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Rob Notes for Joined & Sealed

Joined by the Church, Sealed by a Blessing (Diana Macalintal & Nick Wagner)

Personal notes by Rob Ruhnke   10-8-2014 (I hope these notes will encourage you to buy their book!)

p. 1 – “Stop preparing for Marriage; Start preparing for Discipleship…..

p. 4 – Focus NOT on the wedding ceremony, but on CONVERSION (CHANGE)…i.e. learning to die to self for sake of spouse and children (as Jesus showed us how to live and die and rise to fuller life with God and all….and do this joyfully!  (Sherry Weddell calls this becoming an Intentional Disciple).

But, for this to happen, conversion needs to start with the PARISH (all of us) rather than with the engaged couples.  So we start by looking at the quality of our vocational commitments.  How do we witness marriage and priesthood and religious life and Christian single living?

p. 5 – Successful conversion model for marriage preparation could be based on RCIA:

  1. Evangelization (become Intentional Disciples….see 5 Questions on pages 85-87.)
  2. Formation.  Learning the “skills” of Christian marriage which would include reflecting on the Word of God, immersing themselves into the live and mission of the community, prayer and worship within the community and at home…….with the assistance of a sponsor couple as a peer learner using For Better & For Ever.
  3. Spiritual preparation.  In the final weeks prior to the wedding there could be a more intensive (maybe weekend) experience that would focus on spiritual disciplines as they move toward the VOCATION of Christian marriage.
  4. Mystagogical reflection.  This would be experiences of follow-up beyond the wedding by sponsor couples and other parish events for newly married….and focus on how their marriage vocation is being lived in the real world beyond the wedding ceremony.  Helping them make sense of living as Disciples….serving one another and the engaged in the mission of the church.

p. 7 – Rethink your TEAM……not just wedding coordinator and sponsor couples…..but:

p. 11 – Why is Conversion important?

To improve your marriage preparation process and get your couples married….what if we said that getting married is not the point…..rather the most important point of marriage preparation is that it’s all about conversion to Christ.  If is easy to see if we say it this way: When you are dealing with a couple who are Intentional Disciples of Jesus, it is easy to help them prepare for the vocation of marriage and family life because they already have an intimate relationship with Jesus and know that being a disciple means living and dying for others as Jesus did.  It is relatively easy to help this kind of couple apply the disciplines of discipleship to their relationship with one another (it is all about serving the other, dying to self, praying together with Jesus, and confidence that it is worth spending one’s life helping build the Kingdom of God here and ultimately living with God and others in the Kingdom of God).

P.20 – What are we converting to?   If they have a relationship with Jesus, they know from experience that they have a commitment to follow Jesus lifestyle that leads to the Cross (there is no short cut to resurrection without death!)….and this “dying to self” is part of the process of learning that “commitment” is a daily process of dealing with the good times and hard times of relationship.

Most couples have the idea that if they have a really good relationship, then marriage will be easy.  But marriage is always an adventure of coming to terms with the differences of one another that cost the luxury of assuming that one is the center of the universe.  ……. See the story about Amy and Spenser on pages 21 – 23.

p. 23 – As catechists / teachers / staff persons.  Marriage preparation is taking place long before a couple inquires about getting married in the church.  You are doing marriage preparation whenever YOU grow in your relationship with individuals in the parish….and whenever you speak about commitment, vocation, forgiveness and sacrifice….and even more importantly when you LIVE out these realities in your own life.

p. 65 +……

“I see clearly . . . that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful . . . You have to heal [their] wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. . . The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the church must be ministers of mercy above all. . . .Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. .”   Pope Francis in La Civilta Cattolica, August 2014

Instead of being just a church that welcomes and receives by keeping the doors open, let us try also to be a church that finds new roads, that is able to step outside itself and go to those who do not attend Mass, to those who have quit or are indifferent.

How, then, can we help one another, as well as our engaged couples, have the audacity and courage to go outside of their usual circles to heal wounds and give that first proclamation? Here are some ideas for you and your parish leaders:

• Make hospitality everyone’s responsibility. Don't just leave it up to a small team of people.

