On Wednesday, April 28, almost 100 members of the clergy, along with 10 leaders in life-long formation attended a presentation at Adelphia’s, Deptford given by Ron and Kathy Feher of the Pastoral and Matrimonial Renewal Center of Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Bishop Joseph Galante welcomed the participants and noted that the gathering was necessary to address the crisis that marriage is in today. “What we have been doing is not helping to stem the divorce rate or to strengthen marriages,” he said
Linda Robinson of the Office of Lay Ministry Formation began the afternoon with a look at the current state of marriage preparation in the Diocese of Camden, noting that many of the long-standing Pre-Cana teams are losing members and other teams want to retire from ministry.
The burden on remaining teams gets heavier as more teams retire, making this an opportune time to re-evaluate the marriage prep programs and to move them toward the suggestions in the 2003 Pastoral Guidelines from the USCCB: to a formation in the sacrament of marriage that is integrated into family and parish life and extends beyond a weekend program. The ideal should model the RCIA process in its stages and progression.
As Robinson reviewed programs that would serve to fulfill those criteria, she found that the “Living in Love” program had the potential to become the model for both marriage preparation and enrichment, while building community in the parish and catechizing the couples as well.
The “Living in Love” program was written by Ron and Kathy Feher, along with Father Chuck Gallagher and others from the Pastoral and Matrimonial Renewal Center.
Ron and Kathy Feher took the podium for the main part of the presentation, describing the phenomenon they have observed in parishes which have adopted the suite of programs that are “Living in Love.” What started out as a marriage preparation mentoring program has evolved into a process that includes marriage enrichment, marriage preparation and evangelization, with the added benefit of a growing relationship with the parish community for the couples involved. Engaged couples who have been mentored rate their Pre-Cana experience very highly, and they often want to become mentors themselves.
Most significantly, they realize their need for additional formation, signing up for RCIA and looking for ways to stay involved in parish life.
“We want to ‘hug’ couples back to the church,” says Kathy Feher. “We want to draw them back to the church with attractive witness and precious friendship, and we want to give them helpful skills and insights that they will be grateful to the church for. In that brief moment as they are preparing for marriage when couples are prioritizing their marriage in their lives, we want to give them a relevant experience. If we don’t, they will deduce that the church is irrelevant.”
The end result of that is that newly married couples leave the church on their wedding day and don’t return until the baptism of their children.
Once the marriage preparation is completed and wedding day is over, the church generally abandons the newly married to a culture that is toxic to marriage. Without a connection to a community that cares about them, and without a set of skills that can keep them “in love,” the young couple is on their own and generally doesn’t look to the church for guidance in the early years of marriage.
The “Living in Love” suite of programs, developed over the course of the last 20 years and based on John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, is designed to overcome those omissions — it is experiential, provides practical life skills and tools, and builds a relationship between the mentor couple and the engaged that carries over into parish life. The Living in Love program teaches couples to fuel the experience of being ‘in love’ because when they are ‘in love,’ the work of marriage becomes easier. The practical skills learned on the weekend help couples to communicate in ways that make their spouse feel loved, to forgive and heal hurts, and to reconnect with their own love history to get a sense of purpose, hope and direction for the future of their marriage.
The process to start offering the mentoring couple model of marriage preparation in a parish was then described to the clergy: “The first step is to think of those married couples in your parish who make you smile,” says Kathy Feher, “because those are the couples whose love shows and who would make great mentoring couples.”
Then the parish should host a “Living in Love” weekend for the married couples; this will be a weekend of enrichment for them and is the first step in the training to become a mentor couple. Following the weekend, there is a nine-session weekly follow-up discussion group for married couples, where they learn to live out the principles and practice the skills they heard about on the weekend. At the end of the nine weeks, those couples are ready to mentor the engaged, and the parish has its own parishioners ready to provide the marriage preparation.
For those interested in scheduling a Living in Love weekend at their parish, call Ron Feher at 877-201-2142 or email PMRCusa@msn.com. To sign up for a Living in Love weekend, go to www.livinginlove.org.
The upcoming weekends scheduled in the Camden Diocese are:
May 22-23 — Our Lady of Peace, Williamstown
June 5-6 — Church of the Holy Family, Sewell
Aug. 21-22 — Maris Stella, Avalon
Oct. 16-17 —Padre Pio, Vineland
Oct. 23-24 — St. Rose of Lima, Haddon Heights
Mary Ann Chezik is coordinator of Family Ministries, Office of Family Life Formation, Diocese of Camden.
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