What is a Worldwide Marriage Encounter?

The Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend is a positive and personal experience offering married couples an opportunity to learn a technique of loving communication that they can use for the rest of their lives. It is a chance to look deeply into their relationship with each other and with God. It is a time to share their feelings, hopes and dreams with each other.

The emphasis of the Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekend is on the communication between husbands and wives. The weekend provides a conducive environment for couples to spend time together, away from the distractions and tensions of everyday life, while encouraging them to focus on each other and their relationship.

It is not a retreat, marriage clinic, group sensitivity, or a substitute for counseling. It is a unique approach aimed at revitalizing Marriage. It truly is a marriage enrichment program.
This is a time for you and your spouse to be alone together, to rediscover each other and together focus on your relationship for an entire weekend. Every marriage deserves that kind of attention! Simply put - it is one of the best marriage enrichment programs offered to married couples.

Why is it called Worldwide Marriage Encounter?

The movement began as a way of improving communication between husbands and wives. It is considered the first marriage enrichment program and has been updated on a continual basis to reflect the current marriage environment.

How It All Began

In Spain in the 1950's, Spanish priest Fr. Gabriel Calvo developed a series of conferences ending in questions that encouraged husbands and wives to become more open and honest in their relationships. In 1962 he brought together 28 Spanish couples for the first "Encuentro Conjugal" weekend.

In 1967, Spanish couples and priests came to the United States and "Marriage Encounter" was presented to the English-speaking world for the first time at Notre Dame University. By January 1969, American couples and priests were conducting weekends.

Leaders in the New York area developed the core WorldWide Marriage Encounter movement under the guidance of Ed and Harriet Garzero and Rev. Charles Gallagher, a Long Island youth retreat master. The New York leadership placed a new emphasis on weekend follow-up and the development of "community" to provide support for living the values learned on the weekend.

Couples who attended these weekends began to encourage friends to experience the weekend as well. Soon new presenting teams and priests were trained, other areas of the country began presenting weekends, and Marriage Encounter as we know it today was born.

Today Marriage Encounter weekends are presented in more than 90 countries and 160 local areas in the United States. There are also versions of the weekend representing many different religious expressions and it is presented in a variety of languages.

The weekend is supported by couples who have experienced it and feel so strongly about the positive effect it has had on their relationship that they gladly work to spread the news to others.

Further Reading :
The History and Philosophy of Worldwide Marriage Encounter
The Works of Gabriel Calvo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_Encounter (Wikipedia Description)

Rev. Charles Gallagher - on Marriage Encounter

What happens on a Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend?

Worldwide Marriage Encounter is unique in that a series of presentations is given by a team of Catholic couples and a priest. Each presentation allows you to look at yourself as an individual, and then to look at your relationship to your spouse. Finally, you are led to look at your relationship with God, the Church as a whole, and the world. Married couples view all these relationships in terms of their own vocation, but the principles are freely applicable to the priesthood and religious life as well. The atmosphere is relaxed and non-invasive. Most participants say they are hardly aware of the others in attendance.

I have heard that dialogue is an important part of the Weekend.

"Dialogue" is the communication technique taught on the Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend.

A priest/religious who is making the Weekend dialogues with the priest on the ministry team, or another priest/religious who is also making the Weekend.

What does the Weekend cost?

On the weekend, you will be asked for a pre payment of $300. This donation will cover the expenses of lodging, food, and materials for the Weekend. There is limited capacity; so early application is encouraged. The application fee varies from area based on the local area lodging requirements.

No priest or couple is ever denied the chance to experience a Weekend because of financial difficulties. This concern should not influence your decision to attend a Marriage Encounter Weekend. Worldwide Marriage Encounter is a tax-exempt organization. The application fee can be waived based on financial need.
Information as to that amount will be given to couples attending the Weekend. Contributions made on or in connection with the Marriage Encounter weekend are made confidentially.

What are the start and stop times for the Weekend?

