Talking to God out loud, we became real people again.
Nearly three decades ago this week, Father Arthur Swain told my new wife and me, as we knelt before the altar at St. Irenaeus Church in Cypress, California, to pray together every day.
Nearly three decades later, I feel like I’m finally doing what he asked. And discovering that marital prayer — just the two of us, talking out loud to God — is what my marriage needed, badly.
First: Daily prayer is urgently important.
At my wedding, Father Swain spoke with a strange urgency to my wife and me.
He told us in his homily that he had something to tell us and that the rest of the congregation could listen in if they wanted to. He said the marriage bond was stronger than we knew. The State of California could not break it. The District of Columbia, where we were moving, could not break it.
He said that’s because the bond is Jesus Christ himself.
“There is only one thing I am going to ask of you,” he said, “and that’s to pray together every night. You won’t have much furniture at first, but you’ll have a kitchen table. Kneel at that table each night and pray.”
He was wrong. We didn’t even have a kitchen table. But from the start, we prayed together each night, by a packing box with a sheet over it.
Second: Praying with your family is important, also. But different.
“Pray every night, and when children come along, draw them into that prayer,” he said.
We did as we were told. But over the years, something changed.
Continued below.
Marital prayer changed everything
Nearly three decades ago this week, Father Arthur Swain told my new wife and me, as we knelt before the altar at St. Irenaeus Church in Cypress, California, to pray together every day.
Nearly three decades later, I feel like I’m finally doing what he asked. And discovering that marital prayer — just the two of us, talking out loud to God — is what my marriage needed, badly.
First: Daily prayer is urgently important.
At my wedding, Father Swain spoke with a strange urgency to my wife and me.
He told us in his homily that he had something to tell us and that the rest of the congregation could listen in if they wanted to. He said the marriage bond was stronger than we knew. The State of California could not break it. The District of Columbia, where we were moving, could not break it.
He said that’s because the bond is Jesus Christ himself.
“There is only one thing I am going to ask of you,” he said, “and that’s to pray together every night. You won’t have much furniture at first, but you’ll have a kitchen table. Kneel at that table each night and pray.”
He was wrong. We didn’t even have a kitchen table. But from the start, we prayed together each night, by a packing box with a sheet over it.
Second: Praying with your family is important, also. But different.
“Pray every night, and when children come along, draw them into that prayer,” he said.
We did as we were told. But over the years, something changed.
Continued below.
Marital prayer changed everything
