PRAYING FOR HIS CONVERSION
QUESTION? / COMMENT!
I've been with my children's father since I was 14 years old (I'm 33 now) on and off but for 10 years we have been living with each other and we have 3 boys. I'm new to going to church and praying. I was Baptize as a baby but I don't have any other sacraments. We also just recently decided to live as friends and practice chastity so I am able to confess but I won't be able to receive communion. The associate pastor from my parish has been a big help on letting me know what I have to do as far as my spiritual journey. We're hoping to get married in church but my boyfriend has stated he is only doing it for me. How do I pray for his conversion?
ANSWER! / COMMENT!
Here is a wife's prescription for an unconverted husband. Our Lord Jesus Christ told St Faustina 1) “If you say this prayer (the Divine Mercy), with a contrite heart and with faith, on behalf of some sinner I will give that soul the grace of conversion” - https://www.divinemercy.org/elements-of-divine-mercy/3-o-clock-prayer/10.... Say it everyday for your wife preferably at 3pm.
Next, pray the rosary everyday for your husband so that your prayers can ‘merit for him the grace of conversion.’ Our Lady says in promise no.11 (of the Fifteen Promises of the Rosary). "You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the rosary."
If you live in a state of grace you are personally protected from the diabolical, your tears, pain and suffering for your husband are meant to purify you and make you a saint. Your prayers become more efficacious as you become holier (cf. James 5:16) and your role is to pray, do penance and suffer for the conversion of your husband (cf. 1 Cor 7:14). How about adding a weekly holy hour in front of the blessed Sacrament to merit the grace of conversion for your husband.
Say this prayer at your bedside on your knees, that is your altar where “the two have become one.”
1] In the name of Jesus Christ and by the power given to me by God the Father Almighty through natural law & the sacrament of marriage. I beg you Lord to bind any demon afflicting my husband, any demon present to him known to my angel & his angel, St Michael or the Blessed Virgin Mary. Dear Lord, bind any demon manipulating images in his memory or imagination. Dear Lord, bind any demon attempting to disorder his appetites. Dear Lord, specifically, bind any demons of rebellion, addiction and disorders of any kind. Dear Lord, bind any demons exploiting any emotional or psychological wounds he may have…I pray that you grant my husband the grace to assent to the truths of the Roman Catholic Faith. I pray that my husband receive the grace to hunger and thirst for the Holy Eucharist. I pray that he desire purity of mind, body and soul. I pray that the light of Christ be upon him so that he sees himself as the Heavenly Father see’s him and that I see him as the Heavenly Father see’s him. By the grace granted to me as the heart of the home by God the Father Almighty through the natural law and divine positive law, I beg you Lord to place the crown of thorns, saturated in the precious blood of Jesus Christ upon the head of any demon who dares to affect my husband, any demon present to him, any lying spirits, any spirits of rebellion or addiction, any demons of any kind who try to afflict him. May the good Lord place the crown of thorns upon your head the entire time you try to afflict him.
May God bless my husband in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit – Amen.
Mother Mary Most Holy, please hold (name) in the mantle of your motherly protection and cover (name) with the veil of your holiness.
Virgin Most Powerful pray for him and protect him.
St Joseph terror of demons pray for him and protect him and cover him with the cloak of your fatherly protection - Amen.
2. Commission of the Care of Soul and Body - may be prayed at any time, but especially before sleeping.
For one other person (singular):
Into thy hands, Mary, I commend the body and soul of N. I ask thee to provide for him (her) and to protect him (her). I ask thee to protect him (her) from the evil one. I ask thee enlighten his (her) mind, strengthen
his (her) will, and refrain his (her) appetites by grace. Our Lady and St. Michael, call down from Heaven the legions of angels under your command to protect him (her); I ask of you all the things I ask of his (her)
guardian angel. Guardian angel of N., under thy intellectual and volitional protection I place his (her) body. I ask thee to illumine his (her) mind and refrain his (her) appetites. I ask thee to strengthen his (her) cogitative power, his (her) memory and his (her) imagination. Help him (her) to remember the things he (she) should and not remember the things he (she) should not. Help him (her) to associate the things he (she) should and not to associate the things he (she) should not. Give him (her) good clear images in his (her) imagination. I ask thee to drive away all the demons that might affect him (her) while he (she) sleeps (or throughout the course of the day). (Help him (her) to sleep and, if thou should deem it prudent, direct his (her) dreams. Help him (her) to arise refreshed). Amen.
