Letter to clergy...from Family Life Office

[Adapt as needed!]

Letter to Pastors from the Family Life Office of the Diocese

The Office of Marriage & Family Life is available to assist Pastors with the project of setting up the kind of marriage preparation that Pope Francis called for in "Amoris Laetitia" and now in "Catechumenal Pathways for Married Life". Making use of the Sponsor Couple ™ process to accompany those preparing for marriage is already being done in our diocese. It is a ministry that is easy to implement and maintain, with minimal cost ($50 for a set of 2 workbooks) and relies on sponsor couple volunteers of your parish who can be trained on Zoom and at no cost to your parish. The program used is For Better & Forever ™ which addresses all important topics including: family of origin, communication, sexuality, family life, fertility awareness, finance, and more. A short introductory video can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/344916184

This ministry provides each engaged couple the unique opportunity to meet one-on-one (even virtually due to COVID-19 or in different cities) over several Sponsor Couple ™ sessions with a couple trained to do this miunistry These sessions establish a bond of spiritual friendship and guidance which serves to assist the newly married couples into parish life beyond their marriage prep experience. To learn more about starting this ministry in your parish, contact the Family Life Office of our diocese (phone _______ ). You can also set up a Zoom Training with Fr. Rob Ruhnke, national director of For Better & For Ever ™, at 210-557-3660. More information can be found on this website: https://marriagepreparation.com/.

Fr. Rob also recommends the following documents on his website.

Key links: Including updates because of Covid-19.