A prayer for my husband
A prayer composed for 1765 Regina
A prayer for my husband
Lord Jesus Christ, You gave him to me and me to him.
Guard my husband today.
Where he is tired, strengthen him; where he is tempted, hold him fast;
where he carries what he has not told me, carry it with him.
Make him a man of prayer, and make me a wife who makes prayer easier in this house.
Forgive me the hard words, and the kind ones I held back.
Keep us faithful to the vows we made before You,
and let us grow old both together.
St Joseph, guardian of the Holy Family, stand beside him.
Amen.
Why a wife prays for her husband
Marriage between two baptized Christians is a sacrament (CCC 1601), and a sacrament gives grace. The Council teaches that Christian spouses, by the sacrament of Matrimony, "help each other to attain to holiness in their married life and in the rearing and education of their children" (Lumen Gentium 11). The Catechism says this grace is given to deepen the love of husband and wife and to strengthen a union that cannot be undone, and that Christ stays with them, so that they can get up again after a fall, pardon each other, and "bear one another's burdens" (CCC 1641–1642).
So praying for your husband is not manufacturing something from nothing. It is drawing on what was given to you both on your wedding day. If your husband is not baptized, your marriage is not a sacrament, but it is not outside God's grace: St Paul writes that "the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife" (1 Corinthians 7:14, Douay), and the Catechism says that a wife's sincere love, patient virtue and faithful prayer can prepare her husband to receive the grace of conversion (CCC 1637). And it runs both ways: St Paul's charge to husbands and wives begins with "Being subject one to another, in the fear of Christ" (Ephesians 5:21, Douay). You pray for him; he is asked to lay down his life for you (Ephesians 5:25).
Sara's prayer on her wedding night
Scripture records a husband and wife praying together on the night they were married. In the Douay-Rheims, which follows the Latin Vulgate, Tobias says to his bride: "Sara, arise, and let us pray to God today, and tomorrow, and the next day" (Tobias 8:4 [cf. Tobit 8:4]). "So they both arose, and prayed earnestly both together" (Tobias 8:6 [cf. Tobit 8:4–5]). In the Douay's idiom he calls his wife my sister.
Prayer
The prayer of Tobias and Sara
And Tobias said: Lord God of our father, may the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the fountains, and the rivers, and all thy creatures that are in them, bless thee.
Thou madest Adam of the slime of the earth, and gavest him Eve for a helper.
And now, Lord, thou knowest, that not for fleshly lust do I take my sister to wife, but only for the love of posterity, in which thy name may be blessed for ever and ever.
Sara also said: Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us, and let us grow old both together in health.
Sara's prayer is one line long. It asks for mercy, for the two of them together, and for a long road. A marriage could live on that line for a lifetime. Pray it on your anniversary, and on the nights when the road looks hard.
Through St Joseph
In 1889 Pope Leo XIII wrote an encyclical on devotion to St Joseph, Quamquam Pluries, in which he said that in Joseph "spouses" find "a perfect example of love, of peace, and of conjugal fidelity." He appended a prayer to be said with the Rosary in October. It is a prayer for the whole Church — which is the point: you are asking the man who kept the Holy Family safe to keep yours.
Prayer
Prayer to St Joseph (Leo XIII)
To thee, O blessed Joseph, do we fly in our tribulation, and having implored the help of thy most holy spouse, we confidently crave thy patronage also.
Through that charity which bound thee to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God, and through the paternal love with which thou didst embrace the Child Jesus, we humbly beseech thee graciously to regard the inheritance which Jesus Christ hath purchased by his Blood, and with thy power and strength to aid us in our necessities.
O most watchful Guardian of the Divine Family, defend the chosen children of Jesus Christ; O most loving Father, ward off from us every contagion of error and corrupting influence; O our most mighty protector, be propitious to us and from Heaven assist us in this our struggle with the power of darkness;
and, as once thou didst rescue the Child Jesus from deadly peril, so now protect God's holy Church from the snares of the enemy and from all adversity:
shield, too, each one of us by thy constant protection, so that, supported by thine example and thine aid, we may be able to live piously, to die holily, and to obtain eternal happiness in Heaven. Amen.
