If there is an institution in the world needing our prayers more than the institution of marriage, I can hardly think what it could be. Among the households of my children’s schoolmates, I often feel as if ours is in a distinct minority—a man and a woman married to each other and living in the same house along with their three children—children who have never experienced anything other than that arrangement. Satan attacks marriages every hour of every day, and without the Lord’s gracious intervention they would all fail on account of our sinful behavior.
F. Samuel Janzow (1913-2001) also felt the importance of praying on behalf of marriages when he wrote the hymn we consider this month. Janzow was a professor of English and Theology at Concordia University, Chicago (River Forest), and each poetic verse here asks the great Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, for a particular blessing on married couples.