A 2006 Easter Greeting: Finding God in Marriage

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A 2006 Easter Greeting: Finding God in Marriage

On my recent travels around the country and even beyond I have spoken particularly about marriage to groups and to couples and parish personnel. The slogan “The Church exists to evangelise” is being busily employed and we look at evangelization as Good News, and so in our case the Good News of marriage and family life. It is very sad that too often marriage is not considered the good news it should and could be. The booklet Marriage and the Paschal Mystery in providing reflection and sharing material recognizes the difficult Good Friday times but emphasizes there is potential for Resurrection moments too.
Reflecting with a group of widows using Stations of the Cross for Widowed People also brought out these dimensions of the Good Friday experience and the hoped for joy of the Resurrection. Of concern is the unmarried or the pre-married who have so little conception of what marriage is or could be.
Forty years ago Gaudium et Spes reminded us of the ancient concept of the family as the domestic church – an intimate community of life and love. Marriage, its ideal foundation, is their way of holiness for couples. Twenty-five years ago John Paul II defined the family and outlined the tasks of the domestic church in Familiaris Consortio. Among the tasks the first is to become and form such an intimate community. The task of the wider community is to assist couples and families in doing so.
Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical Deus est Gloria also speaks of the importance of marriage as a witness to selves and others.
How is marriage being supported? How are couples enabled to move from the Good Friday to the Easter Sunday times? There are some programmes and movements and counseling resources within the Church and beyond. However, parish family ministry to the whole community, not to isolated couples and families, is our vision. This includes inviting on board other movements that are not specifically family-focused, Alpha, Life in the Spirit seminars, Women of St Anne and members of the Sacred Heart and other sodalities, Catholic Women’s League or Association, Knights of Da Gama etc.
There is an urgency about this form of evangelization. The United Nations 15th May International Family Day theme for this year is “Changing Families: Challenges and Opportunities.” Speaking to teachers, priests and bishops and many lay people too, we recognize that family life has changed quite drastically in recent times and is still changing. Some of us need to be the political arena lobbying for marriage and family to be protected. Some will be in church praying and serving. Others of us will be in the marketplace selling the idea that marriage still works, is still a deeply enriching way of life, is still a way of holiness for couples who can experience God’s love there.
“Marriage and Family, a Tower of Strength” is the Family Life Desk theme for 2006 and “God in Marriage” for April. Marriage is a sign of God’s love for all, those who are married, those who may marry and those who will never marry. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, “Marriage based on an exclusive and definitive love becomes the icon of the relationship between God and his people and vice versa. God’s way of loving becomes the measure of human love.” Deus est Caritas 11
May all couples, especially, experience God’s love in this way this Easter and be a sign of Resurrection joy to others.
Toni Rowland

MARFAM NEWS

The reflection and sharing booklet Marriage and The Paschal Mystery containing reflections that tie into the April theme of God and Marriage is still available. (R8 bulk, R10 plus postage for singles) Now also available is No 2 Marriage and Family Living magazine. (R7,50) It contains a Children’s Easter story and articles and reflections on the themes for the months April – June. May’s theme is marriage and motherhood, and June’s marriage and fatherhood. One article will be published on our website each month. For April let’s proclaim that we are “Resurrection People.”
A simple format for Stations of the Cross for Families can also be obtained from us. Cost R4,00 for English, R2,00 for Zulu and Sotho versions. Postage to be added.

SACBC FAMILY LIFE DESK NEWS

Firstly advance notice of 8th October as MARRIAGE DAY, as approved by the SA bishops at their plenary meeting in January. The readings of the 27th Sunday of Year B are particularly appropriate and the readings from week 21 to 27 will be used during a time of preparation. All dioceses, parishes, movements and sodalities are asked to promote this opportunity to focus on marriage.
We recognize that in our parishes there are many couples and even in sodalities there are couples not married in the eyes of the Church, living together, some married according to traditional custom. Now is the time to invite them to look into their hearts and into their relationship and offer a preparation programme for them to rectify the situation. Why not make 8th October a true Marriage Day with an expression of commitment, renewal of commitment, a promotion of this most common vocation and a celebration of marriage with the whole community. See www.marfam.org over the next few months for information and resources. And for the record widowed and divorced people, i.e. Marriage and Loss, will be the focus in November.

