Letting Jesus into the relationship helps married couples cope with hardships and difficulties, Msgr. Flanagan says

Husbands and wives who are rooted in a personal, prayerful relationship with Jesus are supernaturally equipped to handle life’s inevitable losses and difficulties.

Monsignor Michael T. Flanagan made this point emphatically through anecdotes and insights gleaned from 52 years of priestly ministry.

“Life is a cycle of death and resurrection. We die, we rise! We’re low, we come back up again,” Msgr. Flanagan, senior associate pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Columbia, stated at a breakout session during the diocesan Fun ’n Faith Family Conference on Sept. 17 in Columbia.

“And if we believe in resurrection, then the Lord will keep raising us up, and we’ll keep walking away from the tomb,” he said.

Msgr. Flanagan and Nancy Hoey, MEd, LCP, owner of Grace Counseling, led a session titled “Staying Faithful During Difficult Times: How to Navigate the Trials and Losses of Life as Catholics and as a Family.”

The priest asserted that it’s hard to have a deep personal relationship with another person without inviting God to be a part of it.

“You must have a personal relationship with Jesus,” he said. “You must be a person of prayer, so that you can go to Jesus and talk to Him and have Him be your friend and your companion.”

That doesn’t mean kneeling down to pray all the time. Sometimes, “Hi, Jesus. I know you’re here” is enough for now, said Msgr. Flanagan.

“But what you’re doing over time is developing that relationship with Him,” he said. “If He is your friend, you should be able to talk to Him freely, wherever you are.”

People who have that kind of a prayer life would consider it natural to say to their spouse or future spouse: “You know, there’s Somebody else in this relationship. I want to bring Him in. Can we share Jesus? Can He be part of our relationship?”

“That way, it’s not just the two of you but the three of you — He’s there, too,” said Msgr. Flanagan. “And you both have a personal relationship with Jesus and you can talk to Him any time.”

That gives couples the strength and confidence to keep going, even in the midst of crisis or trauma.

“That’s what faith is!” said Msgr. Flanagan. “Faith is ‘I don’t understand this. But I’ll walk in darkness, not by sight, if that is what You want for me.’”

The priest noted that Jesus was strong enough to take the cross, and then God raised Him up.

“And we’ll rise up, too,” he said.

“Amazing what you can bear”

For couples not yet in the habit of praying together, Msgr. Flanagan suggested starting out modestly.

“You can make it clear to your husband or your wife that you need to pray together, that you want it to be an important part of your marriage,” he said. “And maybe you could set a time, maybe starting with once a week.”

It could be simple, like reading a Bible passage together, having the husband and wife talk briefly about what the passage says to them, and then offering up a prayer together.

He suggested adding prayers of petition for children and other family members, “for each other and for yourselves.”

He said prayer helps families make sense of inevitable droughts and tragedies and those things that often seem like meaningless suffering.

“We don’t know the mystery of God, the mystery of God’s plan for us,” he said. “But this we do know: suffering has never spoiled anyone. It makes us stronger. It purifies us because for most of us, our biggest problem is selfishness.”

Suffering helps people see what’s really important in life, said Msgr. Flanagan, who is a cancer survivor.

“It is amazing what you can bear when you have to,” he said. “God gives you the strength to do so.”

That strength becomes even stronger in the context of a support system of family and friends who are committed to prayer.

“And the greatest prayers of all are children’s prayers,” he said. “Children have such a simple and honest faith, so their prayers are very effective and strong.”

“Let go and move on”

Msgr. Flanagan said that when couples are preparing to be married in the Church, “we hope they’re to the point where they’re willing to share their soul with one another.”

But all too often religion is the one issue couples avoid talking to each other about, even if they’re both Catholic.

“It’s something they have to grow into, so that when trauma hits life, whatever it may be, that you would naturally be able to go to God together with it,” he said.

He pointed out that it’s hard for most people to ask for and receive the gift of forgiveness — from God, from others and from themselves.

“But we must accept the gift and move on!” he said. “The Good Lord doesn’t want us wasting our time on beating ourselves up. He wants to forgive us and have us let go so we can grow in relationship with Him.”

He wants that not only for individuals but also for families.

“Marriage needs forgiveness more than anybody,” said Msgr. Flanagan. “Don’t get stuck in the rut of blame and counter-blame. Allow people to grow. Forgive and move on.”

He believes in reviving the tradition of daily family prayer.

“We seem to have lost that sense of family prayer and praying the Rosary as a family,” he said. “And at the same, you look at some of the older people today, and they’re not saying one Rosary a day; they’re saying two!”