The Weekend normally starts around 7:30pm on Friday and ends around 5:00pm on Sunday. We provide all meals on Saturday and Sunday, but you will need to eat dinner prior to arriving on Friday.

Is there a specific religious focus to the Weekend?

Marriage Encounter does present God as a focus for successful Marriage. There are many faith expressions of Marriage Encounter Weekends - Catholic, as well as several Protestant denominations. While the Weekend may be presented in a given Faith expression, each is open to married couples with other religious beliefs. The opportunities of the Weekend go beyond the boundaries of any one expression.

Who is Worldwide Marriage Encounter for?

Any married couple who desires a richer, fuller life together. A marriage can never be too good. Worldwide Marriage Encounter, a marriage enrichment program, is designed to deepen and enrich the joys a couple share together, whether they have been married for only a short time, or for many years.

Priests and other religious are also welcome and encouraged to attend!

Does the Weekend respect the privacy of each couple?

YES! Absolutely!
The weekend is oriented strictly to each individual couple. You concentrate on your spouse to such an extent that you are hardly aware of the other couples present. The presentations are given to the group as a whole. After each presentation, the husband and wife have time in the privacy of their room for their own personal discussion. There is no group sharing on the weekend.

Give The Gift of Love

Has squeezing the toothpaste tube from the middle doused the flames of romance in your marriage?

Does your family deserve the love that Mom and Dad will discover on a Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend?

Are you looking for a way to include God in your marriage?

A Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend has something in it for every married couple. What you get out of a Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend will depend largely on where you are in your relationship on the Weekend you go. You will get whatever it is you need at that point in time.
In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus talks about the rich soil. The rich soil has many different nutrients in it. The plant draws out the nutrients it needs at any given point in time. Worldwide Marriage Encounter can provide some of the rich soil your marriage needs to bear fruit "a hundred or sixty or thirty fold."
Some of the "nutrients" that couples draw from Marriage Encounter Weekends are:

Deeper Intimacy
Remember when you were dating? Going for long walks. Talking long into the night. Looking into each others eyes. Holding hands. Sharing warm joyous laughter, … When couples think back on their dating days, they often end up wondering "what happened? … " They might long for the closeness they once felt yet judge that it isn't possible in the hustle and bustle of their current lives. Not true! Absolutely not true!
The intimacy you shared doesn't need to be just a distant memory. It's closer than you realize and it's more wonderful than you remember. A Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend can help you rekindle that closeness, that warm intimacy. A Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend gives you tools and techniques you can use that will deepen your intimacy more and more as life unfolds.

Getting Back On an Up-Beat
In the ups and downs of marriage, sometimes couples need a little something to snap themselves out of the downs. The communication technique and the other tools learned on a Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend are often just the remedies a couple needs. Using these techniques on an on-going basis, many couples find that with the ups and downs, the downs are fewer, shorter, and farther between while the ups are more frequent, longer, and more wonderful than ever.

God, Spirituality
Matrimony is a sacred union between you, your spouse, and God. God is on your team! How can you beat that? We can embrace God as the third member of our Sacrament, or we can forget that He's there with us. As a three legged stool stands infinitely better than a two legged one, marriages are at their strongest and at their best when husbands and wives welcome and embrace God as the third member of their Sacrament.
Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekends helps many married couples get started or continue on their spiritual journeys as couples.

Family Life
The relationship between husband and wife is the foundation of the family. When a couple shares greater love, joy, intimacy, understanding, spirituality and communications, the children are the first to notice and feel the affect.
Our children are the seeds and our Sacraments of Matrimony are the soil they fall on. By nurturing and cultivating our Sacraments we provide rich soil for our children to grow, flourish, and blossom in.

Tough Times
"In good times and in bad." As with good times, hard times are part of life itself. Serious illnesses, deaths of loved ones, family difficulties, struggles with work or finances, . . .
Hard times can bring a couple together or can leave the husband and/or wife feeling isolated and alone. On Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekends, married couples learn an effective communication technique that helps them face troubled times together.