3. St. Raphael Prayer for Troubled Marriages
O Glorious St. Raphael, Archangel of healing, intercede for our marriage today. Bring our marriage the same heavenly gifts you brought Tobias and Sarah, the celestial graces of healing, deliverance, and marital unity. Infuse into our hearts the peace and confidence that nothing is impossible with God concerning the renewal of our marriage. Rekindle in our marriage new forgiveness, new humility, new grace, new peace, new purity, new trust, and new love.
O St. Raphael, one of the seven who stand before the throne of God, intercede to the Merciful Father for the miracle of peace and reconciliation in our marriage, through the infinite merits of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, and the consoling power of the Holy Spirit.
O blessed Raphael, guide us on the pathway of marital peace and unity. Most loving Archangel of healing, I believe in you, I trust in you, and I thank you. Amen. St. Raphael Prayer for Troubled Marriages - Catholic For Life
4. Pray for yourself – here is a Wife’s Prayer: O Merciful Lord God, who in the beginning took Eve out of the side of Adam and gave her to him as a helpmate: give me the grace to live worthy of the honorable estate of matrimony to which Thou has called me, that I may love my husband with a pure and chaste love, acknowledging him as my head, and truly reverencing and obeying him in all good things; that thereby I may live with him in all Christian quietness. Keep me from all worldliness and vanity. Help me, O Lord, that I may, under him, prudently and discreetly guide and govern our household. Let no fault of mine aggravate any sins by which he may be especially tempted; enable me to soothe him in perplexity, to cheer him in difficulty, to refresh him in weariness, and to advise him in doubt. Give me understanding so to fulfill my part in the education of our children, that they may partake of joy in this world and of glory in the next. Grant that our perfect union here may be the beginning of the still more perfect and blissful union hereafter in Thy kingdom; and this I pray through Jesus Christ our Lord – Amen.
Here is a great example: Servant of God Elizabeth Leseur (1866-1914) was a good wife with a wealthy husband, she personally renounced wealth and led a holy live. She has been called the Thérèse of Lisieux for married women. She did, in fact, discover her own little way of sanctification through pure and sacrificial love, humility, meekness, redemptive suffering, a vibrant prayer life and, critically, shutting the heck up. In 1889 she married Felix Leseur, a medical doctor from a similarly affluent background, but no longer Catholic (a point she discovered only shortly before their wedding). He not only refused to practice Catholicism, he was outwardly and vehemently hostile toward the faith. Even the atheists were attracted to her grace and holiness), she simultaneously and unassumingly lived a hidden life as a contemplative and mystic. Elisabeth’s death in 1914, from breast cancer that had metastasized, was prolonged and painful, but Felix testified that she bore it with calm and sweetness. She had asked her sister to destroy her spiritual “Diary” after her death, but instead, her sister gave it to Felix, who published it a few years later. He was so moved by the profound faith and love of his wife, that within a year, he returned to Confession and the faith. Several years later, he entered the Order of Preachers. Ordained nine years after her death, Fr. Leseur spent much of his time until his own death in 1950 speaking about her spirituality and promoting her cause for sainthood - https://aleteia.org/2014/10/04/divorce-proof-your-marriage-by-emulating-....
