Lafayette, La., Dec 24, 2019 / 06:45 am (CNA).- When Mary Rose Verret first welcomed Douglas and Elizabeth into her home, Douglas’ boots squished with the sewage he worked with, and Elizabeth smelled of french fries from her fast food job. Douglas was also just a few years of out jail.
Burnt out after years of ministry, Mary Rose didn’t think she would have anything in common with this couple, whom her pastor had asked Mary Rose and her husband, Ryan, to mentor through a process to convalidate their marriage in the Church.
“It was a difficult, complex situation that on paper didn’t look like it was going to go well,” Mary Rose recalled. Often, she saw couples like Douglas and Elizabeth disappear from the Church as soon as their marriage was blessed.
But when Douglas opened up about how he found Jesus in prison, and about their desire for a sacramental marriage in the Church, Mary Rose was humbled.
“On my end, working with this couple, I thought I was going to teach and I was going to form, and Ryan and I thought we were going to give everything to them,” she told CNA.
“But when we started listening to them and the husband’s experience of getting to know Jesus at a bible study while he was in jail, and the relationship he had with Jesus, and how he wanted to make things right with God, and how he wanted to have a marriage in the Church and he wanted Jesus to be part of their marriage, it was very humbling…and it really changed the way Ryan and I lived our ministry and lived our faith and lived our marriage,” she said.
The Verrets founded Witness to Love, a Catholic marriage prep renewal ministry, several years ago with the intent to give newly-engaged couples an older mentor couple of their choosing in the Church that could walk with them through marriage preparation and beyond.
Now, they are launching a Witness to Love track specifically for couples who are seeking to have their civil marriages blessed by, or convalidated in, the Catholic Church.
“We saw that with Witness to Love, in the parish where we started this, engaged couples were benefitting so much, but we were seeing couples who were having their marriage blessed who didn’t go through Witness to Love, they met with Father a few times…they were getting divorced quickly, some of them even a month after having their marriage blessed,” she said.
Couples seeking to convalidate their marriage in the Church make up a significant percentage of sacramental marriages in the Church each year – roughly 20 percent, Mary Rose said. In 2017, the total number of sacramental marriages in the U.S. was 144,000 – meaning approximately 28,800 of them were convalidations.
In response to this growing need, the Verrets tweaked their marriage prep program to offer a track specifically fitted to couples seeking convalidations in the Church. They interviewed couples seeking convalidations and looked at best practices throughout the country for bringing them into the Church. Many couples seeking convalidation would do so around the time their children needed sacraments – baptism or communion or confirmation. It was a time they could reconnect with the Church and felt they needed to “get right with God,” Mary Rose said.
But old approaches of bringing these couples into the Church weren’t working – couples would fail to connect with the Church community and drop off, or even divorce, shortly after they received the sacrament. That’s where Mary Rose thought the Witness to Love mentorship model could work.
What’s different?
What sets Witness to Love apart in marriage convalidation preparation “is every other mentor model out there says: the Church is going to choose and train and assign mentor couples to you. You don’t know them, you didn’t pick them, you don’t know how old they are or their background,” she said.
“And we’re telling this to a generation that doesn’t trust the Church, many of whom have been abused, have a pornography addiction, haven’t been to church in 15 or more years. And we’re asking them to talk to complete strangers, who are like uber Catholics, about their faith life and sex life and we wonder why it doesn’t work out.”
The choice in mentor couples provides the “skin in the game” for the marriage prep couple and the room for the Holy Spirit to work, Mary Rose said.
Beyond that, the program is tweaked to match the language that civilly married couples use, and to emphasize how the grace of the sacrament builds on the natural goods of a civil marriage.
“There are two ways of looking at marriage. One is just on the natural level – you’re living together, balancing a checkbook, you have kids, you share groceries – you know, life,” Mary Rose said.
“And there’s a lot of natural goodness there, but there’s also a lot of natural challenges and we have fallen nature. So the grace of the sacrament helps you get through some of those things, love through things, grow through things, work through things, offer things up, pray for your spouse,” she said.
“The reason that we have the grace of the sacrament is that it’s impossible, on a human level, to love completely, totally, freely and fruitfully. It is impossible,” she noted.
“With the grace of the sacrament, you just have to ask God everyday to please help me keep my wedding vows,” she said, which also differ in wording and intent between civil and sacramental marriages.
Often, couples who have convalidated their marriages become the best witnesses of the grace of the sacrament of marriage, Mary Rose noted, because they know what it’s like to live without it.
“When they have their marriage blessed, if they are formed, then it’s a whole different experience, because if they just have one or two quick meetings and then never really understand this grace they receive, they can’t really tap into it.”
Going through the process
Meghan Reily and her husband Brendon were high school sweethearts who met in middle school, dated through college and got married civilly in 2016 – Meghan was Catholic, Brendon was not.
