Radiate Love: Celebrating Marriage and Family
National Marriage Week is Feb. 7-14 and World Marriage Day is Sunday, Feb. 11. Both observances are an opportunity to focus on building a culture of life and love that begins with supporting and promoting marriage and the family.
What is the Catholic perspective on marriage? In the Catholic Church, marriage between two baptized persons is one of the 7 sacraments instituted by Christ. Marriage is a gift bestowed by God, the Creator, from the creation of the human race and includes the wondrous gift of co-creating human life. Thus, marriage is the foundation of the family.
This is a description of sacramental marriage from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: "In a sacramental marriage, God’s love becomes present to the spouses in their total union and also flows through them to their family and community.” The USCCB theme for National Marriage Week 2024 is “Love Beyond Words.”
"For Your Marriage" (https://www.foryourmarriage.org) is a website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ National Pastoral Initiative for Marriage, which highlights the meaning and value of married life for the Church and for society. The website helps couples at all stages of life to understand and live God’s plan for happy, holy marriages by providing educational and spiritual resources. Two resources are listed here:
· The core value of Worldwide Marriage Encounter, www.wwme.org, is the belief that marriage is a sacrament we live every day. "Even when a marriage is going smoothly, there are always opportunities to make it work better. The Marriage Encounter experience is a skill-building enrichment where together, you can learn to be the best, most loving and thriving couple you can be."
· Retrouvaille, https://helpourmarriage.org/, is a Christian marriage program and is Catholic in origin. The ultimate goal of Retrouvaille is solely to help save marriages. Tens of thousands of marriages have been restored with the simple concept of couples helping couples with the spiritual guidance from caring clergy members. "We believe that every marriage, a union of one man and one woman, deserves the opportunity to survive, be healed and thrive as a covenant of life and love. Retrouvaille is the place where we, as hurting couples, found hope…”
The California Catholic Conference of Bishops is dedicating the 2024-2025 pastoral year to deepen our appreciation of the Sacrament of Marriage as modeled on the irrevocable covenantal love of God for his people expressed in the Eucharist.
The California Catholic Conference is calling on the Catholic Church in California, through their initiative “Radiate Love,” https://cacatholic.org/radiatelove/, to illuminate and proclaim the goodness of marriage and family and to demonstrate to the world, by word and witness, why the Vocation of marriage is unique and beautiful.
Beginning on World Marriage Day, Feb. 11, 2024, the Bishops invite all Catholic communities in California to participate in the Radiate Love initiative, for couples to invest in their relationships and let that love radiate out to their family and to the world. They will make resources available to parish communities throughout the year.
As part of this initiative, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is hosting a World Marriage Day Celebration at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on Sunday, Feb. 11, at their 10:00 am and 12:30 pm Masses.
Prayer for Married Couples
Almighty and eternal God,
You blessed the union of married couples
so that they might reflect the union of Christ with his Church:
look with kindness on them.
Renew their marriage covenant,
increase your love in them,
and strengthen their bond of peace
so that, with their children,
they may always rejoice in the gift of your blessing.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
~St. Luke Life, Justice and Peace Ministry
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