Prayers Please As We Start a New Chapter In Our Lives?

Discussions of the prayer services of the Church. Prayer requests. Please pray for all who post here. All Forum Rules apply. No polemics. No heated discussions. No name-calling.
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Justin Kissel

Prayers Please As We Start a New Chapter In Our Lives?

Post by Justin Kissel »

Mary Cecilia (of this forum) and I got married earlier today by Father John Nosal in Greensburg, we'd appreciate if you could say an extra prayer for us tonight!

Matushka Anna
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Many, many years!

Post by Matushka Anna »

Dear Justin and Mary Cecilia,

May God bless your marriage and deepen your love. May He protect you from all enemies and harm. May all the good things that the Church wishes for you in the wedding service be yours, and may you help each other to grow in virtue. May you have a love and a marriage so strong that it encourages others.

Marriage is an amazing sacrament. It conveys Grace upon what was a friendship before, and turns it into a true union, from which you can draw strength. Christ's first miracle was at the wedding at Cana, where He helped the young couple to offer hospitality to their friends, to celebrate their union and their love. When things get rough, pray to Christ and His Mother, and all difficulties become easier to bear.

It's a strange thing to say, but mindfulness of death can be a real marital asset. Even though you're both young, wacky things happen all the time. If, before you speak to each other, you remember that this might be the last time, it will change the nature of your communication. Always kiss goodbye in the morning, signing each other with the Sign of the Cross before you go face the day. Always start and end the day with a kind word, and the middle will be much more pleasant. Pray for each other, both in formal prayers and in little prayers throughout the day. Never belittle or correct or scold each other in public, always consider that your spouse may just be tired, and your days will be completely devoid of frozen carrots. :D IF you come to an impasse over some issue, where each of you is deeply convinced that the other is wrong, stop talking about it altogether for a while. Pray about it together and go do something else and God will fix it and enlighten you. Pray to each other's Guardian Angels, to help your spouse and to thank the angels for their help.

(Sometimes I find it helpful not to talk, but rather just to pray, "Lord, You know what I want and You know what he wants and only one of us can be right. Usually it's him. But if I'm right, convince him, and if I'm wrong, convince me, and let our love grow rather than diminish over this. All things according to Thy will.") Remember that the thing you're fighting about generally won't be important in five years, but your spouse's soul will. That turns all fights into discussions, and discussions into a way to find out together what's best for the little church that is your family. Don't just BE at peace; actively wage peace in your marriage and it will spread to the rest of your lives and spill over into the lives around you.

I wish you all the good things I can think of and some that I can't articulate.

With love in Christ,
Matushka Ann Lardas

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Seraphim Reeves
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Congratulations!

Post by Seraphim Reeves »

Friend,

I am "newly" married myself, and will certainly keep you in my prayers. I think the advice Matushka offered was excellent, as I can already see how valuable her insights are.

St.Paul speaks of the marriage in a way that parallels Christ's relationship to the Church. On your end, as a man, that means being willing to lay yourself down, to be crucified, for your wife's sake.

That can come in many forms; it can come in the form of not always having to be right (even if you know full well you are!). It can come via patience (even if it comes to feel like "extraordinary" patience sometimes.) In particular, since your wife will not be perfect (but then again, neither will you, I'm sure), bear her faults with manly strength. In short time I've come to see what a wonderful thing marriage is, in regards to making a man out of what was really only a "male" beforehand. If "done well", I'm convinced marriage can save your soul; or it can also be the perfect set up for misery and the ruin of not only yourself, but others as well (wife, future children, etc.) It's make or break, I suppose.

Seraphim

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尼古拉前执事
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Congrats!

Post by 尼古拉前执事 »

Wow, I cannot say more than Matushka Ann or Seraphim have said, but I just wanted to say congratulations. May each of you continue to be a blessing to one another for ever. God bless your marriage.

Denis
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Post by Denis »

Congratulations! Some very good and profound advice was given above that I also find very helpful after 11 years of marriage.
I also remember reading that the 2 crowns held above the head at a wedding symbolize the sanctity of the sacrement as a path to salvation, but also they are representing the Crown of Thorns and are therefore signifying martyrdom: marriage is a bed of roses with quite a few thorns.

Justin Kissel

Post by Justin Kissel »

Thank you for the kind and beneficial words! :D

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Mary Kissel
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Post by Mary Kissel »

I wanted to say thankyou as well for the words of advice that were shared with us on here. I greatly appreciate them :)

In Christ,
MaryCecilia

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