• Make hospitality less about coffee and more about conversations. Food is good, but the people are the most important part of hospitality.

• Give parish leaders a witness challenge:

• Meet at least two new people at Mass every Sunday.

• Talk about your personal relationship with Jesus to at least one person each week.

• Talk positively about the parish, something you are doing at church, some Christian practice you are exercising, or something about the pope or the worldwide church to someone you don’t usually talk to about those things.

• Take one risk each week to heal another person’s wounds.

• Review the parish’s budget and the stewardship of our own resources. Is sacrifice and service to those in need integral to the preparation of the budget?

Here are some ideas to do with your engaged couples:

• Ask couples to participate in one of the parish’s service ministries. Provide opportunities for reflection with other couples on their experiences afterward.

• Ask couples to reflect on why celebrating their wedding in the Christian community is important. Note any deepening in their understanding of their vocation. Ask them to share their responses with the wider parish community, either as a written reflection in the bulletin or a “witness talk” at Sunday Mass or another parish gathering.

• Invite your couples to take on the same witness challenge given above to the parish leaders.

• Ask your couples to discern a few creative ways they could use their wedding preparation and celebration as opportunities to heal wounds, for example:

• Reconcile with a family member who has been estranged from their lives.

• Make a sacrifice in their plans, and use the extra money, resource, or time to help others in need. For example, purchase fewer flowers or different, less expensive flowers, and donate the money saved to a local charity. Or spend part of their honeymoon learning about the economic struggles of those who are poor in the place they are visiting, and make a commitment to help in some way.

• Invite guests to get involved in a charitable event or organization that is important to the couple.

• During the wedding liturgy, include intercessions for those in need.

• If they are celebrating their wedding within a Mass, con-sider inviting the couple to take up a collection (of money or goods) for a particular cause that alleviates the suffering of those in need. As the collection basket is brought forward, the couple also places their offering into the basket.

• In their discussion about financial practices, encourage them to reflect on how developing a household budget is a moral act.

p. – 76 & 77. Highlight Marriage as a Vocation

When most people think of vocations, they think immediately of ordained or religious life. However, since Vatican II, the church has taught that married life is itself a vocation that is “held in high esteem” (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, 49). In particular, it is a vocation of evangelization that is “accomplished in the ordinary circumstances of the world” in which husbands and wives are “witnesses of their faith and love of Christ to each other and to their children” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 35).

 

Marriage as a Vocation in the Church

“The unity of marriage, confirmed by our Lord, is clearly apparent in the equal personal dignity which is accorded to [husband] and wife in mutual and unreserved affection. Outstanding virtue is required for the constant fulfillment of the duties of this Christian calling. Married couples, therefore, strengthened by grace for leading a holy life, will perseveringly practice and will pray for a love that is firm, generous, and ready for sacrifice” (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, 49).

“Widowhood, accepted courageously as a continuation of the calling to marriage, will be honored by all” (ibid., 48).

“Let married people themselves, who are created in the image of the living God and constituted in an authentic personal dignity, be united together in equal affection, agreement of mind and mutual holiness. Thus, in the footsteps of Christ, the principle of life, they will bear witness by their faithful love in the joys and sacrifices of their calling, to that mystery of love which the Lord revealed to the world by his death and resurrection” (ibid., 52).

“According to their own vocation, those who live in the marital state are bound by a special duty to work through marriage and the family to build up the people of God” (Code of Canon Law, Latin-English Edition, New English Translation [Washington, DC: Canon Law Society of America, 1999], c. 226 §1).

Whenever your parish speaks of vocations to the religious life and holy orders, include marriage as one of the vocations in which Christians live out their call to holiness. If you have posters showing your diocese’s seminarians or others preparing for religious life, consider adding alongside photos of your parish’s engaged couples preparing for marriage, encouraging your parishioners to pray for both groups.