St Catherine of Genoa (married laywoman 1510). She was born to a prominent Genoese family, Catherine was married at fifteen to Guiliano Adorno, he was a man with a gambling problem. For ten years, she sought to distract herself from her troubled marriage through worldly occupations. A great sadness grew in her and she was tempted to despair. One day she went to confess her sins, and as she knelt before the priest, she received a great grace, she writes “a wound in my heart of the immense love of God.” She left at once, and shut herself up at home: “no longer the world, no longer sin,” she professed. From this time on she began to live a life of profound prayer and penance – for many years God was her sole guide. Her attachment to Christ opened her heart to charity, and she began to work at the hospital of Pammatone when she eventually became director. Catherine had a conversion of heart, her husband Guiliano became a Franciscan tertiary. He and Catherine gave themselves to the care of the poor. She shared her mystical insights in the Treatise on Purgatory & Dialogue between the body & soul. During the last fifteen years of her life, Catherine suffered from various serious health problems. She died from an illness that doctors could not explain (Magnificat; March 2022, vol.23, no.13, Saints Who Overcame Temptation, p.134). Get more detail on husbands conversion - https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/saints/catherine-of-genoa-517
This verse answers your question. Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
Let me put flesh to this verse: 'Born in 1381, Rita of Cascia lived in an Italy where vendetta, the endless cycle of revenge, was an everyday problem. She must have seen this firsthand, for she grew up in a family of peacemakers who helped arrange legal resolutions for warring parties. Rita wished to enter religious life, but could not persuade her parents, who betrothed her to a young man named Paolo Mancini. Paolo had a fearsome temper, and Rita suffered much at his hands. Yet with time, her kindness and holiness tempered his roughness, and they had two sons. Then, after almost twenty years of marriage, Paolo was murdered. Rita prayed fervently to be able to forgive the killer. And knowing the further bloodshed that would take place, she enraged her in-laws by refusing to divulge the suspect's name. She strove to cultivate forgiveness in her boy's hearts as well, and was grateful to God when they died from illness without pursuing their intended revenge. She eventually entered an Augustinian convent, where she remained until her death in 1457. Pope John Paul II praised her as a model of forgiveness: "It is to be hoped that the life of everyone will be a life sustained by passionate love for the Lord Jesus; a life capable of responding to suffering and to thorns with forgiveness and the total gift of self, in order to spread everywhere the good odor of Christ.' (Magnificat; St Rita of Cascia; April 2023; Vol. 25, no.1, p.332). We now call her St Rita of Cascia, she died in 1457, God allowed her to experience a terrible marriage and family life in order to make her holy. God allows misfortune to happed to people for salvific purposes (to save your soul).
‘Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross’ (story): "Vanna, Vanna, My LOVE, speak to Me!" The young man had rushed to the side of his wife, who lay broken and insensible under the weight of the grandstands that had collapsed. Knights were dropping their weapons and tearing off their helmets. Some of the ladies watching the tournament were hurt badly, but no one worse than Giovanna. And she had not wanted to attend. Her husband Jacopo, a friendly but wild and irreverent fellow, had persuaded her. He loved her, but fidelity was another matter. Youth comes only once, after all. "Loosen her robe, let her breath!' Jacopo cried, and when they did so, he saw what nearly stopped his heart with shock and guilt. Vanna was wearing a hair shirt. With her final breath, she told him she loved him, she prayed for him, and she had taken suffering upon herself to pray to God to heal him and forgive his sins. A fine novel by Helen White, A Watch in the Night, tells the story. Suffering did for Jacopo what prosperity and popularity never could. If you go to his tomb in Todi, you can read that he became a fool for Christ, that he swindled the world with a new kind of art, and he stole heaven away. Jacopone da Todi became a Franciscan friar, beloved by the common people, but a severe critic of worldly churchmen, including his kinsman and enemy, Pope Boniface VIII. But he was a poet, too, and to him, as scholars believe, we owe the most moving hymn to the sorrows of Mary ever written, the Stabat Mater.
By Anthony Esolen: Magnificat- March 2023, Vol. 24, No 13, page 208.
God is allowing all of this suffering to make you HOLY.
Bishop Donald J. Hying: “Know that the mystery of suffering in our lives is the sacred ladder by which we will ascend to the beauty of the Kingdom of heaven” [https://simplycatholic.com/how-to-enter-fully-into-the-triduum-this-week/].
“Through our suffering we distribute graces to other people in the body of Christ. This is why, when Our Lady appeared to the children of Fatima she said "Pray, pray a great deal, and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to hell, because they have no one to pray and make sacrifices for them" [The Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima: August 19, 1917] Our Lady of Fatima's PLEA FOR SACRIFICE (catholic-saints.net).
Another piece of advice, use blessed salt on his food, put holy water in his coffee or tea and cook his food with blessed oil.