Spooner's man with a beard in prayer? (4,4)
I believe the answer is:
hail mary
'prayer?' is the definition.
(Hail Mary is an example)
'spooner's man with a beard' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'man' could be 'mar' and 'mar' is located in the answer.
'a' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'in' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for hail mary that I've seen before include "Prayer to the Virgin" , "Ave Maria" .)