In honor of the upcoming St. Valentine’s Day in the United States, take sometime to pray and commit your romantic life to prayer, no matter where you are in life!
Prayer for Singles
O Jesus, lover of the young, the dearest Friend I have, in all confidence I open my heart to You to beg Your light and assistance in the important task of planning my future. Give me the light of Your grace, that I may decide wisely concerning the person who is to be my partner through life. Dearest Jesus, send me such a one whom in Your divine wisdom You judge best suited to be united with me in marriage. May her/his character reflect some of the traits of Your own Sacred Heart. May s/he be upright, loyal, pure, sincere and noble, so that with united efforts and with pure and unselfish love we both may strive to perfect ourselves in soul and body, as well as the children it may please You to entrust to our care. Bless our friendship before marriage, that sin may have no part in it. May our mutual love bind us so closely, that our future home may ever be most like Your own at Nazareth. O Mary Immaculate, sweet Mother of the young, to your special care I entrust the decision I am to make as to my future wife/husband. You are my guiding Star! Direct me to the person with whom I can best cooperate in doing God’s Holy Will, with whom I can live in peace, love and harmony in this life, and attain to eternal joys in the next. Amen.
Prayer for Married Couples
O God, who in creating the human race
willed that man and wife should be one,
keep, we pray, in a bond of inseparable love
those who are united in the covenant of Marriage,
so that, as you make their love fruitful,
they may become, by your grace, witnesses to charity itself.
Through Christ our Lord
Amen.
Prayer for Engaged Couples
Lord, as we prepare for the sacrament of marriage, we come to ask what you desire from us.
Guide us to know your will. May we look to your love for us as our model of how we are to love each other.
Show us how to nourish and cherish each other as we would our own bodies.
Bring your strength to our weakness so that we might help each other grow into people you created us to be.
Enable us to grow in our intimacy with you and with each other so that we might experience the fullness of your love.
Thank you for the gift of marriage so that we can more fully understand your love for us.
Amen.
Prayer of Widows and Widowers
Lord Jesus Christ, during Your earthly life You showed compassion to those who had lost a loved one. Turn Your compassionate eyes on me in my sorrow over the loss of my life’s partner. Fill this emptiness until we are together again in Your heavenly kingdom as a reward for our earthly service. Help me to cope with my loss by relying on You even more than before. Teach me to adapt to the new conditions of my life and to continue doing Your will. Enable me to avoid withdrawing from life and make me give myself to others more readily, so that I may continue to live in Your grace and to do the task that You have laid out for me. Amen.