Breaking Open the Theme
“Married love particularly reveals its true nature and nobility when we realize that it takes its origin from God […] Marriage, then, is far from being the effect of chance or the result of the blind evolution of natural forces. It is in reality the wise and provident institution of God the Creator, whose purpose was to effect in man His loving design” (Humanae Vitae, no. 8). If marriage is part of God’s loving design for man and woman, then there are specific laws that He has instituted to guide it. By “preserving intact the whole moral law of marriage, the Church is convinced that she is contributing to the creation of a truly human civilization” (Humanae Vitae, no.18).

The law of marriage is part of God’s law of love that protects human love from manipulation and inauthenticity. This law also governs and protects life, the fruit of love. For this reason, “to experience the gift of married love while respecting the laws of conception is to acknowledge that one is not the master of the sources of life but rather the minister of the design established by the Creator” (Humanae Vitae, no.13). Thus, “the Church’s teaching is meant to help couples to experience in a complete, harmonious and conscious way their communion as husband and wife, together with their responsibility for procreating life” (Amoris Laetitia, no. 82). Love and life, therefore, are designed and guided by God’s law, allowing for their natural flourishing and fulfillment.

Reflection
Some couples struggle with God’s law governing the sanctity of sexual intercourse, reserved for marriage, as a one-flesh union open to life. There is a natural, God-given means for the regulation of birth (commonly called Natural Family Planning), which allows couples to responsibly welcome life as their situations allow. There is no reason, therefore, to fear that God or the Church unreasonably expects more than a couple can give. If you or another couple is confused by the Church’s teaching on the natural regulation of births, talk to your priest or diocesan family life director. More information can be found here: http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/natural-family-planning/index.cfm.

To Think About
(Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on by yourself and/or with your spouse)

(1) Do I understand what the Church teaches about the regulation of births? Am I aware of a natural family planning alternative to contraception?
(2) How can I support or help educate another couple that struggles with this issue?
(3) What does following God’s law of love mean to my spouse and me? Does it impact the way we look at our marriage?

Holy Couples – Blessed Luigi and Maria Beltrame

Prayer of Married Couples
Almighty and eternal God,
You blessed the union of husband and wife
so that we might reflect
the union of Christ with His Church:
look with kindness on us.
Renew our marriage covenant.
Increase your love in us,
and strengthen our bond of peace
so that, [with our children],
we may always rejoice in the gift of your blessing.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Virtual Retreat Homepage

Also available as a printable PDF.

Day Three: The Mystery of Marital Faith and Its Fruit

A Story about Adoption
Faith is the willingness to set off on a journey, without knowing exactly where we are going or how we are going to get there. If there is anything resembling certainty, it is in the companions we choose to share our journey.

Saint Paul speaks of husband and wife becoming “one flesh” as “a great mystery” (Ephesians 5:32), a mystery that mirrors Christ and his bride, the Church. Part of the mystery, we think, is that God makes our hearts capable of letting go of our past relationships, however beautiful or broken, in order to enter freely into the shared hope that our marriage will be life-giving.

In our experience, that fundamental faith of husband and wife – setting off on a journey together – has also come to mean faith in what God is doing to knit our family together. Ours started as a common story: boy meets girl, wedding bells … but, the baby carriage… it took a while. We waited year after year, eventually going through all the invasive and heartbreaking testing that accompanies infertility. Yes, God was with us through it all, and sustained us with extraordinary graces which, in retrospect, were often exquisitely timed. But He does not always spare us from suffering. Instead, we have found that God draws near to share our suffering.

Going to that place of suffering with God was what opened our hearts to the seed that God had planted—the seed of adoption. Once it began to bear fruit, wonderful things began to happen. There was new hope, discernment of possibilities, and new discoveries. After much struggle, we brought our oldest daughter home from China, slowly discovering that a place on the other side of the world could begin to feel like another home. Three years later, we brought our second daughter home. And surprise of surprises, nine years later we returned to China and brought home our son.

Every year, we celebrate three adoption days in addition to three birthdays, so we have constant reminders of how odd and yet beautiful our journey with God has been. Seldom has the road ahead been clear, and still we draw courage from the faith that God will lead. “I do not ask to see the distant scene,” wrote St. John Henry Newman, “one step enough for me.” That has been our experience.
– Tim and Sue

To Think About
Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on by yourself and/or with your spouse

1. Where has your marriage proven fruitful in ways you least expected?
2. What are new forms of fruitfulness that God may be calling your marriage to bring forth?
3. When has God drawn near to share in your suffering as a couple?

