'Blessings and Prayers for Married Couples: A Faith Full Love' by Isabel Anders

SALT LAKE CITY — Isabel Anders, in her book, "Blessings and Prayers for Married People: A Faith Full Love," takes the Sacrament of Marriage to a more profound level, teaching married couples to pray together. Quoting St. Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians, "Pray without ceasing," Anders creates "an attitude toward God that extends deep into the soul and to a receptive spirit that rises to spoken prayer when appropriate," she writes in her introduction.

"Being able to pray together implies being somewhat, at least, on the same page," her introduction continues. By "putting the flesh on the "bones" of spiritual practice, - emerges naturally, spontaneously, out of the quality of the relationship that undergirds it."

When a couple says to one another, "I take you to be my spouse," then a series of prayers and blessings occur that strengthen a marriage, Anders writes. "Often mention of the Holy Spirit brings a couple even closer together."

After each chapter of the book, Anders offers a helpful series of questions for further discussion. This book is best read by a couple at the same time, or to each other. From the simple "For better or for worth," the book contains traditional Irish prayers, Psalms, "The Song of Songs," the writings of Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Arch Fulton J. Sheen, "The Song of Songs," and the author’s own prayers. Anders admits that she is one to whom marriage is a mystery.

Some of the prayers written by the author are really searching questions. She describes marriage: "Just as governments and institutions have rites and ceremonies that allow members to affirm their connections and their mutual purposes, so prayers designed for married couples can offer a way of reminding and recommitment as they are worked into the fabric of daily work together."

In the house blessing the author has titled "To Have and To Hold," readers will find a bit of something for everyone. There is "Prayer After Confession," "Prayer After Communion," and "Ode to a Capable Wife," and prayers for husbands and those in sickness and health.

The value and the meaning of a good marriage is a sacred relationship, Anders writes. "Couples are to say, "Grow old along with me; The best is yet to be, and the last of life, for which the first is made."

"Our times are in his hands," writes Anders, quoting Robert Browning, and "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbals. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing…" (1 Cor:13)

The words are familiar, but read within the context of marriage they are twice as meaningful.

"Blessings and Prayers for Married Couples: A Faith Full of Love," by Isabel Anders, Liguori Publications, 144 hard cover, $15.99.