Mother of all Brides, pray for us

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MURILLO, Bartolomé Esteban
The Holy Family
c. 1660



I started a novena yesterday for my sweet younger cousin who is being married next week. It's a beautiful prayer and I wanted to share it today as my Mary post. As wife of Joseph, Mary is certainly our advocate in marriage. We should turn to her in times of good and bad, in sickness and in health, and she will come to our aid.

Wedding Novena

Lord Jesus, to teach us to love one another, You became one of us, taking as a tabernacle the body of Mary. You said: "Be one in each other, even as I and the Father are one." You have desired that {couple's names} should live in You as with a single life, like two branches of a single vine, which Your providence has entwined. Let their love pass through You, that it may realize a perfect union, not only of their hearts but also of their souls, and that, growing from day to day, it may likewise increase their life in You. Help them to bring to their home enough beauty, health, thrift, strength, purity, and ideals, to make it a model of the new world they wish to build with You, and to give You priests, perhaps, but certainly apostles. With all this, let them never forget that it is through us that Your kingdom must be established--in factories, offices, shops, in all the places we frequent, in our streets and houses . . . on earth as in heaven. Have pity on all those youths and maidens whose hearts are wounded and whose dreams are broken. Guard the promises which have been made according to Your Spirit. And may Your blessing soon give them to each other forever. Amen.

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