Once Meghan discovered that her marital situation was keeping her from the sacraments, she talked to Brendon about having their marriage blessed in the Church.
“After much discussion and prayer, we decided to go through the process. I think that shows a true testament to Brendon’s character,” Meghan told CNA.
“I could tell that this was something that was important to her and for the Church,” Brendon added, though he admitted to being “a little apprehensive at first.”
“Opening up about your relationship is something that is very personal to me,” he said. “But going through this, I have never felt closer to Meghan than I do now. Same with our mentor couple. I’ve known them for several years, but I feel like they are family now too. They will always be someone who we can call on for anything.”
For their mentor couple, the Reily’s chose a couple that Meghan had known since childhood.
“We were in the same parish and I grew up with their daughter. We became best friends and her family was like a second family to me. Since I was always so close to them, Brendon got to get to know them when we were dating,” Meghan said.
“When asked who to choose as a mentor couple, it was a no-brainer for us. Their love for God and putting Him right at the center of their family is exactly the type of environment we want to have for our family.”
Meghan said the mentorship and the program of Witness to Love brought a “self-awareness” to their marriage that they hadn’t had before. It gave them tools to know and love their spouse better, and to work on virtues together.
“It was both challenging and rewarding. It in a way forced you to have those difficult conversations you don’t necessarily want to have,” she said.
“While we have been civilly married for two years, we are nowhere close to having it all figured out! The workbook provided great tools to give you insight on how you are wired and how your spouse is wired so you can better understand each other and how to handle situations, or discover what things you need to work on that you didn’t think was even an issue,” she added.
Brendon said the program changed their relationship by emphasizing that “it takes three to get married” – the couple and God.
“We are much more open in sharing what’s on our hearts so that we can pray for each other and build each other up,” he said.
Much of the content of Witness to Love is virtue-based. It encourages couples to examine different virtues – love, honor, courage, respect, humility, and so on – and how those virtues can best be lived out in a marriage.
“By learning the virtues, you are growing closer to God and understanding fully how much He loves you and how you need to love your spouse in return, because God loves your spouse that much and He put you together by His grace,” Meghan said. “Doing that, well, that’s what gets you closer to Heaven – knowing how to love and accept someone for all of who they are.”
Meghan and Brendon’s marriage will be blessed in the Church this March. Meghan said she would “absolutely” recommend the Witness to Love mentorship program to other couples in similar situations.
“It’s definitely something I’ll want to reference going forward in our marriage,” she said.
Responding to the needs of the Church
When Bishop Joseph Strickland was first made bishop of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas in 2012, strengthening marriage and family life was one of his top priorities.
“I wanted to really focus on marriage formation because in some ways I think we find ourselves needing to rebuild Christian society, and the stronger the marriages are, the stronger the families will be, the stronger (the faith of) the children will be, and I think that’s where we can begin of a joyful revolution of deeper faith,” Strickland told CNA.
About a year ago, the Diocese of Tyler began using Witness to Love’s marriage prep program – “I liked the solid theology on marriage and the beautiful presentation of what the sacrament of marriage is about for us as Catholics,” Strickland said.
Located in a minority-Catholic area, Strickland said he sees the need for good convalidation formation continuing to grow, as more couples delay marriage, or decide to come back to the Church later in life.
“There are so many couples that need convalidation, and we’re really encouraging and wanting to support those couples,” he said.
Having worked on a marriage tribunal for years, Strickland said what appealed to him about Witness to Love, besides being theologically sound, was that it didn’t feel as “bureaucratic” as some other marriage and convalidation programs.
“You’re having to talk about this very personal information with a priest that you don’t know, maybe you don’t feel you’re that comfortable with them, maybe you’re not Catholic or haven’t been practicing your Catholic faith for a long time,” he said.
“So I think to have the mentor couple, who would be someone who is faithfully living their Catholic faith, to help them feel like they’re welcome and to navigate any issues they might have…would be important especially for couples who may have been married civilly for quite some time and have had a number of kids and are having to negotiate some significant complexities.”
Mary Rose said the mentor couple relationship is so key to Witness to Love because it works both ways – the convalidating couple receives formation, but the mentoring couple is also challenged to examine their marriage and “step it up”, so to speak, in order to be a good example. She said some mentor couples have told her that being asked to mentor another couple is what saved their own marriage.
“It’s kind of a dead end if you don’t open at least a crack for the Holy Spirit, and in Witness to Love that risk has always been allowing the couples to choose their own mentor,” she said.
“But it’s that invitation, that personal relationship – it’s a two-for-one evangelization effort that has made all the difference and transformed parish communities, because instead of a couple coming through the Church and never seeing them again, their mentor’s marriage is renewed, the community is renewed.”
This article was originally published on CNA Feb. 10, 2019.
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What woke nonsense. Wake up, people.