Prayer to the Holy Family
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
in you we contemplate
the splendor of true love;
to you we turn with trust.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
grant that our families too may be places of
communion and prayer,
authentic schools of the Gospel
and small domestic churches.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
may families never again
experience violence, rejection and division;
may all who have been hurt or scandalized
find ready comfort and healing.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
make us once more mindful
of the sacredness and inviolability of the family,
and its beauty in God’s plan.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Graciously hear our prayer.
Amen.
(AL, 325)

Virtual Retreat Homepage

Breaking Open the Theme
“God who created man out of love also calls him to love the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. For man is created in the image and likeness of God who is Himself love. Since God created him man and woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1604). With these words, the Church reminds us that married couples are called to be living signs of God’s love to the world. Moreover, they represent the union of Christ and His Church: “The marriage of those who have been baptized is, in addition, invested with the dignity of a sacramental sign of grace, for it represents the union of Christ and His Church” (Humanae Vitae, no. 8; see Amoris Laetitia, no. 11).

These may seem like impossible expectations. How can married couples be living signs of God’s love and Christ’s love for the Church? It is actually easier than expected. God gives us examples of His love in the Old Testament using the analogy of a man’s love for a woman (see Is. 54:4-8, 10). Israel is His bride with whom He makes a covenant: “On the part of God, the Covenant is a lasting ‘commitment’; he remains faithful to his spousal love even if the bride often shows herself to be unfaithful” (Mulieris Dignitatem, no. 23). In a similar way, Christ nourishes, protects and loves His bride, the Church, composed of us men and women, with a tender love despite her shortcomings. Furthermore, “marriage and the family have been redeemed by Christ and restored in the image of the Holy Trinity, the mystery from which all true love flows” (Amoris Laetitia, no. 63). God does not expect us to love any differently than how He loves: with faithfulness and forgiveness.

Reflection
We all grow up with role models and people to whom we look up as examples of how we want to be. When we think of other married couples whom we admire, what is it about them that attracts us? What is it that we like about the way they carry themselves and interact with each other? What are some of their qualities that we would like to imitate? Do they somehow reflect the love of God? Married couples can be terrific role models, friends, and mentors. Why not reach out to couples who seem to have a ‘special-something’ and ask them their ‘secret’?

To Think About
(Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on by yourself and/or with your spouse)

(1) How do you and your spouse reflect the love of God to others around you and to one another?
(2) Is there a couple at church or in your community that you look up to?
(3) As a married couple, how can you better practice faithfulness and forgiveness?

Holy Couples – Saints Zachary and Elizabeth

Prayer of Married Couples
Almighty and eternal God,
You blessed the union of husband and wife
so that we might reflect
the union of Christ with His Church:
look with kindness on us.
Renew our marriage covenant.
Increase your love in us,
and strengthen our bond of peace
so that, [with our children],
we may always rejoice in the gift of your blessing.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Virtual Retreat Homepage

Also available as a printable PDF.

Day Five: The Tree that God Grows

A Story about Perfect Imperfection

This past Advent I started a Jesse Tree. I was tempted to go all in, DIY style, with the help of more seasoned mommy crafters who host their annual Jesse Tree swap in town. But, the temptation wasn’t strong due to my complete lack of skill and patience to deal with anything calling for glue, paint, or toothpicks. Instead, I was lured by the beautiful display of perfectly hand-painted wooden disks portraying each symbol of the Jesse Tree that I found at a local gift shop. For a few dollars I could opt out of the messy affair of gooey toothpicks and paint-smeared fingers; it sounded like a glorious plan.

Later at a White Elephant Party, I happened to notice a simple but radiant little Jesse Tree on the hostess’s piano. It was decorated with homemade symbols of different proportions, colors, and textures. It was multi-dimensional and dynamic; it made my Jesse Tree seem flat and uninspiring.

As I behold my children – each unique and exquisite in their own way – I’m reminded of the homemade Jesse Tree. Each branch held a symbol sculpted by a different person’s hand, bearing the stamp of the crafter’s creativity and cleverness. Each child bears the mark of the Creator and bears His image in a unique way. Each child is a blossom upon my family tree or a young sapling that needs to be cultivated, watered, and pruned. But, like the challenge of the Jesse Tree, I often feel inadequate before the challenges of raising these young saplings. My craftiness isn’t tested, but my calmness is. My inner Etsy isn’t tested, but my self-control is!

