Change happened, and Catholic couples in Sebastián de los Reyes are now lining up for a "macro wedding".

It is a new option for the parish, and local priest Fr Javier Sánchez-Cervera says the new approach to weddings is a great success.

The idea has met people where they are.

The first wedding

The Church of San Sebastián Martír has just celebrated Spain's first macro wedding, with 36 people exchanging vows.

Arranged by the parish, the aim was to create a stress-free wedding celebration.

"We wanted to arrange everything, and for the 18 couples to "concern themselves only with saying yes to God" says Sánchez-Cervera.

During the Mass, he told the couples "God is going to come and sanctify your relationship.

"The bride and groom at Cana, like you, invited Christ to their wedding."

Gifts arrived for each couple.

Each received a special blessing from Pope Francis.

In addition, the Poor Clares of Salamanca made each couple a pair of sandals.

Each pair was hand-stitched with the name of the bride and groom "to help them walk together".

Cost-sensitive pastoral outreach

Sánchez-Cervera says he was inspired to hold the "macro wedding" when he realised about 80 percent of parents in his parish requesting baptism or First Holy Communion catechesis for their children were unmarried.

When he asked them why they weren't married, Sánchez-Cervera says "their faces looked sad".

"They spoke of the cost, the logistics, and being alone - some are from other countries including Latin America. Others, being older, felt a bit embarrassed.

He could see something had to be done to change this, enlisting the help of parishioners in his quest.

"We began with a team of 10-15 parish volunteers. But as the ceremony drew near, we ended up with 40-50."

One was that each of the 18 couples was assigned a parish "tutor" to guide them through a Catholic marriage preparation course and the necessary paperwork.

Then - almost unheard of in this day and age - everything about the wedding ceremony and feast was free of charge. Not a centimo was paid.

Local residents donated dresses for brides. Sánchez-Cervera supplied champagne and cake for toasts after the nuptial Mass.

Local hairdressers and beauticians prepared the brides for the wedding for free. Local residents tailored the wedding dresses.

Timed to coincide with local fiestas, the newly married couples were given tickets for a fair where they could enjoy a first dance at a free concert.

"Associations occupying booths at the fiestas offered the newlyweds and their children free food and drinks" Sánchez-Cervera says.

More couples are signing for a "macro wedding" next year he adds. "There are lots of couples in similar situations."

Source

• The Tablet

Those are the two things and the only things my husband and I learned in our marriage preparation classes 25 years ago.

It's hard to say which bit of advice was less helpful.

We already knew communication was important, but what we really needed was practice.

And the financial advice was sound, but we had exactly enough cash for one month's rent and a new mattress, so we spent it on that.

In other words, what we learned during marriage preparation was one thing that was true but uselessly abstract, and one thing that was true but comically irrelevant.

And this, unfortunately, seems to be par for the course for most Catholics.

When I asked Catholics about their experience with marriage preparation, some said they enjoyed and appreciated it and learned valuable things. But many more told me that the experience was just an extra burden during an already stressful time, or even that it soured a sceptical partner against the faith.

The recent announcement by the Vatican of a year-long (albeit voluntary, at least for now) "catechumenal itinerary for married life" has been met with mild to scathing cynicism from Catholics—including priests and lay people—on social media.

"Catholics think if you just get the right program, everything will be fine," said Robert Krishna, a Dominican priest in the archdiocese of Melbourne, Australia. "And if they don't understand what they need to do, repeat yourself louder and slower. That's not the answer."

Still, the answer cannot be simply to require no preparation.

More than one canon lawyer who has worked on marriage tribunals has told me that many couples present themselves at the altar with little to no understanding of what marriage is.

Their relationships fall apart because they were unprepared for marriage.

So someone has to do something.

What type of marriage preparation is actually useful, helpful and stays with a couple as they grow into the sacrament they have conferred on each other?

I talked with Father Krishna, several married people, and a married couple who have been running Engaged Encounter weekend retreats since 2005, and here is what I learned: Circumstances vary widely. Couples should have access to more than one option so they can choose what works best for them. Continue reading

Singapore's archdiocese says Archbishop William Goh Seng Chye changed the policy for booking churches for weddings after discussions with the archdiocese's priests.