Actually, for the reasonably skeptical, any marriage between a rugged man and a beautiful woman, especially popular stars in their professions is like a jab of vitamin B12 in the arm of a morally weakened culture.
Know that the end of the world is coming upon us when we start looking to Taylor Swift for cues about how to live 🙄🙄. Lord have mercy.
Well, Athanasius, no one I look up to is perfect, and I myself am far from perfect, but I still attempt to help raise my grandson to be a godly little boy who loves Jesus and wants to serve him, and I have the audacity to confess my sins and approach Jesus in Holy Communion and hope that He will not turn His Face away from me and my continued struggles with certain besetting sins.
We’re all flawed people, and sadly, flawed people, including plenty of Catholic flawed people, get divorced. Sigh.
Taylor and Kelce are as flawed as the rest of us, but…it’s sure nice to see an old-fashioned dating relationship (for 2 whole years, not just 2 weeks!), a traditional engagement (complete with a on-the-knee proposal and an engagement ring!), and plans for a wedding that no doubt will include Kelce’s and Taylor’s mothers in the planning stages! I think a lot of young girls will be inspired to find a boyfriend who will treat them the way Kelce treats Taylor in public.
I hope their marriage lasts longer than most celebrity marriages (sadly, some only last for a few weeks), but there are some celebs that stay married and are faithful to the same person for decades–one example is Robert Patrick (the original Terminator!), who has been married to Barbara for over 25 years and still going strong! I think their active status in their church has something to do with this, along with his commitment to AA and staying sober–something that Barbara told him he had to do before she would even consider marrying him!
I think, or at least I hope, that the long-time dating relationship, the equality of their “celebrity” status, and the presence of very strong and involved moms will help Kelce and Taylor.
And of course, being billionaires hopefully won’t hurt either!
Have they both committed themselves to Christ? Are they committed to walking with Christ in obedience as His disciples? Are they committed to making Christ the center of their marriage? Are they both active in a local church?
These are, of course, rhetorical questions with answers that are quite clear. It’s not appropriate to celebrate or elevate this couple.
This seems rather harsh.
Do you not attend weddings of people who are not committed Christians? Of course that’s your choice, but marriage is certainly better than shacking up.
I doubt Taylor and Kelce attend or are “active” in any church because of the expense (millions of dollars and a staff that most cities and towns can’t muster) that would happen because of the need for security and the disruption to the church service or Mass that would ensue as the thousands of fans converge upon the church, the parking lot, and the church neighborhood. Both of these celebrities have to be extremely careful of criminals or mentally unbalanced folks who could easily do them harm if the celebrity lets themselves be too accessible.
But that doesn’t mean that they are not involved with “church” in some way, perhaps online as most of us were during COVID, or perhaps donating monies, probably with the admonition that no one knows who is actually donating except the church treasurer or accountant.
We cannot say whether they are Christians–both grew up in good homes, and the fact that they honor their mothers and families in public and private speaks well of them.
There is a very active group of Christians in NFL, but again, I doubt Kelce takes a visible role in any of these groups because he doesn’t want to attract a crowd of fans that might make it difficult (or dangerous, if the fan was unbalanced) for the group to meet and get anything done.
There are also groups of “stars” or “celebrities” that hold Bible studies and prayer meetings. Again, I can’t say whether Taylor is involved in any of these, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she stays away so as not to be disruptive, as she attracts so many fans–actual mobs–if she is in public.
I don’t think Taylor’s songs are “Christian” in any sense and I think her costumes are immodest, but if you go to Mass, you will see plenty of younger girls and even grown women wearing outfits that alarm you and make you wonder how they will ever be able to kneel or even genuflect or sit down! It’s not my place to tell the parents of these kids to step in, or to make a comment to another woman! And when you think about it, female stars have been pushing the boundaries of immodesty vs. modesty ever since women got involved with the performing arts–the flappers come to mind. It’s not right, but…our saying so won’t make any difference. And at least, she seems to be dating rather than shacking up.
I don’t want to elevate “stars” to an exalted level, but I think that they work harder and have more pressure to succeed than pretty much anyone, even doctors. I have a daughter who works in professional theater in stage management (and is very successful)–and she works harder than anyone in our family–long hours, different gigs going all at once, constant promotion and interviews with hopes of being hired for another gig, lots of pressure to make no mistakes, long times between meals or snacks, and lots of missed holidays and family gatherings. She is a Catholic, but she doesn’t shout it out to her co-workers–she just does a really good job, encourages her co-workers and the “stars”, and works hard to make sure everyone gets the support that they need to do a good job, too.
I guess until we are in a celebrity’s shoes, we can’t really understand their lives and judge their faith or lack of faith in God.
Diogenes above (1:24 a.m.) – There’s such a thing as being too cynical. If you look up Brad Wilcox, I think you’ll agree that “woke” isn’t a particularly accurate descriptor of him.