MANUAL FOR PARISH FAMILY MINISTRY
A project now in hand is preparation of a manual that will assist dioceses and especially parishes to provide ongoing care for parish families. Part of the manual will be in workshop format, as formation for those involved in the ministry, and the balance will consist of resource material that can be used in parishes.
Our view of Parish Family Ministry is a three level approach.
1. Being an information resource, couple, individual or team, to explore and promote available resources.
2. Sitting as Pastoral Council members to lobby for and promote a family focus and the family apostolate.
3. Animators running specific projects possibly in conjunction with other movements or groups.
Parish Family Ministers can be but need not be professionals such as social workers or teachers. The essential element on parish level is development of a greater family focus. Providing services such as marriage or family counseling are a part, albeit a very important a part, of the overall ministry to families. Ideas for this manual have been gleaned from other parish projects such as that in Omaha US. JOHANNESBURG NOTICE: meeting for Parish Family Ministers 8th April 1, 2006

WORLD MEETING OF FAMILIES, VALENCIA, SPAIN, JULY 2006.

Plans are gathering momentum for this event for the three delegates from SA so far, a couple running the Oudtshoorn Family Life ministry and myself. Our team plans to hold an exhibit around the African Synod image of CHURCH AS FAMILY – FAMILY AS CHURCH too and we are grateful for financial support received that has helped make all this possible.. At the Congress the issues facing families will be discussed but the sense of solidarity and mutual support at the event as a whole will no doubt give us a great boost to continue the work of strengthening family relationships. For information about the meeting, a prayer for the success of the meeting and the catechesis prepared especially for families by the Pontifical Council for the Family visit www.wmf2006.org. I would be interested to hear from others in other countries, especially African countries who are planning to attend so that we can connect with one another and possibly set up a network. Hopefully some others from South Africa will still decide to join us at what promises to be an exciting and enriching occasion

OTHER NEWS AND SNIPPETS

THE SALESIAN FAMILY OF THE JOHANNESBURG REGION CELEBRATE FAMILY LIFE. Easter Monday in South Africa is Family Day and as family life is a focal point for their ministry for the year the Salesian family invites all types of families of all ages to participate in a special Family Day programme at the Bosco Youth Pastoral Centre. Contact 011 949 2360 for details.

CATHOLIC ENGAGED ENCOUNTER, SOUTHERN AFRICA is 25 years old. Having experienced a weekend in Los Angeles, USA in 1980 Chris and Toni Rowland were given permission to bring the programme back to Johannesburg in South Africa. Since 1981 some 250 weekends have been presented in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town which adds up to about 5000 couples prepared for marriage in this way. Both the engaged couples and those married couples and priests who have ministered and shared their own stories have been enriched and grown in their own understanding of marriage. Sadly though, not all have lasted we know.

NEW WEBSITE FOR the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference. Visit www.sacbc.org.za for an overview of the Church in Southern Africa.

RADIO VERITAS has gone live on 92.7fm for the month of April in the Johannesburg area and in addition to the broadcast on DSTV Channel 71 will be broadcasting too on Radio 2000 from 10am – 1pm on Sundays from 9th April. Through this it is hoped to attract 300 000 listeners. Are you one of them? Visit www.radioveritas.co.za for full programme details. The programme FAMILY MATTERS, hosted by me, Toni, will move from 11am-12 noon on Sundays to 9 -10 am.