As you continue to lift up marriage as a holy “order,” you can begin to plant the seeds of vocation to all the orders of the church in your young people and show that all the orders are necessary, sacred, and holy.

p. 84 + First interviews with a couple preparing for marriage…..(this would be done BEFORE the couple is given a sponsor couple.)  Couples will find it easier to deal with questions 1 through 3 and struggle with 4 & 5.  But that is OK…they can keep those questions for when they are working through For Better & For Ever (note  Chapter 20 – Pre-marital Covenant, and Appendix E – Our Support Plan for the 1st six months of marriage).

Starter questions….

1 - Where Have I Been?

2 - Where Am I Now?

3 - Where Do I Want to Get To?

4 - How Am I Going to Get There?

5.            How Will I Know That I Have Arrived?

p. 96 – 109.  Sponsor Couples.  This section is rich in content.  Note, however that the definition of “sponsor couple” in this book is not exactly the same as the definition of those trained to use For Better & For Ever.  This is not a negative criticism of Macalintal & Wagner, it is just to make it clear that they likely have no experience of the “heavy lifting” that can be done by “sponsor couples” trained to use For Better & For Ever.

Twenty Places to Find Sponsor Couples (See p. 102)

To be a sponsor couple is to make a big commitment. But believe it or not, there are many people in your parish who are looking to make a big commitment. Sometimes we undersell the commitment people have to make. All that does is say to the volunteer, “I’m not really going to ask very much of you because I don’t think you’d really want to do this anyway.” Try the opposite. Emphasize the important contribution the sponsor couple must make to the lives of the engaged couple and how essential it is to the gospel mission that couples like them make a sacrifice for the sake of the faith. Also, ask the people who are likely to say yes. Here’s a list of twenty kinds of couples to ask to be sponsors:

1.            Couples who have gone through the RCIA process

2.            Couples who were married in your parish five or more years ago

3.            The parents of newlyweds

4.            The parents of an adult or older child who was recently baptized

5.            The parents of the children who have celebrated First Communion within the last five years

6.            The parents of teens who were confirmed within the last five years

7.            The president of the parish council and his or her spouse (ask six months before the term expires)

8.            A Catholic schoolteacher and his or her spouse

9.            A newly retired couple

10.          The chairperson of last year’s banquet committee and his or her spouse

11.          All the Communion ministers and their spouses

12.          All the lectors and their spouses

13.          All the ushers and their spouses

14.          All the choir members and their spouses

15.          The parish’s top ten financial contributors and their spouses

16.          All the grandparents of the babies who were recently baptized in your parish

17.          All those in the parish who have divorced and remarried

18.          The Knights of Columbus and their spouses

19.          Anyone who has participated in Cursillo, Acts, Renew, Alpha, or another faith-sharing process

20.          Anyone who has been an RCIA sponsor and his or her spouse

Mystagogical Reflection  (Follow-up beyond the wedding by the sponsor couple)

What makes this apprenticeship process into a formation process for discipleship in Christian marriage is mystagogy. Mystagogy is another concept that comes from the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. Many of us immediately think of the fifty days of the Easter season, which is identified in the RCIA as the period of mystagogy and postbaptismal catechesis. However, mystagogy is not just a single time frame in the RCIA. Mystagogy is a method of reflecting on and acting on our encounter with the risen Christ.

Therefore, you don’t have to wait until after the wedding day to engage in mystagogical reflection with your couples. Inviting your couples to do this kind of reflective thinking and sharing throughout their entire preparation will help them see more clearly God’s presence in their daily lives. And when they see that more and more, they will have the hope they will need to be faithful to God and their spouse even in those times when God might feel very absent in their daily lives.

p. 137 – Chapter 9: Three Steps to Know If a Couple Is Ready for Marriage

Much of the marriage preparation literature that you’ll find focuses on the psychological readiness of couples to marry. Are they mature enough? Have they discussed the important issues that will arise in their marriage? Are they compatible?

Please find a good preparation resource in this genre and use it in your process. But don’t stop there. The bedrock of a Christian marriage is not psychological readiness. It is sacramental readiness. To understand what this means, let’s turn again to the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.

