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PAGE 7 — The Southern Cross, May 24,1990
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
■ One place couples can turn for help in strengthening their marriages is a
retreat house.
A retreat house?! Yes. This year, for instance, the Dominican Retreat House
in Arlington, Va., is offering two retreat evenings, a day of recollection and
a weekend retreat, all aimed at couples. Bulletin announcements in parishes,
a retreat house newsletter and word-of-mouth advertise the different events.
The retreat house offers couples “an opportunity to reflect on their life
together and to share their experience of faith” in the presence of other
couples, said Dominican Sister Anne Lythgoe, program director. Couples are
helped “to see how God acts in their lives.”
Another resource for couples is a parish priest or pastoral counselor. Often,
this person can refer couples to national organizations that offer marriage enrich
ment, or can suggest parish groups with a focus on family life.
Keep an eye out, too, for announcements in parish bulletins and diocesan
newspapers of programs for couples — programs directed to the kinds of
predicaments modern couples face.
And watch for meetings of national organizations such as Marriage Encounter
and Retorno that aim to help couples improve good marriages.
Katharine Bird, Associate editor, Faith Alive!
When couples need help
By Jane Wolford Hughes
Catholic News Service
It seems consistent with the vows
taken in the sacrament of marriage that
a Christian couple should be able to
expect comfort, understanding and
direction from the church as they go
through their married lives.
Recently I came into contact with two
creative programs for couples, one in the
Diocese of Venice, Fla., the other in the
Archdiocese of Detroit.
My husband and I met Karen after
Mass one Saturday evening in Fort
Meyers, Fla. She was an acquaintance
of our friend, Anne. I didn’t expect more
than the usual pleasantries. However,
she took precise aim at me and said,
“I understand you are in a second
marriage. I need advice, can we talk?”
My husband moved into the silence
and suggested that I call her Monday
morning, once we were settled. She
agreed. I was grateful for the com
promise. Despite my desire for vacation,
my heart responded to the hurt hiding
behind her cool words. She needed help.
Monday, before I called Karen, I had
the good fortune to speak with Mimi
and Terry Reilly. They co-host an all
day workshop for people entering
second marriages in the Diocese of
Venice, Fla.
The biannual conferences serve
between 15 and 20 couples each time.
They include widows and widowers and
people whose former marriages were
annulled.
The program, in its third year, is
sponsored by the diocese’s Pastoral
Ministries Department. Mrs. Reilly is
its director.
A nine-person team offers presenta
tions on attitudes, communication, sex
uality and spirituality. Lay couples are
the presenters, except for the session on
the sacrament of marriage, which a
priest gives. Each session includes time
for one-on-one communication.
Karen’s conversation centered on her
relationship with her future husband
Fred’s three children, two teen-agers
and a 5-year-old girl.
The little girl was loving but the teens
were belligerent, she told me. Part of
Karen’s suffering was inflicted
unconsciously by Fred who did not
acknowledge their resentment. He kept
saying, “They’ll get over it.” She saw
them as circling like gulls ready to strike
at any moment.
I admitted that second marriages
could be risky, especially if people are
not sensitive to each other’s “historical
pasts.” This is the Reilly s’ term for the
dangerous mentality of “But we always
did it that way.” It has been my
experience that there must be enormous
CNS photo by Mimi Forsyth
good will and generous giving by
everyone involved, including in-laws and
friends.
I strongly recommended that Karen
and Fred attend the Venice workshop.
They did and later Karen told me that
it was “down-to-earth, not preachy and
spiritually supportive.”
Karen added that following the
workshop they were better able to talk
about everything, especially the kids.
In the Detroit Archdiocese, married
couples can benefit from a program in
which several parishes act as a catalyst
in making counseling services available
to parishioners through an independent
group of counselors and psychiatrists.
Though not part of the diocesan struc
ture, the group works side by side with
diocesan programs.
Parishes place notices about the
counseling service in the parish paper,
make referrals and provide space for the
meetings with counselors. In some cases
the parish supplements the fee paid by
the couple or individual.
In the program, dedicated lay persons
work in close collaboration with priests
and pastoral staffs so that professional
guidance and the compassion of the
church can be made available to help
couples grow in healthy, loving, Chris
tian relationships.
(Mrs. Hughes is a religious educator
and free-lance writer.)
FURTHER NOURISHMENT
Marriage — biblical style
By Father John Castelot
Catholic News Service
When couples were married in biblical
times they were not simply cut adrift to
make it on their own. They remained an
intimate part of two close-knit
communities.
The first community was their blood
relatives, usually a considerably
extended family. This family celebrated
the wedding with them and the
festivities drew all involved closer
together. The newlyweds were
surrounded by people with a personal
stake in their happiness and who
provided ongoing support.
Often enough these same people
formed part of a still more extended
family, the Christian community. Here
too the couple found love and support
to sustain them through married life.
This life, with its increasing respon
sibilities, its ups and downs, its
inevitable tensions and misunder
standings, was never consistently
smooth. But there was always a
shoulder to cry on, a wiser and more
experienced head to offer sage advice,
to smooth out the bumps.
There were, however, some people in
Corinth who got carried away in their
spirituality and proclaimed that marital
relations were wrong. They insisted that
“it is a good thing for a man not to
touch a woman.”
The clear implication was that it was
a bad thing to do. St. Paul disabuses
them of this view, assuring couples that
they have a positive right and duty to
give physical expression to their love.
In the process he brings out the
delicate mutuality of married love: They
have given themselves to each other. He
writes, “Do not deprive each other,
except perhaps by mutual consent for
a time” (1 Corinthians 7:5).
It was open season on marriage in
those days. There was a growing
philosophical movement which insisted
on the exclusive goodness of the
spiritual and the evil of the material, the
physical. By the time the first New
Testament letter of Timothy was
written, advocates of this view posed a
serious threat and the author resists it.
Once again the community, through
an accredited teacher, rushed to the
support of married couples, assuring
them that their relationship not only
was not evil, but positively good.
In 1 Timothy 4:3-4, the author gives
this strong assurance: “For everything
created by God is good and nothing is
to be rejected when received with
thanksgiving.”
Every age has known people who
make it uncomfortable for married
couples, either by smearing the institu
tion of marriage or trivializing it and not
taking it seriously. And in every age
couples have found support in their
faith-enlightened communities.
They have the comfort of knowing
that they are not alone in their efforts
to find happiness in each other. Then-
extended family is there to help.
(Father Castelot is a biblical scholar
and free-lance writer.)
■ Family Spirituality is a 25-minute
video by Dr. Kathleen Chesto on
parenting. She shows parents,
through examples from her own
family, how to recognize the
spirituality they practice as they go
about the ordinary tasks of family life.
Parents teach children about God,
for instance, every time they pick up
a crying child. And the lesson they
teach is about God’s providence,
that there is Someone who listens
and answers when we call out.
(Twenty-Third Publications, Box 180,
Mystic, Conn. 06355. $39.95.)
Faith Alive! is published by Catholic News Service, 3211
Fourth St. N.E., Washington, D.C. 20017-1100. All
contents copyright © 1990 by Catholic News Service.