Part of the great parental privilege is that God provides His grace, and it suffices. It is enough to rely on His gracious help to assist us in every challenge. Yet, with social media awash in images that deliver a message of external perfection – so much so that “Instagrammable” is a new word – it is hard not to feel inadequate and insufficient. It is hard to admit that I am not ‘the Etsy type’ and my children’s nursery is not ”Instagrammable.” Likewise, it is hard to admit time and time again in confession that I have failed to be patient and forbearing with my children.

Time and time again, however, with the grace of God, as a couple, we are reminded to simply love each of our children well and to recognize that He is the Crafter of our tree, our little domestic church, and of each of its blossoms, and He will make it grow.
– Julia and Francis

To Think About
Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on with your spouse:

1. In what areas of your marriage or family do you feel inadequate or incapable?
2. How can you and your spouse or family establish greater trust in God’s grace?
3. Think about a present challenge in your life. How will you and your spouse meet this challenge with the help of God?

Prayer to the Holy Family
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
in you we contemplate
the splendor of true love;
to you we turn with trust.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
grant that our families too may be places of
communion and prayer,
authentic schools of the Gospel
and small domestic churches.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
may families never again
experience violence, rejection and division;
may all who have been hurt or scandalized
find ready comfort and healing.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
make us once more mindful
of the sacredness and inviolability of the family,
and its beauty in God’s plan.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Graciously hear our prayer.
Amen.
(AL, 325)

Virtual Retreat Homepage

Day One – Marriage: Made by God

Breaking Open the Theme
Despite many variations throughout cultures, societies, and religions, marriage has always been regarded as a sacred bond that expresses a deep, committed form of mutual love. Marriage is not, however, purely a human institution: “the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws … God himself is the author of marriage” (GS, 48).

How is God the author of marriage?

First, “God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them ” (Gen. 1:27). Since man and woman are created in the image of God, who is Love, man and woman carry an innate calling to love. Marriage responds to a fundamental desire and need to give and receive love.

Second, as male and female, God created man and woman with a physical complementarity that is uniquely able to collaborate in His work of creation. The very nature of man and woman is prepared for the possibility of marriage and the welcoming of new life.

Third, Holy Scripture affirms that it is good for a man and woman to belong to one another and form a bond of communion: “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18) …. ” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body (Gen. 2:24). In the New Testament, Jesus invokes God’s original plan for mankind as an unbreakable union of two lives by recalling the plan of the Creator in the beginning: “So they are no longer two, but one flesh” (Mt. 19:6).

In the divine plan, marriage is the exclusive, indissoluble communion of life and love entered by one man and one woman. Between two baptized Christians, this covenant is a sacrament.

Reflection
As Catholics, an understanding of God’s plan for marriage and family is an essential part of living the call to holiness. Catholic spouses are blessed with the certainty that the sacrament of marriage provides the graces necessary to become sanctified as husband and wife, father and mother. This grace endows the marriage covenant with strength and fortifies it in moments of difficulty. It also carries over into the domestic church, the home, where the family grows and becomes a witness to God’s love for others.

God’s plan for marriage is not restricted to Catholics, however. As explained above, it is rooted in the nature and identity of man and woman created in God’s image. The dignity of marriage with its specific purpose and characteristics is a good to uphold and defend to the benefit of all people.

To Think About
(Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on by yourself and/or with your spouse)

1. What makes marriage distinctive compared to other relationships? Why are love and commitment in marriage unique? What does it mean to say that God created marriage in the very same moment that he created the human person?
2. As a couple, how are we complementary in our needs, desires, and attributes? How does God endow us with different gifts, as man and woman, that contribute to the marriage?
3. How can we, as a couple, bear witness to the beauty and wisdom of God’s design for marriage?

Prayer of Married Couples
Almighty and eternal God,
You blessed the union of husband and wife
so that we might reflect
the union of Christ with His Church:
look with kindness on us.
Renew our marriage covenant.
Increase your love in us,
and strengthen our bond of peace
so that, [with our children],
we may always rejoice in the gift of your blessing.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Virtual Retreat Homepage

Also available as a printable PDF.

Day Six: Love in Truth

A Story about Unexpected Challenges
We have been blessed in our 42 years of marriage with four beautiful and amazing children. Our children, the source of our greatest pride and joy, have also been the source of our greatest suffering.

With the sudden death of our first son, at only six months old, we experienced our first crucible. The first fruit of our love had withered, testing our own love as a couple. It was a life-changing experience in our marriage, but, fortunately, our grief led us to a deeper commitment to one another and to our faith. This prepared us to meet other challenges that were to come, testing our unity as a couple and family.

