1) Prayer is essential for Christian family life. Fidelity is one of the original blessings of married life.  To be truly faithful in marriage, spouses must pray, not only individually, but together.  Married couples should come together before God every day as prayer partners, thanking God and offering intercessory prayers for each other, for their children, and for their dear ones.  Daily prayer will help married couples to celebrate and reverence God’s vision of human sexuality and to honor life from conception to natural death.  Here is St. John Marie Vianney’s advice to a couple who asked him how to pray: “Spend three minutes praising and thanking God for all you have. Spend three minutes asking God’s pardon for your sins and presenting your needs before Him. Spend three minutes reading the Bible and listening to God in silence. And do this every day.” ST.John Chriystom asks, “When” can we pray?” and answers, “It is possible to offer fervent prayer even while walking in public…or seated in your shop…while buying and selling…or even while cooking. [CCC #2743.] The important thing is, DO IT! BELIEVE the words in today’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps. 138:1-3,6-8).

2) We need to accept others as children of God and thereby brothers and sisters: Through the Our Father, Jesus is giving us a new vision of human relationships: that we all, irrespective of our color, creed, or social background, are the children of God and thereby brothers and sisters. When we learn this lesson – if we can, and will, learn this lesson, if we are able to treat God as our father and love Him accordingly, and if we are able to treat every other human being as our own dear brothers and sisters and love them accordingly — then, and then only, shall we experience the Kingdom of God here on earth and enjoy this in the next life. When we love each other and forgive each other’s failings, God also will love us and forgive us. This is the foundation of true faith. (Joe Vempeny).

3) We need to avoid giving lame reasons why we don’t pray. Modern Christians give four lame excuses for not praying.   a) The first excuse: We are too busy. The richer a culture is, the less time it has for prayer, because money and wealth provide distractions. Researchers say that the average Christian living in a wealthy country prays four minutes a day. Often the first thing given up by a busy Christian is his prayer life. b) A second excuse: We don’t believe prayer does that much good, other than giving us psychological motivation to be better persons.  But besides giving us psychological motivation, prayer establishes and augments our relationship with God, the source of our power. c) A third excuse: We think a loving God should provide for us and protect us from the disasters of life, such as disease or accidents, without our asking Him.  Prayer expresses our awareness of our need for God and our dependence on Him. d) A fourth excuse: We think prayer is boring.  People who use this excuse forget the fact that prayer is a conversation with God: listening to God speaking to us through the Bible, and talking to God.  You can’t have a close relationship with anyone, including God, without persistent and intimate conversation. Four minutes a day is not much intimate conversation! Since our society concludes that prayer doesn’t work, it turns to sex, violence, and unhealthy addictions resulting in broken marriages, broken families, psychological problems, moral decadence, spiritual poverty, law-and-order problems, and increased prison populations.