Search
-
November 5, 2024By Annie Mammen, presenter at Worldwide Marriage Encounter"Love one another as I have loved you." John 15:12What is Marriage Encounter? I am sure many people ask this question. This is a weekend experience for good marriages that want to become better. By developing a conference for married couples, Spanish priest Father Gabriel Calvo began Marriage Encounter in 1952. His team couples known as “The Marriage Teams of Pope Pius XII” presented conferences throughout Spain. In 1967, this was presented to a few priests and seven couples of the Christian Family Conference (CFM) at Notre Dame University. The following year, Father Chuck Gallagher attended a weekend in New Jersey and the dream of the Worldwide Marriage Encounter Movement began. (Here is a brief history of the Worldwide Marriage Encounter)Marriage Encounter relies on communities of encountered couples that support and encourage each other. Marriage Encounter is for marriages what continued education is to jobs.On the weekend experience, each presentation builds on the previous one. This is truly a working weekend, and it requires a willingness from both spouses to work on their relationship.My husband, Werner, and I attended our original weekend experience in May of 1996. This is when our lives took a turn for the better, a rejuvenation of our love. We
were invited to attend by some very dear friends, but I was very nervous, thinking it was because they saw something bad in our marriage. We had been married for 20 years when we attended; what could I possibly learn about my husband? Well, it truly brought us back to our early days of marriage and even to our dating times and we also learned how to express ourselves in a safe environment. At that time, I personally realized what a gift our marriage was to both of us and to those around us. Our friends, family, and especially our kids noticed a change in us. On our weekend experience, I thought, “How fun, a weekend alone with my husband. I wonder if we can hang out at the pool or go to the bar and have a drink after dinner.” Little did I know that we were going to go back to the time in our lives when we were so in love and couldn’t get enough time with one another. We learned to talk, to listen, and to love with a new energy and we were given a great tool to help our communication that we could use for the rest of our lives.
The couples share with each other privately and rekindle the time when they were dating or early in their marriages.The weekends in Tucson (in English) are all non-residential, which means couples go home in the evening on Saturday and return to the venue on Sunday morning. Currently we have two weekends scheduled in Tucson and two in Phoenix per year. We are always open to having a parish call us to offer it just for their parishioners.Because of Marriage Encounter and its tools we learned on the weekend we, Werner and I, have been able to deal with issues and concerns and even the death of one of our children without blame, anger, or judgement. NO, this is not going to solve all your problems by attending these weekend experiences, but as my husband says, it softens our hearts to be open to understanding one another. Kind of like tilling the soil before planting a garden.We have been blessed by this ministry and we have been a presenting team for Worldwide Marriage Encounter since 1996. This is a family that God has gathered for us along the way. We have been with couples from con-validations of marriages, births, baptisms, marriages of their children, and even deaths. We know that we can call on our Marriage Encounter Family at any time and they will be there if possible.Marriage Encounter is a lifestyle that we chose, and we are firm believers that good marriages build strong families, which build strong parishes, and strong communities. This is where our vocations come from, we are so happy to believe in a sacramental marriage and live to be an example of the sacrament to all we meet.There are many experiences and ministries for married couples in the Diocese of Tucson:- Worldwide Marriage Encounter – www.wwme.org
- Retrouvaille for struggling couples – www.retrovaille.org
- Marriage Retorno – couples prayer retreat for learning to pray scripture – 520-869-9910.
Keep your marriages alive and vibrant and full of God’s love. Remember to keep God “COOL” or the “Center Of Our Lives!”
