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Marriage Preparation Tools

wed-5.gif · 1) Give couples an outstanding "marriage prep packet".
· 2) Set out a table with additional resources.
· 3) Build a powerful Marriage Preparation Curriculum.
· 4) Create a library for couples, presenters, and mentors.
· 5) Provide resources for Hispanic couples as needed.


There is now an online marriage preparation service that works with local Marriage support personal and allows couples in unusual situations (such as one partner being overseas for the time being) to complete a full featured marriage preparation program.


Why Marriage Preparation Matters

The goal of Marriage Preparation is to bring about superb marriages, the kind of marriages where people say, "Aren’t they a wonderful couple!" and mean it. The realities of our culture make this extremely challenging. Nearly all of the couples who come to the Church for marriage are already sexually active with one another; nearly all of them are using contraceptives* to avoid pregnancy before marriage, and half to three quarters of them are already living together. By their lifestyle choices, they have already convinced themselves that the Church has nothing to tell them about male-female relationships or fertility management, and certainly nothing worthwhile to say about sexuality.

So why do they come? Plainly they are looking for something more than they can get from cohabitation. They know from observation of other couples (and possibly their own bitter experience) just how fragile sexual relationships outside of marriage can be. They want something better for themselves and hope that a gorgeous public ceremony or maybe some mysterious "blessing" from the Church can give them that extra something.

So what can the Church do for them? Well, Jesus gave us the best teaching on marriage and relationships ever delivered, and John Paul II has taken that teaching and packaged it so well that we now know more about what makes a marriage work (and what doesn’t) than ever before, and this knowledge is mostly available only through the Catholic Church.

Marriage is a fine-tuned, extremely powerful biological/psychological/spiritual package. Marriage moves couples to create the very best setting for bringing up resourceful, contributing members of society.
That setting is the human family with two highly involved parents. The family, however, revolves around the wholehearted sexual donation of each spouse to the other. Anything that attacks that relationship is highly destructive to marriage and the family. Pornography, for example, involves the husband with imaginary sexual images instead of his wife. Both partners are clearly aware of this disconnection, and sexual activity becomes divisive instead of unitive, with typically disastrous consequences. Birth control is even worse. Contracepted sex is the individual pursuit of physical/emotional gratification instead of a mutual pursuit of greater love and family involvement. This self-centered sex, unlike family-oriented sex, has devastating effects, for example, the huge increase in divorce that has come about as our culture has become saturated with birth control.

Marriage preparation programs can now clearly teach what factors, such as birth control, attack the marriage bond and what factors, such as accepting children, support and enhance it. We owe a great debt to John Paul II, because now we can tell couples not only what to do (and avoid) for a life-long, excellent relationship, but we can also tell them why these practices make such a remarkable difference. Effective marriage preparation, however, calls for a thorough re-education of the trainers as well as the trainees, since all of us are immersed in a culture where sexual values are highly distorted.

This is absolutely worth the effort. Healthy marriages lead to loving families. Loving families lead to functional, productive communities—a culture of life, a Civilization of Love. Anything we can do to foster this society will have an enormous payoff!

Four steps to take:



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Teachings from John Paul II, Edith Stein, Archbishop Charles Chaput, and others communicate effectively with post-abortive women and others who have been harmed by the culture of death.

The struggles in the area of sexual purity and lust that many men face on a regular basis, with solid grounds for hope and victory.

