Question about teaching Prayer from Bill & Cynthia.

[Prayer in Marriage]

April 12, 2007  email from Bill and Cynthia Sarles:

Dear Father Rob,

We are working with a couple named Christian and Amanda.  She is Catholic; he has been baptized in another faith, does not see himself as “religious” but is a good person and seems to believe in God.

We had planned to teach them how to pray next meeting and gently brought that up as we were finishing up last night.  Amanda immediately said, “He won’t do that!” and he agreed, saying he just doesn’t want to pray by himself, much less with Amanda. 

Now that he’s told us where he stands, we think it might be unwise to try to show them how to pray together because it might give him a reason to “shut down” on the whole marriage preparation process….but we don’t want to leave prayer out because we think it is really important. 

What would you advise, please?  How should we approach this?

Thank you for your help,

Bill and Cynthia Sarles

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Dear Bill and Cynthia,

This is a very good question.  Years ago I am not sure I would have even gotten this question from a sponsor couple because I think I did not place as much value on prayer....and there was no chapter on Prayer in my book. 

But, the longer I live, the more I come to see the value of prayer....for each of us as individuals...and for couples/families and religious communities.  When I think of the healthiest marriages and healthiest religious communities I know.....prayer (individual and communal) is one of the features that seem to be symptomatic (in a positive sense).  And I think the reason is that "prayer" (especially prayer with others) necessarily involves intimacy.  To put it another way, there is no way to pray without opening one's self to others....and that is exactly why prayer is both "terrifying" and one of the most powerful relationship tools (for deepening intimacy). 

If this makes sense to you......I would share with the couple your own ~ probably difficult ~ journey in learning how to pray (your struggles with the challenges of intimacy that you had/have to deal with) and the benefits you have experienced that motivate you to continue the effort (especially when it is difficult). 

Let me assume that you are not talking about prayer with this couple because you are unwilling to accept them as different, and you are not talking about prayer because you are trying to force them to change......rather you are talking about prayer because ~ from your personal experience ~ it is one of many topics (communication skills, managing finances, dealing with family of origin issues, family planning, etc, etc) that couples need to learn/practice if they are going to be successful in the vocation of Christian marriage. 

After you read this, you are welcome to call me at 210-534-1129 and we could talk more about this.......I think my main point is that I would not simply omit this topic (prayer) any more than I would omit talking about "family of origin" or "finances" or "marital communication."  At the same time, I also admit it may be a very big challenge to engage them in dialogue about a topic about which they appear to be quite defensive.  A possible approach is to invite them to share their thoughts and feelings about prayer...and do lots of listening (accepting what they have to say!)....you might be able to agree to most of their concerns/fears/false concepts about prayer....and share your own struggles in overcoming your false concepts about prayer.  I think that lots (perhaps most) folks have seen and/or experienced really bad examples of "prayer" on TV (both Protestant and Catholic TV) and even in churches (for example, "Let us pray for our troops"....but what about Jesus directive to "Pray for your enemies!").

It might be a good idea to encourage them to move ahead and study the chapter on Prayer and deal with this issue rather than put it off........I know they are not likely to understand this, but when you think about it, can a marriage really be a Christian marriage when the spouses opt to have no relationship with Jesus/God.  (For a person to say: "I have a relationship with God/Jesus, but I am not into prayer" is much like saying "I have a great marriage because I told my wife I love her on our wedding day....but I am not into this intimacy stuff and I don't need to tell my wife I love her...if she is a good wife, she already knows this.")  I am willing to bet they really DO NOT UNDERSTAND this.

The best thing you have going for you is that you are NOT the priest....you are an "ordinary" lay couple whose only motive is to share with them how to be successful in Christian marriage.

There is a reason why so many marriages come apart......and most of the time, it boils down to the fact that the two people have lost the ability to be intimate with one another.  I have never talked with a couple whose marriage is coming apart and listened to them tell me they are praying together each day but it is not doing any good.

Peace and Love,

Fr. Rob

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Dear Father,

Thank you so much for all of your words.  We read over what you wrote several times this week, in preparation for our meeting this afternoon with Christian and Amanda. 

Christian was actually much more open to the whole idea of prayer and then, praying as a couple, after he read both chapters 11 and 14.  He asked many questions about prayer:  how we pray, how we prayed when we first got married, how we made that journey.  We gave him a copy of Pat and June Kennedy’s article that you gave us in Baytown last year.  We invited him to start to make prayer a larger part of his personal life and be open to bringing prayer into their lives as a couple.

We were VERY encouraged by his reaction.  They are both open to the idea, which is way more than half the battle!

Thank you again for your ideas and thank you for taking the time to share them with us.  They really helped us know how to approach them.

With love,

Bill and Cynthia

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