When he is far from God
St Monica was married to Patricius, a pagan whom the Catholic Encyclopedia describes as a man of violent temper. Her son Augustine wrote that she "busied herself to gain him to You, preaching You unto him by her behaviour" (Confessions IX.9.19), and that "her own husband, now towards the end of his earthly existence, did she gain over unto You" (Confessions IX.9.22). He became a Christian shortly before he died.
Her example is patience in prayer, and the Church has long held it up to wives: in 1850 an association of Christian mothers was founded in Paris under her patronage, for "mutual prayer for sons and husbands who had gone astray" (Catholic Encyclopedia, St. Monica). But hear this clearly. In the same chapter of the Confessions, Augustine records Monica's advice to other wives that an angry husband "should not be resisted" (IX.9.19). That describes how one woman bore a hard marriage in the fourth century. It is not the Church's rule, and nothing on this page asks you to endure cruelty in silence. If you are in danger, read the next section.
When it is hard — and when it is unsafe
Every marriage has dry and heavy seasons. Pray through them, go to confession, talk to a priest you trust, and keep the small kindnesses going when the feelings are not there.
Danger is different. The Church does not ask you to stay in harm's way. Church law says that a spouse who causes "grave mental or physical danger" to the other spouse or to the children gives the other "a legitimate cause for leaving", and that where waiting would be dangerous, the endangered spouse may leave on his or her own authority (Code of Canon Law, can. 1153). The Catechism teaches that when a shared life can no longer be lived, the Church allows husband and wife to live apart while the marriage bond remains (CCC 1649), and that canon law recognizes cases in which such a separation is legitimate (CCC 2383). Your safety, and your children's, comes first.
- If you are in immediate danger, call 911.
- National Domestic Violence Hotline: call 1-800-799-SAFE (1-800-799-7233), or text START to 88788. Free and confidential (thehotline.org).
- Then tell a priest, a friend or a family member you trust. You do not have to carry this alone.
Praying with him, not only for him
Familiaris Consortio describes family prayer as "prayer offered in common, husband and wife together, parents and children together" (FC 59). If you have never prayed aloud together, start where Tobias started: an invitation, not a lecture.
- Say grace together at one meal a day, aloud.
- At night, say one sentence each: one thanks, one need. Then the Our Father.
- Pray Sara's line together on your anniversary.
- Never use prayer as a weapon. Pray for him in private, with him when he is willing.
If he wants something of his own, our brother house, 1765 Sanctum, is written for Catholic husbands and fathers.
If your husband has died
Death has parted you; it has not ended your love. The Church has prayed for her dead since her earliest days (CCC 1032). Pray for him by name, every day, in these words:
Prayer
Eternal rest
Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord.
And let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace. Amen.
Questions
Who is the patron saint of husbands?
St Joseph, the husband of Mary, is the saint the Church holds up to husbands: Leo XIII wrote that in Joseph "spouses" find "a perfect example of love, of peace, and of conjugal fidelity", and fathers of families "the best personification of paternal solicitude and vigilance" (Quamquam Pluries, 1889). Wives praying for a husband far from God also go to St Monica.
How do I pray for my husband's conversion?
Pray for him by name every day, live your faith without preaching at him, and ask St Monica to pray with you. Augustine wrote that she won her husband to God "by her behaviour" and that he was converted near the end of his life (Confessions IX.9.19, 22). Her patience is an example, not a rule to endure harm: if he threatens or hurts you, your safety comes first (Code of Canon Law, can. 1153), and the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233.
What if my husband won't pray with me?
Pray for him faithfully and invite him gently and rarely, never as a reproach. A single shared grace at dinner is a real beginning. Your own prayer for him is never wasted.
Does the Church require me to stay with a husband who is abusing me?
No. Church law says that a spouse who causes "grave mental or physical danger" to the other spouse or to the children gives the other "a legitimate cause for leaving" (Code of Canon Law, can. 1153), and the Catechism teaches that the Church allows spouses to live apart when a shared life can no longer be lived, and that such a separation can be legitimate (CCC 1649, 2383). If you are in danger, call 911, or call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (text START to 88788).