Christopher West illuminates love’s two dimensions—eros (human) and agape (divine), using key passages from Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, God Is Love. He helps us appreciate the interplay, distinctiveness, and relationship of these dimensions of love. West succeeds as probably no other author could in marrying John Paul II’s Theology of the Body with Benedict’s God Is Love. This is one of those rare books that makes you wish the end would not come so soon.
A Practical Application of JP II's Theoloy of the Body (DVD)
CODE: DPAJ
Winning the Battle for Sexual Purity
CODE: CWTB
The Love That Satisfies
CODE: BTLS
Price: $19.95


Price: $19.95
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Price: $19.95



Este documental maravilloso en DVD sigue la vida de Santa. Gianna Beretta Molla, una esposa del siglo XX, madre, y médico, que vivió una vida de devoción plena a su marido, a la familia, y a los pacientes, y luego dió su vida para que la hija que llevaba en su vientre pudiera vivir. Ahora canonizada como una santa católica, ella es un ejemplo brillante de una mujer siendo todo lo que ella puede ser. Este video cuenta la historia de Gianna simple y hermosamente e incluye muchos cortometrajes de la santa, así como entrevistas con su marido y sus hijos.

A positive, compelling, and dynamic chastity presentation for teens by Jason and Crystalina Evert.

Wonderful tools to help a couple achieve what the author calls "infallible loving," and the tremendous benefits of married love as it was meant to be.
El amor es una elección
CODE: DLACsp
Romance Without Regret (public school version)- DVD
CODE: DRWRp
Holy Sex! A Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving
CODE: BHSX
Price: $19.95


Price: $19.95


Price: $19.95



Study guide for the Into the Heart series on the Theology of the Body.

Complete new look at Natural Family Planning.  Using artificial contraceptives can damage a relationship and a womems's physical health.

An illustrated how-to manual of the Ovulation Method of fertility awareness, complete with charts and other helpful materials. The female fertility cycle is compared to the plant growth cycle, and simple, direct instructions are given for achieving or postponing pregnancy.
Into the Heart Student Workbook
CODE: BIHS
Life Giving Love - Understanding Chastity In Marriage
CODE: DLGL
Love and Fertility - book & chart
CODE: BLAF
Price: $19.95


Price: $19.95


Price: $20.00



A collection Marie's 4 cds of songs highlighting the extraordinary goodness of ordinary life in a family. Marie uses music, insight, poetry, and song to invite us away from the empty promises the world offers into a life full of what really matters.

The nature, meaning, and mysteries of sexuality.

Las características esenciales y las virtudes de los padres fuertes —y la manera de desarrollarlas.
Marie Bellet Collection (4 CDs)
CODE: SMBM
On The Meaning Of Sex
CODE: BMOS
Padres fuertes, hijas felices: 10 Secretos que todo padre debería conocer
CODE: BSFDsp
Price: $20.00


Price: $21.00


Price: $22.95



Provee lo que los padres necesitan saber para criar a sus hijos saludables

Birthing and raising 14 children (not including 5 already with the Lord) sounds almost easy when Jim and Kathleen share “anecdotes and a philosophy of life from a family of sixteen” in this wonderful book. They spell out for us the great rewards and the challenges of large family living, and they urge “the reader to reevaluate the possibility of having another child [and to be] open to God’s will, with a supernatural, faith-filled perspective. . . .There is a great feeling of freedom and peace that one experiences when one steps out in love and trust in our infinitely loving God.” You’ll want to read this book all in one sitting.

Leader's guide for the Into the Heart series on the Theology of the Body.
Amor y Familia: Formacion de nuestros hijos en adultos responsables
CODE: BLFRsp
Better by the Dozen, Plus Two
CODE: BBBD
Into the Heart Leader's Guide
CODE: BIHL
Price: $23.95


Price: $24.95


Price: $24.95



Purity is not Puritanism, nor is it prudishness. Christian purity is the ability to see the mystery of God revealed through the body and sexuality. Purity of heart is the key to human happiness and brings true sexual liberation.

Virtually every man has a life-long struggle to overcome lust and replace it with real, practical love. Christopher West here shares his own experiences with this fight and provides a wonderful set of tools for winning this battle.

Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later contains Janet E. Smith's analysis of the arguments for and against Catholic Sexual teaching drawing strongly on Humanae Vitae.
Purity in an Impure Age
CODE: DPIA
Winning the Battle for Sexual Purity
CODE: DWTB
Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later
CODE: BHVG
Price: $24.95


Price: $24.95


Price: $29.95


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