While still in college, our daughter announced that she was pregnant with our first grandchild, outside the bond of marriage. Although stunned and saddened by the circumstances, we welcomed the gift of new life that would bless our family. During the turbulent time that surrounded these events, we accompanied our daughter in her struggle to recognize and follow God’s plan. We are proud to be the grandparents of a young man with deep faith who now serves our country overseas as a U.S. Marine.

One day, our youngest son announced that he experienced same-sex attraction and had embraced a lifestyle that was contrary to his human dignity in the eyes of God. The pain of losing our son to the lies of the world is hard to describe.

As our son, we made him know that our love is unconditional. However, we also needed to remain steadfast in truth, as true love warrants. When we did not attend the same-sex union with his partner, a deep hurt was felt on both sides. His departure from any practice of a life in the Catholic faith is our greatest sorrow, which elicits a constant prayer rising from our hearts for Mary to lead him back to her Son.

On our wedding day, we promised each other that we would accept children lovingly from God and educate them according to the law of Christ and His Church. Little did we realize the great gift we were agreeing to receive, nor the tremendous responsibility it entails. We continue to educate our children and grandchildren in the faith, challenging them to true discipleship.

While our work to build our domestic church is not done, we trust that the faith that we set as the foundation of our family will be a reminder to our children of God’s unwavering faithfulness and unfailing love. Even the greatest blessings can blossom in the midst of thorns.
– Christine and Rick

To Think About
Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on with your spouse:

1. How have you dealt with the challenges and disappointments experienced in your marriage or caused by your children? Where have you found God’s grace and mercy present in those times?
2. In what ways may God be asking you to give greater witness to truth in love within your family?
3. How have you noticed God’s hand in the midst of suffering and loss?

Prayer to the Holy Family
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
in you we contemplate
the splendor of true love;
to you we turn with trust.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
grant that our families too may be places of
communion and prayer,
authentic schools of the Gospel
and small domestic churches.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
may families never again
experience violence, rejection and division;
may all who have been hurt or scandalized
find ready comfort and healing.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
make us once more mindful
of the sacredness and inviolability of the family,
and its beauty in God’s plan.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Graciously hear our prayer.
Amen.
(AL, 325)

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Day Two – Marriage: Made for Love

Breaking Open the Theme
Marriage between one man and one woman responds to the deepest longing of the human heart for love and belonging. We yearn to be loved and to receive love. The same can be said of family life: in a family, children are received to be loved and to love in return.

Despite human shortcomings, the married couple and the family are reflections of God who is three divine persons in a communion of love. In marriage, the man and the woman become “one body” (Gen 2: 24), a communion of love that generates new life. In a similar way, the human family becomes a communion of love by the exchange of giving and receiving love between its members.

Marriage and family life are schools of love. They teach us how to reach a communion of love within the context of daily life: full of joys, sacrifices, trials, and hopes. In all of this, love is purified and perfected, made authentic and complete. As Christ’s sacrifice on the cross exemplified, love is laying down one’s life for another. Spouses and family members are called to do the same, each and every day.

Reflection
Despite our best efforts to love faithfully and unconditionally, marriage and family life can be difficult and challenge our ability to love continually. The marital love that is blessed by the sacrament of marriage is fortified and sustained, however, by a unique grace intended to “perfect the couple’s love and to strengthen their indissoluble unity” (CCC, 1641). By virtue of this grace, the couple helps one another to attain holiness.

The source of this grace is Christ. “Just as of old God encountered his people with a covenant of love and fidelity, so our Savior, the spouse of the Church, now encounters Christian spouses through the sacrament of Matrimony” (GS, 48). Christ dwells with them, gives them the strength to take up their crosses and so follow him, to rise again after they have fallen, to forgive one another, to bear one another’s burdens, to “be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ,” and to love one another with supernatural, tender, and fruitful love” (CCC, 1642).

To Think About
(Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on by yourself and/or with your spouse)

1. What makes the love of man and woman unique, especially within the marital relationship? What makes the love of family members a communion of persons?
2. How are our marriage and family schools of love? As a couple and family, do we demonstrate a communion of love that is self-giving, pure, and sacrificial?
3. As a couple, how do we rely on the grace of the sacrament of marriage to assist us in moments of challenge and difficulty?

