Marriage preparation

Chris & I had our first marriage class on Thursday with our Parish Priest. He won't be the celebrant at our Nuptual Mass (Chris's Uncle will be) but he knows us well and so we asked if he would prepare us for marriage (Chris's uncle lives quite far away).


All I can say is....THANK GOD FOR HOLY PRIESTS.

What an incomparable gift a good Priest is to the faithful and to the world. Truley, a good holy priest cooperating with God's will and with God's teachings espoused by the Catholic Church, is something to continually praise God for and to beg that He will always provide us with such holy holy men.


So yes, our first marriage preparation class was outstanding.



Our priest started off by speaking about the convenent of marriage, its meaning and purpose and then for our first class he focused on some features that make a good marriage.

He spoke about the central role that spouses have of ministering to one another, in acting as a tool of the Holy Spirit in order to help heal the other person, to lovingly correct and help lead them to eternity with God.

The only way this is possible, he said, is if there is complete honesty and openness between the couple; problems and issues have to be brought up and talked about, not bottled away so that they simmer and stew and corrode slowly away at the relationship. Self sacrafice is required in order to the make the relationship work, not just expecting the other person to fit a role in your head of who they should be, and what they should do (e.g. not to mould them on to your parents). At the heart of this he added there must be trust. Because it is difficult to be completly open, honest and vulnerable if there is no trust.

He then spoke about some ways in which you can be open and honest with your spouse if you are worried about saying something face-to-face and he suggested saying it while in prayer together...for example:

"Lord, thank you for the gift of my husband. Please help me not to get frustrated with him when he XYZ".

and then if your husband is listening, he will be less likely to get upset than if you had just said to his face "You really frustrate me when you XYZ", because it was brought to God first, recognised as a weakness and a desire to change and improve was expressed.

Then our Priest spoke about the importance of truely letting go of your spouse's sins; that is, not dragging up a whole list of things from their past of how they have hurt you or offended you. With true forgiveness we must also forget (or at least act as though we have forgotten), and not keep re-opening wounds and dragging things up intentionally to hurt.

Then he spoke for a while about the central role of Christ as the third person of the marriage, and never to neglect to involve Christ in everything; every action and decision, every sorrow and joy..


He spoke for about 45mins and every word was gold.

It was so pure, so holy! I feel so overjoyed! What good gifts God has showered us with! How breath-takingly beautiful is His truth!
What love so strong, so vast and so beyond comprehension! And He invites us in to share it with Him!!