HCH photo/Anna Weaver
Deacon Ron Paglinawan makes a point at a small table disccusion at the Marriage and Family Forum, Feb. 6. Also at the table are Jo Kamae Byrne, left, of Beginning Experience Hawaii, Tina Andrade of Catholic Charities Hawaii and Marianist Brother Dennis Schmitz of Marianist Family Retreat.
Strengthening marriage, families focus of first-time forum
By Anna Weaver | Hawaii Catholic Herald
Help for every potential stage of a married life — engagement, wedding, kids, marital difficulties, widowhood, divorce — could be found in one room on Feb. 6 when representatives from eight Hawaii marriage-friendly organizations gathered for their first Marriage and Family Forum.
Their goal: to discuss how the groups could work together to strengthen their own programs and the state of family and married life in the diocese.
Coordinators and representatives from Engaged Encounter, the Couple to Couple League for Natural Family Planning, Worldwide Marriage Encounter, Couples for Christ, Catholic Charities Hawaii, Marianist Family Retreat, the Diocesan Pastoral Council Life Issues committee, and Beginning Experience met for more than six hours at Damien Memorial School.
Through the morning, they explained their programs, relayed the difficulties and rewards of their ministries, and imagined how they might better work together to make their services better known to Hawaii Catholics to help their marriages and family lives.
Diocesan Pastoral Council chairman Michael Weaver facilitated the forum.
“The meeting laid the groundwork for that coordination, with future meetings and goals already scheduled,” he said. “For example, at the next meeting of the groups in April, they will work on using technology to increase public awareness of the programs, and developing a plan to meet with each vicariate to further increase that awareness.”
Among the major problems and difficulties discussed were a lack of awareness in parishes of these programs and resources, and the scarcity of money and volunteers.
Another point of consensus was that “trying to go it alone really doesn’t help anyone,” said Jo Kamae Byrne, the president of Beginning Experience Hawaii.
Byrne, a non-Catholic, came away from the Marriage and Family Forum excited.
“I was quite impressed with the scope of programs that were available for marriage and family,” she said. “It was encouraging to see that there were this many committed volunteers within the church to keep these programs alive and available to members.”
Here are descriptions of each group at the Feb. 6 meeting taken from their websites:
Engaged Encounter
eehawaii.bluearcher.com/default.asp
“We provide a working weekend retreat format designed to create a focus on private couple communication. Attendees are couples of all faiths – usually planning to marry in the Catholic Church. … Engaged Encounter focuses on communication in your relationship. You will learn new tools for listening, writing and enhancing your communication with each other.” Engaged Encounter is mandatory for Hawaii Catholics wishing to be married in the church.
Couple to Couple League (Natural Family Planning)
cclhawaii.com
“Natural Family Planning is fertility awareness, the knowledge of a couple’s fertility. It is a means of reading a woman’s signs of fertility and infertility. The Couple to Couple League teaches three basic signs of fertility … and how to apply this knowledge through the Sympto-Thermal Method … which can be used both to achieve and to avoid or postpone pregnancy. With the Couple to Couple League, the art of Natural Family Planning goes beyond the method as we teach NFP within the moral constructs of the Magesterium of the Catholic Church, with an emphasis on the teachings of Pope John Paul II and the Theology of the Body.”
Marianist Family Retreat
www.marianisthawaii.org
“A unique opportunity for families to spend a weekend together engaging in fun activities for Mom and Dad, toddlers, pre-teens and teens, lively peer discussions, prayer, family dialogue and outdoor recreation. A great way to strengthen family bonds and nurture commitment.”
Worldwide Marriage Encounter
www.wwme12.org
“Worldwide Marriage Encounter offers a weekend experience designed to give married couples the opportunity to learn a technique of loving communication that they can use for the rest of their lives. It’s a chance to look deeply into their relationship with each other and with God. It’s a time to share their feelings, hopes and dreams with each other.” Weekends are facilitated by a priest and priests and religious are encouraged to attend as participants. The weekends are targeted at Catholics and other Christians.
Couples for Christ
www.couplesforchrist.us
“Couples for Christ (CFC) is a movement intended for the renewal and strengthening of Christian family life. It is an association of Christian couples who have committed themselves to the Lord and to one another, so that they may grow into maturity as men and women of God and fulfill their primary vocation of raising up their families under the lordship of Jesus Christ and for the service of the Kingdom of God. … It grows mainly through the establishment of localized units in different parishes.”
Beginning Experience
behawaii.org
“The purpose of the Beginning Experience ministry is to help divorced, separated and widowed men and women and children of divorce, parental separation and death-heal the grief of their loss and free them once again to love themselves, others and God. These individuals, in turn, offer a better quality of life to all those with whom they come in contact.”
Catholic Charities Hawaii
www.catholiccharitieshawaii.org
In attendance as a provider of information about resources available for families.
Diocesan Pastoral Council Life Issues Committee
www.catholichawaii.org/staticpages/index.php?page=DPC
DPC chairman Michael Weaver said, “The committee focusing on right-to-life issues, marriage and family, and other related areas that the DPC might want to look into or which the bishop wants us to look into and advise him on.”