Prayer of Married Couples
Almighty and eternal God,
You blessed the union of husband and wife
so that we might reflect
the union of Christ with His Church:
look with kindness on us.
Renew our marriage covenant.
Increase your love in us,
and strengthen our bond of peace
so that, [with our children],
we may always rejoice in the gift of your blessing.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Virtual Retreat Homepage

Also available as a printable PDF.

Day Seven: Learning at a Later Stage

A Story told by Grandparents

Early on as grandparents, we learned a lesson about teaching children to pray while babysitting our 4-year-old grandson. Come bedtime, the parents had not yet re-appeared, so we had the chance to do bedtime routine with little Antonio: story, snack, bath, pajamas. We had lots of experience with that, although we hadn’t remembered how much energy it took!

When he finally climbed into bed, we were exhausted. We quickly said a short rote prayer with him, “Now I lay me down to sleep…” Ok, kisses and lights out. Right? No! Antonio started to wail, “I want the long prayer! I want the long prayer!” He cried and cried. We were mystified. What could the long prayer be? We sat on the bed and shared our own nighttime prayers with him, beginning with Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, special intentions, blessings all around. Antonio calmed down and went to sleep like a lamb.

When the parents came home, we told them about the drama and asked “What’s the ‘long prayer’?” They laughed and said, “Oh, we usually do a longer bedtime prayer routine with him, including a whole litany of intentions, followed by the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, just like you taught us. It’s our special time together, and he looks forward to it. But when he is being rowdy, and we are at the end of our rope, we just say a short simple prayer with him. He must have thought you were punishing him by not saying the long prayer!”

By praying together as a family, we had instilled in our son a love of shared family prayer that he had passed on to his own family. We had witnessed how the habit of prayer, instituted when our children were young, was still resonating with them as adults.

Our parental responsibility to foster the faith in our home continues as grandparents – now in the homes of our children and children’s children. Prayer is an excellent way to foster the faith, even when it has grown weak in our next of kin. Praying together is a time to reconnect, renew, and reconcile. At bedtime, meal time, car time, in sickness and in health, a family builds the bonds of love when they turn to God together.

Customs, traditions, and celebrations are all potential opportunities for prayer and faith building. Drawing on the homemade spiritual practices of yesteryear, a future of faith can be forged for next generations, one celebration at a time.

Just as God was with us through the long nights and exhausting days of our own parenting journey, He is with us in this new chapter of life in the bigger domestic church. We now say the “long prayer” for our children and grandchildren, sharing the comforting and encouraging love of our heavenly Father.
– Lauri and John

To Think About
Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on with your spouse:

1. What traditions can you share with your grandchildren to foster the faith? Do you pray regularly for your children and grandchildren?
2. How does the faith and prayer shape your responsibility as a grandparent?
3. If you are not a grandparent, what are other forms of ‘grandparenting’ that you can provide to someone who needs it?

Prayer to the Holy Family
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
in you we contemplate
the splendor of true love;
to you we turn with trust.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
grant that our families too may be places of
communion and prayer,
authentic schools of the Gospel
and small domestic churches.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
may families never again
experience violence, rejection and division;
may all who have been hurt or scandalized
find ready comfort and healing.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
make us once more mindful
of the sacredness and inviolability of the family,
and its beauty in God’s plan.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Graciously hear our prayer.
Amen.
(AL, 325)

Virtual Retreat Homepage

Day Three – Marriage: Made for Each Other

Breaking Open the Theme
God created man and woman together and willed each for the other. “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him” (Gen. 2:18). The woman that God ‘fashions’ from the man’s rib elicits from the man a cry of wonder, an exclamation of love and communion: “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23). This beautiful account from the book of Genesis of the creation of Eve from Adam’s side demonstrates how woman was created specifically as a helper, companion, and suitable partner for man. Unlike any other created being, man discovers woman as another ‘I’, as sharing the same humanity (see CCC, 371).

“Man and woman were made ‘for each other’ – not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be ‘helpmate’ to the other, for they are equal as persons (“bone of my bones…”) and complementary as masculine and feminine” (CCC, 372).

Because they are equal as persons in their humanity, but complementary in their differences as masculine and feminine, man and woman contribute unique gifts to the marriage, especially the physical differences of their bodies which allow for the transmission of human life. Only through sexual difference can a husband and a wife give themselves completely to one another.