The new policy aims to ensure couples take the time they need to prepare for marriage properly.

The change in policy has not altered other aspects of the archdiocese's marriage preparation requirements.

As was already the case, all couples must attend marriage preparatory programmes. They must also meet the priest who will preside over their wedding.

A spokesperson for the archdiocese says the new policy emphasises the importance of the commitment of matrimony and helps Catholics prepare for it.

"In response to the feedback and to help our fellow Catholics prepare for such a major commitment in their lives, the Archbishop, in consultation with his Senate of Priests, is looking to refine the recommended policies presently in place," the spokesperson says.

"It marks the beginning of a journey that the Church and the couple take together to prepare the couple for their commitment to each other."

Numerous other Christian dominations in Singapore have similar requirements, which may range from six to nine months prior to the wedding day.

Daniel Seah is an engaged Catholic in Singapore who plans to get married in 2020. He says he is happy with the new policy.

"In my opinion, the divorce rate is quite high and I think the Church is looking at ways to help couples discern deeper if this is the right person for them before they walk down the aisle," he says.

"Even if you book a hotel, you may also need to book one year in advance but people don't grumble about that."

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Shilton Tan Photography

"Everyone is different" and all married couples will go through periods of difficulty.

Fragility and brokenness are part of that.

Couples and families often need resources and support, Nichols said, although they should always be "on offer" and never forced.

In his address, Nichols offered a number of ways marriage preparation can help couples seeking marriage.

"On this journey one quality is very important. It is this: learning to sense how and where God is present," he said.

Couples need the Church to welcome them and to present a "clear vision" of the marriage sacrament.

The sacrament "is rooted in the love of God and is to be an expression of the faithfulness and fruitfulness of God's love and is "intertwined with the love Christ has for his Church."

It includes sacrifice, forgiveness, and healing.

"Our teaching is a rich vision that informs all that we want to share with those who are starting out on married life," he said.

Nichols said parishes can help engaged couples to embrace the Church's vision, even in the face of an increasingly secular view and focus on the wedding "industry."

Underpinning all marriage preparation should be a focus on God's call to holiness, he said.

As Pope Francis wrote in the exhortation Gaudete et exsultate, holiness can grow even through small, everyday actions - the building blocks of family life.

Nichols's advice for good marriage preparation includes expressions of solidarity with the couple, so they know they do not have to journey through engagement and married life alone.

"Those involved in leading marriage prep should also remember to be humble and to trust in God's grace, remembering that the Holy Spirit should be the first guide of the couple," Nichols said.

He urged priests to emphasise the importance of prayer, especially teaching couples to learn to pray together with scripture.

This will mean priests need to choose their words carefully, "so that the hearts of young people can be reached with the truth of marriage, also recognising that not all couples begin with the desire to go through the process of marriage preparation."

Encounters with older married couples can also be a good resource for couples engaged to be married.

Older couples may be able to help them consider their hopes and expectations for marriage, he said.

Among the topics to be included at marriage preparation discussions, Nichols suggested:

• The gift children are to parents and to the Church
• The importance of honest, thoughtful decisions on planning a family together
• The "gift of sexuality, the gift of the body"

Source

• The Tablet
• National Catholic Register
• Image: CathNews USA

"They have no credibility; they have never lived the experience; they may know moral theology, dogmatic theology in theory, but to go from there to putting it into practice every day … they don't have the experience," said Irish-born American Cardinal Kevin Farrell.

Farrell heads the Vatican's Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, and is the point man for the Aug. 21-26 World Meeting of Families in Dublin.

The cardinal was born in the Irish capital, but moved to the United States in 1984, later serving as an auxiliary bishop in Washington before becoming bishop of Dallas in 2007.

In 2016, he was tapped by Pope Francis to head the new office - which combined several other Vatican councils as part of the reform of the Curia.

In an interview with Intercom, the official magazine of the Irish bishops, Farrell spoke of the differences between the Church in the United States and the Church in Ireland.

He said the United States was a country where "the laity run the Church."

"In my own experience as Bishop of Dallas, we had one priest in a parish where 10,000 people would attend Mass at the weekend. We have parishes that have a $20 million annual budget. No priest is going to be able to run a parish of that magnitude without competent lay people," the cardinal said.

