Living the faith with sunday work

  • Thread starter Thread starter alice24
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
TheLittleLady said:
There are people who have to work Sundays, Saturdays. This excuses them from Mass. Maybe you could set aside Sunday evening and go over the readings of the day, pray some of the LOTH.
Click to expand...
I already keep the readings aside to study them with time on the weekend. But this is something hardly to share with my husband when I try to avoid “look, please read this. Have you? What do you think?”. I think the issue is that we lack people instead of me who can show him what it means to believe and what our faith is about…
 
Thank you very much for this resource.
I thought about the whole theme again. I realized that part of the problem is myself- I still feel a bit uncomfortable with praying openly, for example. Taking part would be easier for my husband if I would do the daily prayers not in my room where I have the icons but maybe more in the center of our shared room so he is part of it.
Next Saturday he has a day off and will go with me to church as our bishop is there. I hope he will take something with him from this visit.
 
He does the settlement for a museum and is also present as safety guard there.
 
If he goes to work from 12 noon until 5pm what is the likelihood of him accompanying you to mass once in a while?
 
Well, as explained, it’s a rare case. We can’t be back home early enough for him to work after church.
 
We have no car, but it wouldn’t make a difference. The liturgy is not finished until he starts working on Sunday or he is too late for the orthros the day before.
 
The issue with praying together bugs me. Feels this hard for other people, too? How to start?
 
It is amazing how many married people do not pray together (above a “Blessusolordandthesethygifts” muttered before sit-down meals at home). Prayer is far more intimate than the marital act, we are afraid to be that vulnerable with our spouse. That is a reason I suggest starting with some formal prayer together, for us it was Night Prayers.
 
It is a bit strange for me as I am a convert myself, grew up in a home where praying together wasn´t common, and in a society that sees prayer as something…embarassing (maybe the word is a bit strong) but definately as a bit weird in public. I had a professor at university who used to cross herself and prayed before very meal when we went out after public talks and she has the “awkward catholic” button in the people´s chatter. I know all this is irrelevant, but it shaped my emotions on what is comfortable and what is not.
However, my husband always liked her public praying (“she is one of the most badass, skilled women I´ve met with her holy mary watch” he said once) and maybe I should give it a try.
In two weeks the fast for our holy mother starts, and my husband asked me to do this together (“no matter if I ever follow, I´ll think it´s good to try and have this routine”) and this could be a good start to establish a short, rather formal prayer we say together, maybe in the evening or before the meals to start.
May I ask, have you done this praying together since you got married? Did you knew it from your parents?
 
alice24 said:
May I ask, have you done this praying together since you got married? Did you knew it from your parents?
Click to expand...
My parents, my grandparents, family prayer and prayer between married couples was normal. None are Catholics. In the US Evangelical protestants tend to be unashamed about prayer.

I am a convert after marriage.

When we married, he was an unbaptized agnostic. I was in my “searching” phase, so, we did not pray. He Converted more than a decade after we married.

It was not until we hit a rough patch after more than a decade of marriage and went to some counseling with our priest when we were challenged to begin praying together.
 
Thank you very much for this insight. It´s uplifting to hear that it wasn´t an established prayer routine when you got married - please don´t feel offended because of this statement, it´s more that I perceive you on CAF often as that steady in prayer and faithfull that I thought it was trained since forever…it´s good to hear that it´s not over when someone didn´t experienced this in it´s fullest forever.
We discussed this thread and I said maybe it´s a wrong position when he thinks prayer is only for believers, and that praying is not “I get what I invest”. I showed him the prayer book you linked here and he is interested in starting a daily prayer time together. I just asked him to stay open to find maybe faith through prayer even if he can´t believe fully know. And I trust the Lord that this is possible, as I myself experienced when I started the Jesus prayer.
 
Last edited:
Have you explained the difficulties of your particular situation to the priest of your parish? He could give you a dispensation from the Sunday obligation and he might give better advice than the people here on a forum could give.
 
How often should I write again that obligations are really not my problem? Please read the op 🙂
 
Yeh…

I think that “obligation” are not the problem of the majority of Catholics too! (not on this forum, with faithfull catholics, of course!)
 
Last edited:
A little update: Husband came with me to our patron saint´s feast in church. I was so sorry we picked a day with 96,8° and a church that full with tourists that you could hardly bow because of the full room, and my mood was not the best. But he still was impressed. I silently hoped he would like my old catechesis teacher and so it was. My priest came to him after the celebration and said him he was glad that he came with me and the bishop blessed us before we leaved. I decided to take a day off so that he can go with me on his free tursday as we have an extraordinary liturgy in two weeks. After that it will be difficult, but so he has another chance to look into it before.
I´m still not comfortable with the praying together thing, but ironically my husband reminded me before meal last time to pray with him at least a short prayer and so we did. A friend of mine gave me a little travelling prayer book as a gift and we use it before the meals now, I hope it wll feel less…weird in some weeks (feeling a bit bad to have this feelings :roll_eyes:)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top