Pray for Marriages (Storehouse of Love)

Greetings Prayer Angels,

I hope the recent holiday weekend was one of renewal, love, and thanksgiving.

As I was reading the gospel of Matthew this week, I was struck my the following:

From the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks. A good person brings forth good out of a store of goodness, but an evil person brings forth evil out of a store of evil. Matthew 12:34-35

What are we doing to make sure we are creating a storehouse of goodness within ourselves? What would your spouse, or family and friends say your storehouse is filled with? Does stress affect which silo your words come from?

I tell you, on the day of judgment people will render an account for every careless word they speak. Matthew 12:36

Advent is a perfect time to fill your heart with goodness. Spend more time in prayer. Make an advent commitment to only speak out of a heart filled with love. Pray for marriages and start practicing your love-speak with your spouse. Then pass it on.

Peace, Love, and Joy,
Janet

Pray for Families (Holiness)

Greetings Prayer Warriors,

Happy Black Friday. Many of you have probably quickly immersed yourselves into the Christmas Season and arose early to get the best deals. The rest of you are feeling behind already. There is still shopping, shipping, cooking, cleaning, Christmas cards, decorating….and so on.

Today I am asking you to refocus on the reason for the season. Sunday marks the beginning of Advent, a time to prepare your hearts for the coming of the Lord. Reflect on the fact that Christ chose to be born into a family. He chose to be born poor, being delivered among the stable animals in the dead of winter. He chose a blue-collar father who did manual labor. He chose to work along side his dad doing carpentry and his mom doing menial chores. His family moved constantly, and thus never had the stability of a long time home. However, there was abundant love. This is He who would be the Messiah, the King.

But you, beloved, build yourselves up in your most holy faith; pray in the holy Spirit. Jude 1:20

For I, the LORD, am your God; and you shall make and keep yourselves holy, because I am holy. Lev 11:44

So as you busy yourself to make your holidays merry and bright, also make them holy. Chose advent activities for the family that focus on the reason for the season. If you were able to get up early to do Black Friday shopping, arise early to make a weekday Mass, or to carve out some additional time for prayer. Make prayer a family activity and of course, pray for families!

Don’t deprive yourselves. Feel the anticipation of the coming of the Lord!

Peace, Joy, and Love,
Janet

Pray for Marriages (Give Thanks)

Good Morning Prayer Angels,

Every year as holidays approach, we busy ourselves in “preparation mode”. Take time this week to also prepare your heart and mind. Develop an attitude of gratitude. Slow down and reflect on all the blessings in your life. Start today by reflecting on just one blessing--marriage ☺. Whether married or single, we have been positively impacted by someone’s marriage. Perhaps it was our parents’ or grandparents’. Maybe it was the marriage of good friends. Stop and consider which couples have been a light for your path, your comfort in times of distress, the lifeboat in your loneliness, or the anchor in your life. Take a moment this week to tell them what their relationship has meant for you. Then ask them to join you in praying for marriages on Monday.

If you are married, also spend some time today reflecting on all that is good and special about your spouse. See Christ in them. Then lovingly acknowledge all the wonderful traits they have that you often overlook, and all the things they do that you take for granted. Experience the value of a sincerely spoken “thank you”. Then spend time in prayer, praising God for the sacrament of marriage.

God created man in his image…. God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good. Gen 1:27, 31

Peace, Joy, and Love,
Janet

May your Thanksgiving be richly blessed. Be generous with your thanks and invite a friend to pray with us.

Pray for Families (Prayer)

Good Morning Prayer Angels,

We often forget that one of the most powerful weapons we have for healing is prayer. Say this prayer, and then later today, invite your own family to pray this with you.

A Prayer for Families

O dear Jesus,
I humbly implore You to grant Your special graces to our family.
May our home be the shrine of peace, purity, love, labor and faith.
I beg You, dear Jesus, to protect and bless all of us, absent and present, living
and dead.

O Mary,
loving Mother of Jesus,
and our Mother,
pray to Jesus for our family,
for all the families of the world,
to guard the cradle of the newborn,
the schools of the young and their vocations.

Blessed Saint Joseph,
holy guardian of Jesus and Mary,
assist us by your prayers
in all the necessities of life.
Ask of Jesus that special grace
which He granted to you,
to watch over our home
at the pillow of the sick and the dying,
so that with Mary and with you,
heaven may find our family unbroken
in the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Amen.

As you come together with family and friends over the next week, prepare yourself in prayer so that you may be Christ’s light to all.

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Eph 4:3

Peace, Joy, and Love,
Janet

Pray for Marriages (Decision to Love)

Greetings Prayer Angels,

Love. Pure, sweet, amazing. It is what everyone desires whether they are in or out of a relationship. It is the elixir to everything that ails. Fabulous to receive, much harder to continually give. That is because love is an action. Love is a conscious decision. We must love even when we don’t feel like it. Interestingly though, if we continue to act lovingly, the feelings will eventually follow.