Understanding and Being Understood
"I wish we could just sit down and talk!" Have you ever said that to your spouse? Do you wish you could take your "talk" to a deeper level of listening and understanding?In this busy day and age, there is a tendency for couples to lose touch with each other . Husbands and/or wives can get to the point where they don't think that they understand their spouse very well, or that their spouse understands them. This shortage of understanding leaves spouses feeling isolated and alone, vulnerable and anxious.
Understanding each other is a wonderful lifelong adventure. On Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekends, couples do exercises and reflections that help them to understand both themselves and their spouses better. Then they learn a communications technique which helps them stay tuned into each other as they head down life's highway together. Amazingly, as our spouses use the technique to understand us better, we often come to know and understand ourselves better in the process.

More Joy, Zest and Passion
In the ups and downs of marriage, the ups should be really really up! And they should be fairly common. Marriages should contain healthy portions of of joy, fun, zest, passion, sizzle and spice! Marriage is one of the greatest of God's gifts, if it doesn't feel pretty darn good pretty darn often, God is offering you more. You just need to accept his invitation!
The world has a way of lulling us into a sort of rut. We end up developing a habit of hitting the snooze alarm on our marriages and rolling over for another few minutes. Years can go by and we can forget how great it feels to be fully awake and alive, fully intimate with our spouses. Snap out of it! Come on a Marriage Encounter Weekend and re-ignite the sizzle of your dating days!

Enrichment
Is it time for your 5 year tune-up? Cars need tuned up periodically. Plants need fertilizer. Doctors, lawyers and professionals of all types need continuing education.
All these things are important, but your marriage is more important. In order for the soil your marriage is rooted in to stay rich year in and year out, you need to en-rich it periodically. A Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend is the perfect way!

Special Gift
What could be a better gift for your spouse than the gift of yourself? Be it a gift you give each other for a Wedding Anniversary, Christmas, a birthday, Valentine's Day, or other special occasion, the gift of a Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend will keep giving your whole lives through. A Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend is a gift that you and your spouse will remember, treasure and benefit from forever!

Weekend Away
Sometimes the thing we really need is to just get away from the rest of the world for a couple of days and just really focus in on each other. As simple as that sounds, it can be a bit of a trick to arrange sometimes. Worldwide Marriage Encounter can provide the structure and the unobtrusive "tour guides" you need for a romantic, intimate getaway adventure.

Why should priests and religious attend a Weekend?

The benefit for priests and religious who attend a weekend, is a better understanding of Family Life Ministries within their parishes/churches. Furthermore, there is a very high correlation of couples who attend a Weekend, and later become actively involved in their parish communities. This is primarily due to a better understanding for their Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.
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Compound these intrinsic benefits with statistical success... the divorce rate in the United States today is 52%. The divorce rate among couples who have attended a Marriage Encounter Weekend is less than 2% nationwide.

We have a dream that all Priests and other religious in our diocese experience a Weekend. These individuals subsequently recognize that couples and clergy who attend a weekend have a deeper understanding and appreciation of themselves, their spouse (or community if religious), and their relationship with God. Our goal is to have more Priests and religious attend the weekend, to appreciate their ministry, and perhaps find new ways to help assist married couples in their parishes.

How will a Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend specifically enhance and enrich my life as a priest?

The Encounter weekend teaches a communication technique that allows each person to explore their relationship to the "significant other(s)" in their lives. For spouses, that means each other. For you as a priest, it means everyone you have dedicated your life to serving. This new way of communication is both specific and adaptable. You will be able to use it in virtually every relationship and situation..

I am needed in my parish on the weekends. Can Worldwide Marriage Encounter help me get a replacement so I will be free to attend a weekend?

We are in the process of building a network of priests, by area, who are willing to fill in for others who wish to attend a Weekend. If you need such assistance, indicate this when you call or send in your reservation. And plan to spend some time with us soon, to expand and deepen your priestly communication.