By Suzanne Haugh, Staff Writer

ATLANTA—Twenty-five years ago, Angel and Jack Labate had shrugged off the notion that any major change in their relationship would come from the Marriage Encounter weekend they were driving to attend at a hotel in their home state of Massachusetts.

Life was relatively good: Jack worked hard at his job and Angel concentrated on raising their three boys. And while they shared the same values and agreed on the direction their lives were heading, both had sought ways to breach the loneliness they sometimes felt.

“Nothing lasted,” Angel said. They had heard about Marriage Encounter, a weekend retreat through which couples seek to improve communication and are introduced to techniques that keep the airways open. Angel and Jack finally decided to go on the weekend retreat, taking with them their swimming suits and low expectations for what could be accomplished in such a short time.

Jack described what happened to them on the weekend as a “miracle.” Angel added, “We were like two trains traveling on two railroad tracks going in the same direction, but not well connected. After the weekend, we were like a monorail.”

Having moved to Atlanta in 1990, the Labates continued to serve as a presenting couple on Marriage Encounter weekends. The Labates and others involved with Marriage Encounter celebrated its 25th anniversary in the Atlanta area on Oct. 20 with a Mass at the Cathedral of Christ the King celebrated by Archbishop John F. Donoghue. Msgr. Henry Gracz, pastor of St. James the Apostle Church in McDonough, Father Leo Cummings, MS, parochial vicar at the Church of St. Ann in Marietta, and Deacon Whitney Robichaux joined the archbishop on the altar. The music ministry of St. John Neumann Church, Lilburn, provided music for the celebration, which was organized by Bob and Mary Ann Shomaker.

In his homily, Father Cummings spoke on the power of a common dream of blissful marriage shared by many men or women when courting their future spouse. But eventually everyone can begin to feel the loneliness that comes with being “old marrieds” once they have professed their vows in the sacrament of marriage.

“Can you remember when the thing you loved most about him/her became the biggest irritant?” he mused.

Then Father Cummings described the dream of Tom and Mary Schwert when they moved to Atlanta and organized the first Marriage Encounter weekend in June 1975.

“Others had noticed the dream, too, and another dream was beginning. A dream of couples very much in love and growing ever more deeply in love. Through the renewal of their own relationship, they dreamed of renewing the lived sacrament of matrimony.”

God made a covenant with his people and described his love for his children in terms of marriage, Father Cummings said. “The more the couple loved one another unconditionally, the more they forgave and healed, the more they showed the image of God to our world.”

Father Cummings added that the couple is also called to live their married life “as God lives with us, his people.”

Addressing those present, he recognized the trust, forgiveness, healing and unconditional love he has witnessed among couples involved in Marriage Encounter.

“Are we going to keep it to ourselves or are we going to once again reach out to and invite others? We have a dream. We have enthusiasm. We have fire. We have to share it with others,” he said.

He closed his homily with words from a song, “Find Us Faithful,” by Steve Green that has somewhat become Marriage Encounter’s theme. “... After all our hopes and dreams have come and gone and our children sift through all we’ve left behind, may the clues that they discover and the memories they uncover become the light that leads them to the road we each must find.”

Father Cummings’ hope was that the children of couples present, in seeing the time, energy and money spent as active members of the church, live enthusiastically themselves “their sacrament of matrimony or their sacrament of Holy Orders or witness of the Gospel through Religious life.”

Before concluding the Mass, Archbishop Donoghue addressed the congregation, first thanking Father Cummings, Msgr. Gracz and all priests involved in this apostolate for working “to uphold the dignity and sanctity of marriage.”

He exhorted those present to speak to other priests who might become involved in Marriage Encounter and then quoted the Catechism of the Catholic Church which teaches on the “profound simplicity” of married life.

“It can seem difficult, even impossible, to bind oneself to another human being. This makes it all the more important to proclaim the Good News that God loves us with a definitive and irrevocable love, that married couples share in this love, that it supports and sustains them, and that by their own faithfulness they can be witnesses to God’s faithful love” (1648).

He thanked the laity present, now “renewed and re-committed to the holiness of marriage, and to the holiness which married life reveals...”

A reception followed the final blessing and closing song. Nestor and Amy Rodriguez, parishioners at St. Lawrence Church in Lawrenceville, were one of 24 couples who helped to organize and also attended the Marriage Encounter weekend for Spanish-speaking couples in October. It was their second Marriage Encounter weekend. Amy Rodriguez pointed out the need to bring Marriage Encounter to Hispanics who are “everywhere,” she said. “The most important thing is to contact priests.”

Nestor Rodriguez reaffirmed the ministry’s effect on their marriage. “There is a feeling behind every action. The greatest thing about Marriage Encounter is that I get to know, by sharing our feelings, who is inside, how the other person thinks. We really hope to put it into our way of life.”