True marital union, therefore, is not possible without sexual difference; for this reason, sexual difference is essential to marriage. Sexual difference is the necessary starting point for understanding why protecting and promoting marriage as the union of one man and one woman isn’t arbitrary or discriminatory. Rather, it’s a matter of justice, truth, love, and real freedom. Only a man and a woman—at every level of their identity: biological, physiological, emotional, social, spiritual—are capable of authentically speaking the language of married love, that is, the language of total self-gift, open to the gift of the other and the gift of life.

Reflection
Our maleness or femaleness is essential to our identity as persons. Our gender is not something that is pasted onto us as an after-thought, or that is an incidental part of who we are. Male and female are two different ways of being a human person, body and soul. When we deny our identity as sexually differentiated beings, we diminish our humanity.

A conjugal or marital union comes about only through sexual difference. Only a husband and a wife have the space or capacity to truly receive each other’s distinctive sexual gift, and only a husband and a wife can make a gift of their selves to the other in that way. The beauty of the Church’s teaching on marriage, grounded in this anthropological foundation, sheds light on the responsibility of man and woman to collaborate with God in His plan for the human race.

To Think About
(Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on by yourself and/or with your spouse)

(1) How do reason and faith not conflict when it comes to marriage? In other words, how does the sacrament of marriage, which is between a baptized man and a baptized woman, build upon, and not detract from, the basic and reasonable truths at the heart of every marriage?
(2) Do you think sexual difference, man to woman and woman to man, is understood and appreciated today? Why or why not?
(3) As a couple, how can you help others reflect on the importance of sexual difference and complementarity?

Prayer of Married Couples
Almighty and eternal God,
You blessed the union of husband and wife
so that we might reflect
the union of Christ with His Church:
look with kindness on us.
Renew our marriage covenant.
Increase your love in us,
and strengthen our bond of peace
so that, [with our children],
we may always rejoice in the gift of your blessing.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Virtual Retreat Homepage

Also available as a printable PDF.

Day Four: Parenting Among Friends

A Story about Spiritual Parenthood
John and Patti, good friends of ours, are great examples of how marital love is called to be, and can be, fruitful both biologically and spiritually. In addition to their immediate family, their domestic church, their marriage has borne spiritual fruit for countless others, including ourselves.

When we first met John and Patti, they had already been married a few years and had three (of their now six) children. We became instant friends and soon found ourselves at their home most Friday nights for a delicious dinner, a decade of the rosary with their family, and then, after the kids were tucked into bed, a relaxing evening together. We have many fond memories of sinking into their comfortable living room couches with a glass of wine in hand to simply catch up on the past week and enjoy each other’s company.

They also invited us to join their group of friends who had been meeting monthly for a few years for prayer and dinner. We were honored to be invited and their friends quickly became our friends. And they, like John and Patti, helped to nourish the seed of faith in our lives. Besides the monthly gatherings of prayer and fellowship, we were all soon celebrating joys together (births, birthdays, playoffs, etc.) and we accompanied one another in trials (illnesses, unemployment, family difficulties, etc.).

Five years ago, however, with the advent of a new job opportunity 1,200 miles away, we left this amazing group – fortified in the faith but doubtful that we would ever find friends who nourished our faith as much as they had. But we did – by God’s grace. Inspired by that group, we invited a few couples at our new parish to start a similar group. For four years now this new group of couples continues to grace our lives in rich and meaningful ways. And, some members of our group have continued to spread the gift by helping other groups begin in our parish, as well. And, because of that, we have now created materials for new groups to begin anywhere in the country.

We thank God, therefore, for John and Patti and for all of the couples in both groups, old and new, and for the spiritual fruit that these relationships have borne in our lives. Truly, all of these couples have been spiritual parents to us, giving us and our marriage a more meaningful life. And, we praise God for the fruit it is now bringing to many other couples, too!
– Kari and Stephen

To Think About
Choose one or more of the following questions to reflect on by yourself and/or with your spouse

1. What does spiritual parenthood mean to you? How can it be lived in different ways?
2. Who has helped you and your marriage? Whom have you helped to have a better marriage?
3. What can you do to find couples who can accompany you as mentors and guides? What can you do to accompany couples who may need help along the journey?

Prayer to the Holy Family
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
in you we contemplate
the splendor of true love;
to you we turn with trust.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
grant that our families too may be places of
communion and prayer,
authentic schools of the Gospel
and small domestic churches.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
may families never again
experience violence, rejection and division;
may all who have been hurt or scandalized
find ready comfort and healing.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
make us once more mindful
of the sacredness and inviolability of the family,
and its beauty in God’s plan.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Graciously hear our prayer.
Amen.
(AL, 325)

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