New RCIA team members are often shocked to discover that part of their responsibility is to help discern the readiness of a catechumen for initiation. They wonder why they can’t just leave that up to the catechumen and the Holy Spirit to decide. The confusion on the part of new RCIA team members arises because they are confusing acceptance with ability. They believe that if they discern that a catechumen is not ready for initiation, they are somehow taking over God’s role, and passing judgment about the catechumen’s worthiness.

If the initiation process were simply a way of determining who God loves, the new team members would be correct. But it’s not. God loves the greatest sinner and the most obvious pagan just as much as God loves St. Francis and Mother Teresa. No one has to gel baptized in order to receive God’s love. That is not what RCIA I teams are discerning.  The RCIA is an apprenticeship process that trains catechumens in how to live a Christian life. And, as we said before, that life is a journey to the cross. It is a constant dying to ourselves. To do that, you need skills. The initiation process is about training catechumens in those skills so that they will be able to live up to their baptismal promises. And the RCIA is very clear about what those skills are. So discernment is not some mysterious revelation that happens in secret consultation with an unseen God. It is a very straightforward, upfront, clear look at each catechumen’s skill level. When a catechumen has reached a minimum level of skill as defined in the RCIA, he or she is ready for initiation.

It should be that way with weddings also. In fact, it is that way when we focus on psychological readiness. We do all kinds of things to couples to make sure they have the psychological skills they need for marriage. But often, we skip over the skills of discipleship they will need for the Christian vocation of marriage.

So where do we find the skills of discipleship needed for Christian marriage? Where do we find the list of skills couples will need in order to make their marriage a sacramental journey?  (see pages 138 – 147 for ideas about this.  Most of this will be deal with by sponsor couples using For Better & For Ever.)

p. 147 Are We Being Too Judgmental?

One thing that gets in the way of a good discernment process is our own fears about being judgmental. We don’t want to be in the position of telling a couple they are not ready for marriage. We don’t want to be responsible for holding them back. For those of us who think that way we need to change our mindset. Think of yourself as a skydiving instructor. If you push novice skydivers out the door of the airplane before they’re ready—or allow them to jump on their own when you know they’re not ready—you are putting them at great risk.

The same is true with marriage. If we ask couples to follow the way of marriage—to live a life of sacrifice modeled on Christ—before they are ready the risk that they will fall away from their commitment is great.

You may not be able to dissuade a couple you discern not to be ready from getting married, but that shouldn’t stop you from sharing your concerns. Also, your concerns should not come out of the blue, as though you went to the mountaintop to receive God’s personal word to you, and now you’ve descended to deliver it.

Discernment should be an ongoing process with you and the couple throughout the entire preparation process. If you have spent some time deeply listening to the couple, you will know what their own goals are for their marriage.

Together, you and the couple will work to align those goals with the sacramental skills for marriage we discussed above. We suggest even writing that down, so you and the couple know what skills they are working toward in the preparation process. (See “Preparing a Personalized Formation Plan for Each Couple” in chapter 5.)  [Rob comment: What are their intimacy skills needed for dealing with differences/conflicts?  Are they committed to full financial co-responsibility and budgeting?  How are they doing with couple prayer and worship together?  How about “forgiveness”?  Have each made a living will and planned his/her funeral?  What do they believe happens when they die?]

And then, on a regular basis (perhaps weekly), you and the couple will discern together how well they are doing on building their skills. A regular, ongoing discernment process is a healthy collaboration between you and the couple that will enable them to be as prepared as possible for their marriage.

p. 192 – 202.  What if we did this?  What would happen?

Goal 1 – For a community of Love.

Goal 2 – Life Giving….

Goal 3 – Promote the greater good – Hospitality / make the world a better place for the “poor”.

Goal 4 – All share in the Life & Mission of the Church:

Prophetic Mission: Faith & evangelization (witness of our lives as Intentional Disciples)

Priestly Mission: Dialogue with God (prayer in private and with partner/family and public worship)

Royal (Kingly) Mission: SERVE others…make our family and neighborhood and world a better place.

 

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