There are wonderful ways to enrich your marriage and help it to grow and flourish despite a busy and stressful schedule! Within the Diocese of Phoenix, there are multiple opportunities for couples to enrich and enhance their marriages. For example, Marriage Encounter Weekend in Arizona offers weekend retreats for couples looking to grow in their ability to communicate and share life together. This is not a program for couples whose marriages need to be rescued, but a program for couples who want to build up their marriage so that it never has to be rescued from separation or divorce.

Several parishes in our Diocese also offer regular, quality marriage enrichment opportunities. Check out:

• St. Andrew’s Parish, Chandler
• St. Mary Magdalene Parish, Gilbert — Covenant of Love Date Nights – info smmcovenantoflove@gmail.com
• St. Timothy Parish, Mesa
• St. Theresa Parish

The semi-annual Celebrating Marriage Event in the Diocese is a chance for jubilarian anniversary couples (those celebrating 25, 40, 50, or 51+ wedding anniversaries) to receive a blessing from our bishop and enjoy a nice lunch and speaker together. Occurs each September at Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral. Call 602.354.2122 with any questions.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

“Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter – appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility. In a word it is a question of the normal characteristics of all natural conjugal love, but with a new significance which not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them to the extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian values.” (CCC 1643)