He said this also meant many pastoral tasks usually left to priests in Ireland - like marriage preparation - are done by others.

"We have a million and a half Catholics and 75 priests, with a 45 to 50 per cent rate of (Mass) attendance. Those 75 priests are not going to be interested in organizing marriage meetings," said Farrell.

He said the Church in Ireland would have to adapt to this lay model of Church governance, due to "sheer numbers."

The Dublin diocese - with a comparable number of Catholics to Dallas - currently has over 400 priests, but that number is dropping as fewer and fewer men are being ordained to replace clergy that die or retire.

"We have to worry about the 99 per cent, about the baptized, and not worry about the other things we have been obsessed with," Farrell said.

The cardinal said this would lead to a less clericalized Church, which is a good thing. Continue reading

• Image: Dallas News

Farrell is the head of the Vatican's Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life. Read more

He counted 10 newly married couples sitting right there in the pews, and they were regulars.

"I wondered if these couples would be coming to Mass if we had not really gone out of our way to help connect them in such a way that they want to be at Mass and see the importance of it," he told the National Catholic Register.

The difference, said the pastor of St Joseph and St Rose in Cecelia, Loiusiana, was that his parish developed and embraced a new way of parish-based marriage formation called "Witness to Love," which is beginning to take off nationally.

Before his parish made the switch, Father Delcambre, like other pastors, had too often watched engaged couples he had prepared for marriage disappear after their weddings.

"Witness to Love" is a virtues-based and Eucharist-centered model of parish marriage ministry.

The core feature is that the engaged couple chooses a mentor couple they admire from the parish that meets certain criteria: married at least five years, preferably with children already, and active in the parish life and regularly attending Mass for the past year.

The mentor couple follows the "Witness to Love" program in building relationships and marriage skills, while the priest or deacon helps the engaged couple delve into the theology of marriage and, with the help of a trained marriage-preparation coordinator, forms the mentor couple throughout the process.

When the mentor couple fulfills each section or activity with the engaged couple, they sign and date it for accountability.

Mary-Rose and Ryan Verret, a married couple at Father Delcambre's parish, developed the "Witness to Love" parish ministry model and programme three years ago.

Sources

• National Catholic Register, as reported by Peter Jesserer Smith at the Catholic News Agency
• Image: Ottawa Anglican Diocese

In a recent interview, Cardinal Gerhard Muller said the synod in October will need to deal with "the challenge of finding pastoral solutions to ensure a stronger integration of people in difficult situations into the community".

But this must be done "without reducing the word of Jesus and the teaching of the Church", he said.

"We must help people, including Catholics, to gain a renewed understanding of the meaning of marriage and publicly committing oneself to another person," he added.

"There needs to be a review of the preparation and guidance processes for marriage."

Continue reading

The report follows on estimates that broken relationships cost Britain between £20 - £44 billion annually and emphasises that when the social cost of separation is taken into account successful relationship initiatives could pay for themselves 11 times over.

Conducting the report, a team of experts from the Tavistock Institute said most statistically significant effects could be found among those who attend marriage preparation courses run by the Catholic Church and other in-depth counselling sessions.

The Tavistock group analysied the success rates of three types of marriage and relationship education courses. They included a traditional marriage preparation, a shorter 'relationship education' sessions for established couples and counselling for those facing difficulties.

Hundreds took part in the exercise which included surveys and in-depth interviews.

Participants frequently mentioned the importance of behavioural change, dealing with conflict or better communication as key to relationship success.

The report, funded by the Department for Education, recommends a national drive to encourage couples to get help before problems occur.

Other recommendations include 'blitzing' registry offices with publicity promoting the courses, and a quality mark similar to those used by trade-groups, to identify higher quality courses.

The group also recommended offering discounts on wedding fees for couples to attend a pre-marriage course.

Andrew Selous, Conservative MP and Chair of the all-party group specialising in relationships, said that relationships often fall down the priority list when economic issues emerge, but that good relationships are an important part of restoring the public finances.

"I think we need to change attitudes in this country, we need to think of this as like going to the gym rather than going for surgery," he said.

Sources

• The Telegraph
• Suite 101