CHANGING FAMILIES: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
As mentioned above the UN theme for International Family Day May 15th is Changing Families: Challenges and Opportunities. One of the most important changes is the decrease in marriages and families based on marriage.
A two-part interview published by Zenit (ZE06032121) explores the importance of understanding the meaning of marriage and the necessity for institutional support for marriage.
Some extracts:
Robert P. George is co-editor with Jean Bethke Elshtain of a collection of essays, "The Meaning of Marriage: Family, State, Market and Morals" (Spence). The essays demonstrate the public importance of marriage and our ability as rational people to grasp the meaning, value and significance of marriage even when we do not invoke or appeal to special revelation or religious tradition.
Various essays address social issues such as fatherlessness, cohabitation, divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing in addition to the current highly-debated topic of same-sex marriages.
A conference was held to explore the subject of marriage before the essays were published. Conclusions were that: a) marriage matters; b) marriage is in crisis; and c) we could be facing the virtual abolition of marriage if we go down the road of same-sex "marriage."
An important finding is that the value of marriage is not merely instrumental. Marriage is a basic human good - an irreducible aspect of the well-being and fulfillment of a man and woman who unite themselves to each other as spouses in a permanent and exclusive union of sexually complementary spouses whose comprehensive, loving and faithful sharing of life is founded upon their "one-flesh" bodily unity. Marriage is the kind of good that can be participated in fully only by those who, however informally, understand it properly. Its capacity to enrich our lives as spouses -- and, where the marriage is blessed with children, as parents -- is significantly dependent on our understanding it and grasping its more-than-merely-instrumental value.
There is a need for the state to intervene to preserve marriage because of a) the importance of marriages, and thus marriage is to be considered as an institution, for the well-being of society and the state; and b) the vulnerability of marriage as an institution to social pathologies and to ideologies hostile to marriage that weaken the institution's immunities to these pathologies.
The most powerful and basic reason for the public's interest in marriage and its institutional health is its unique suitability for protecting children and rearing them to be upright people and responsible citizens.
Marriage is the kind of good that can be chosen and meaningfully participated in only by people who have a sound basic understanding of it and choose it with that understanding in mind; yet people's ability to understand it, and thus to choose it, depends crucially on institutions and cultural understandings that both transcend individual choice and are constituted by a vast number of individual choices. from ZE06032121

MARITAL SPIRITUALITY. This field of spirituality is not a common or well-known one. Do a google search on this subject and interestingly the Marfam website comes up first. Another resource is www.intams.org the International Academy for Marital Spirituality in Belgium. INTAMS has created a chair for the Study of Marriage and Spirituality at the Catholic University of Leuven, produces INTAMS Review a journal of scholarly research and also conducts research in this area.
Of course movements such as Marriage Encounter, Retrouvaille and Teams of our Lady promote a marital spirituality too.

Zenit advises “CHILDREN'S BIBLE ONLINE IN 20 LANGUAGES”
KOENIGSTEIN, Germany, MARCH 23, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The text of the children's Bible "God Speaks to His Children" is now available online, including in Arabic, Turkish and Chinese. This children's Bible, produced for youngsters worldwide, is the most ambitious project of the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. The Fides news agency reported that the text of this Bible is now available to Internet surfers in 20 languages, thanks to the collaboration of the German Catholic Liturgical Institute. To read it, click on www.kirche-in-not.de/kinderbibel.

See www.icon.co.za/~host/helpers/Sample.htm#7 Feb 2006 Catholic Ethos Newletter “Network” for a very helpful collection of extracts on the subject “Marriage – according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”

The Rape trial of former deputy president Jacob Zuma has provided the people of this country, at least, with serious moral dilemmas, something almost impossible for the churches to take on. He has been the man for the people and his support is still very strong but City Press, a people’s paper, on 18th March wrote, “For Zuma's sexual exploits to become the subject of a national debate is very bad. This country has immense problems in dealing with poverty and other challenges (such as HIV/AIDS) It needs a leader who inspires confidence, not one whose moral fibre crumbles in the face of a kanga.”

COUPLES FOR CHRIST is in its 25th year and will be celebrating in great style in the Philippines in June. Visit www.cfcglobal.org.ph to read more.

The Smartmarriages www.smartmarriages.com annual conference will be held in June in Atlanta USA. The website gives details and provides a great range of valuable articles and links on all aspects of marriage.

Catholic Information Service for Africa (CISA) cisa@wananchi.com provides Catholic news of interest to the Church in Africa.

TAILPIECE

As it seems to be so difficult to find a “good” joke about marriage I attempted a limerick. Your
contributions of limericks will be greatly welcomed too to share in future issues of Family Matters.

Who said women are from Venus and men from Mars?
“There once was a woman from Mars
Who rather than kids liked fast cars.
Now her man, he from Venus,
Said, “Honey, my plea is,
Who will care for old fogies, our kids or our cars?”
TR

Contact Marfam

Tel: +27 11 789 5449
Fax: +27 11 789 5449
Email: info@marfam.org.za
Web:
www.marfam.org.za

Contact Marfam

Tel: +27 11 789 5449
Fax: +27 11 789 5449
Email: info@marfam.org.za
Web:
www.marfam.org.za