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By Erika Anderson, Staff Writer
ATLANTA—“A wedding is a day. A marriage is a
lifetime.” That’s the motto of Atlanta’s Catholic Engaged
Encounter, a ministry that presents weekend retreats to help couples prepare
for a “lifetime of togetherness.” CEE is one option for couples as
marriage preparation. Other options are pre-Cana classes or the sponsor couple
program.
Jackie Tardy and her husband, John, made their Engaged Encounter
weekend four years ago and now serve on the local board. While engaged, she and
her husband were living in different states and she said the weekend was a
“powerful experience” for them.
“We had the entire weekend to focus on improving our
relationship,” she said. “It was a perfect opportunity for us. You
spend so much time running around getting ready for your wedding. Just imagine
if we took that much time training to be married couples.”
According to Engaged Encounter’s website, a CEE weekend is
“a retreat experience which provides the engaged couple the opportunity to
discuss with each other their future together in the sacrament of matrimony.
The goal is to deepen a couple’s relationship through reflection and
dialogue. Presentations by a team of two married couples and a priest
(stimulate) the couples to reflect on topics such as: self-knowledge,
communication, sexuality and morality, decision-making, sacrament, family and
engagement and betrothal.”
The weekend allows engaged couples to learn from the two
presenting couples, one a senior couple married for over seven years and the
other a junior couple married for less than seven years.
The Tardys, who have a new baby named Jessica, often present
weekends.
“We can talk to the engaged couples about experiencing the
near future, settling down and our experience as new parents,” she said.
“Many of the senior couples are new grandparents. They can talk about
things like relocation and couples can see that they can be in it for the long
haul.”
Couples are encouraged to attend a CEE at least six months before
they are married and, though the weekend is led by a priest and uses Catholic
teachings on the sacrament of matrimony, many couples who make the weekend are
interdenominational.
Bob Foley and his wife of 18 years, Danette, serve as the local
coordinators of CEE. He said that about 50 percent of the couples are
interdenominational or interfaith. The weekend allows engaged couples the
opportunity to discuss aspects of their marriage that they may not have thought
about and for many couples religion may not have been discussed.
“When we came off the weekend we were on cloud nine,”
Foley said. “We spent the whole weekend focusing on each other and it gave
us an environment to talk about relationship aspects that we hadn’t. We
were both 27, we thought we’d talked about everything, but we realized we
hadn’t. It was a big revelation.”
Father Jack Durkin, parochial vicar at St. John Neumann Church,
Lilburn, has led two CEE weekends.
“It’s a nice balance of catechesis and sharing of
experiences, so you have both what the church teaches and the experience of
other couples,” he said.
He said that the weekend presents the truth of the church with
honesty and sensitivity.
“The program is very sensitive to those who are non-Catholic
and who are unbaptized,” he said. “It really emphasizes what is good
and not good for all humans and at the same time puts it into a Christian
context so you understand what you’re marrying into.”
Father Durkin said that it was important for couples to understand
the truth of the church in relation to their marriage.
“It’s essential to know what the church teaches
beforehand so they won’t be surprised later down the road,” he said.
“Often what the church teaches contrasts dramatically to what society says
is OK and you see a lot of hearts moved in a dramatic way throughout the course
of the weekend.”
Volunteers, many of whom, like the Tardys and Foleys, have had
powerful experiences on their own CEE weekends, run the ministry. Foley said
that he and his wife, soon after they were married, started helping as a
“cooking couple,” helping to prepare and serve the meals.
“We just wanted to get involved,” he said. “Our
weekend meant so much to us that we wanted to do whatever we could to make the
weekend happen for other couples.”
Couples all over the country are volunteering in the Engaged
Encounter ministry because of their belief in the sacredness of marriage.
Recently the National Association of Catholic Family Life awarded the ministry
the NACFLM Award for 1999.
In a letter to CEE directors, Sister Kay Ryan, CSJ, president of
NACFLM, writes: “This award is presented to Catholic Engaged Encounter to
acknowledge the number of years that this organization has provided excellent
marriage preparation. Your members have worked tirelessly to provide training,
outlines and resources for this important ministry. Your presence in many
dioceses throughout the United States is a testimony to the impact that you
have had on new families.”
Tardy, a parishioner of the Cathedral of Christ the King, Atlanta,
said that the award is meaningful to those who volunteer in the ministry.
“We’re a total volunteer-based ministry and people have
(less) time to commit to things,” she said. “As new parents, it would
be easy to say ‘let’s be selfish,’ but the award really helps to
reaffirm what you already know in your heart—that what you’re doing
is right.”
Foley, a parishioner of St. Joseph’s Church in Marietta,
agrees that the award is important to the ministry.
“The biggest thing that award did was allow people to see
what we’re doing,” he said. “It shows that others see the value
that this ministry brings to the sacrament of matrimony.”
Many couples who volunteer feel that it also strengthens their
marriages.
“When you are involved in different ministries in your
parish, you typically don’t do them (as a couple),” Tardy said.
“The involvement helps us as a couple to strengthen that marital
bond.”
Foley said that it has helped his marriage as well.
“Leading the weekends does keep us focused on why we got
married to begin with,” he said. “In the last two years it has
deepened our spirituality as well and I never thought that would happen.”
Foley said that he hopes all couples see the benefit of CEE.
“We just want people to know we’re here—that
we’re here to serve them and we’re here to help prepare them,”
he said.
For more information about CEE, call (770) 975-1147 or contact the
ministry’s website at www.geocities.com/atlcee/index.htm. |