Not feeling it? Begin by improving your relationship with Christ. Give Him your will. Focus on imitating Him. Make His dispositions yours. Then it will no longer be you who love, but Christ who loves in you.

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Gal 2:20

Pray for renewed love in marriages and all relationships. Then spend some extra time in prayer for marriages that are in the most need.

Peace, Joy, and Love,
Janet

Pray for Families (Pray together)

Good Morning Prayer Angels,

Take a moment and observe today’s family. Whether it be in your own home or out in a public place, it rarely looks like the tight-knit family of old. Today, each member is being diverted somehow. One is talking on a cellphone, the other playing with an electronic toy, the other happily texting away, and yet another is surfing the net. We have so assimilated all these electronics into our lives that we fail to see the destructiveness of overuse. Is it a wonder we have trouble communicating and finding common ground within our family? If you spent 20% of the time you spend with all your electronics in prayer with the Lord, would you scream that is too much?! Would 10% still be too much time? Yet what impact would increased prayer have on your family?

Persevere in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving; at the same time, pray for us, too, that God may open a door to us for the word, to speak of the mystery of Christ. Colossians 4: 2-3

Make a commitment to lessen your technology time to make more time for communication within the family. Use some of that extra time to pray as a family. Then pray for all families, that they may be renewed in Christ.

Peace, Joy, and Love,
Janet

Pray for Marriages (Balance)

Greetings Prayer Warriors,

As often as I don’t like having opposite viewpoints with my husband and what sometimes feels like a tug of war, I have learned that it’s not about winning, but coming to the right decision. The ensuing dialogue always takes us to a better endpoint than if either of us made decisions alone. And the endpoint isn’t always somewhere in the middle. Often one has greater knowledge or experience in a particular area.

Your surplus at the present time should supply their needs, so that their surplus may also supply your needs, that there may be equality. 2 Cor 8:14

The real gift of marriage is the balance/counterbalance that is created by 2 decision-makers. However, this ideal isn’t always easy to come by and doesn’t always feel like a gift. So let us pray for improved communications in marriage: the ability to share viewpoints, with love and active listening. And as appropriate, pray together to make the right decisions in life - then you’ll never end up with a tie.

Peace, Joy, and Love,
Janet

Pray for Families (Find Love in the Stillness)

Greetings Prayer Angels,

Everyone craves a positive family dynamic, like the ones seen in the family sitcoms of old. Instead most families mirror the family sitcoms of today, filled with chaos and dysfunction. However, it’s only amusing when we’re watching a fictional TV family. We ourselves long for togetherness and unity but we find ourselves immersed in busyness. Chronic busyness leads to impatience, which leads to short-temperedness, which just about kills familial communication. And once family members stop talking to each other, it just leads back to busyness.

When you feel yourself consumed by busyness, stop and carve out 10 minutes of time for yourself. Feel God’s love for you. God doesn’t just love us, He is love. Allow Him to be present in your life. Feel His peace in your stillness. Bring that newly found peace and love back into the family and see what changes.

We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. 1John 4:16

Pray to be the family that Love built.

Peace, Joy, and Love,
Janet

Pray for Marriages with the Saints

Greetings Prayer Angels,

Happy All Saints Day!

I am jubilant that today is a Monday, because I just know that we have the entire heavens praying for Marriages!

I did a little research and learned that there are patron saints that represent all types of situations one might be faced with in marriage, such as abuse, adultery, unfaithfulness, difficulties, and divorce. Here are the patron saints that I found, but I am sure that there are many more.

St. Monica, St Anne Marie Taiga, St. John Francis Regis, St. Gengulphus, St.Catherine of Genoa, St. Elizabeth of Portugal, St. Fabiola, St. Marguerite d'Youville, St. Guntramnus, St. Helena, St. Castora Gabrielli, St. Dorothy of Montau, St. Edward the Confessor, St. Elizabeth of Portugal, St. Godelieve, St. Gummarus, St. Hedwig of Andechs, St. Helena, St. Louis IX, St. Margaret the Barefooted, St. Marguerite d’Youville, St. Monica, St. Nicholas of Flue, Olaf II, St. Pharaildis, St.Philip Howard, St. Radegunde, St. Rita of Cascia, St. Theodore of Sykeon, St. Thomas More, St. Wilgefortis, and St. Zedislava Berka.

Today, using the above saints, I will be praying a Litany of the Saints for marriages. Please join me. Let’s ask them to join their prayers with ours. Here’s my Litany:

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.

Praise the LORD, who is so good; God's love endures forever;
Praise the God of gods; God's love endures forever;
Praise the Lord of lords; God's love endures forever;
Who alone has done great wonders, God's love endures forever; (Ps 136:1-4)

Holy Mary Pray for us
Mother of God Pray for us
Queen of all Saints Pray for us
St. Joseph Pray for us
(Then, using the above saints)
St._______ Pray for us
St._______ Pray for us

May all marriages be richly blessed!
Peace, Love, and Joy,
Janet