The Catholic Church teaches that marriage is a Christian vocation - the spousal relationship is more than a social and legal institution.

Marriage involves a call from God and a response from two people who promise to build, with the help of divine grace, a lifelong, intimate and sacramental partnership of love and life.
 
The vocation to marriage is a call to a life of holiness and service within the couple’s own relationship and in their family. As a particular way of following the Lord, this vocation also challenges a couple to live their marriage in a way that expresses God’s truth and love in the world.
  
IFor more information on the vocation of marriage, and for marriage resources please visit: www.foryourmarriage.org
 
Marriage Preparation

Because Christian marriage is a sacrament, the Catholic Church wants couples to be well-prepared. Dioceses and parishes offer marriage preparation to help couples develop a better understanding of the sacrament; to evaluate and deepen their readiness to live married life; and to gain insights into themselves as individuals and as a couple.
 
Marriage preparation programs take different forms. Some couples attend a weekend retreat; others are matched with a "sponsor couple"; and others participate in a series of marriage preparation classes offered by their parish or region. The important thing for engaged couples to keep in mind as they check numerous items off their pre-wedding "to-do" list is the well-known adage, "Your wedding lasts a day, but your marriage lasts a lifetime." The Church encourages couples to invest time and energy into the all-important work of preparing for their married life together.
 
For couples planning to marry in the Catholic Church, please contact your local parish priest at least six months before your anticipated wedding date to begin the marriage preparation process.
 
Retrouvaille: A Program to Help Couples Heal and Renew their Marriages

The word Retrouvaille, pronounced re-troo-vi with a long i ("eye") is a French word meaning rediscovery. The program offers tools needed to rediscover a loving marriage relationship. Thousands of couples headed for cold, unloving relationships or divorce have successfully overcome their marriage problems by attending the program. The Retrouvaille Program consists of a weekend experience combined with a series of 6-12 post-weekend sessions over 3 months. It provides the tools to help put your marriage in order again. The main emphasis of the program is on communication in marriage between husband and wife. It will give you the opportunity to rediscover each other and examine your lives together in a new and positive way.
 

• Do you feel lost, alone or bored in your marriage?
• Are you frustrated, hurt or angry with your spouse?
• Are you constantly fighting? Or, do you simply shut down?
• Have you thought about separation or divorce?
• Does talking about it only make it worse?

If you are struggling with any of the above questions, please contact the next Retrouvaille Windsor-Essex weekend at www.helpourmarriage.org.  Please click here to watch a video about couples' experiences healing their marriage with Retrouvaille.
 
Natural Family Planning

God designed marriage as an "intimate partnership of life and love" (see Gaudium et spes, no. 48). In God's design, marriage is a unique union of one man with one woman "for the whole of life" (see Canon 1055, The Code of Canon Law). Marriage is oriented to the good of the spouses and to the creation and nurture of new human life (see Gaudium et spes, no. 48). Making decisions therefore, about when and how many children to have in marriage is a sacred responsibility that God has entrusted to husband and wife. This is the foundation of what the Church calls, "Responsible Parenthood"--the call to discern God's will for your marriage while respecting His design for life and love.
 
The Catholic Church supports the methods of Natural Family Planning (NFP) because they respect God's design for married love. In fact, NFP represents the only authentic approach to family planning available to husbands and wives because these methods can be used to both attempt or avoid pregnancy.

We encourage you and your spouse to research about NFP and decide which method might work best for your family.  Here are some online resources which we offer as a public service:

• The Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF)
• The Diocese of Hamilton (information and a free booklet)
• The Natural Family Planning Association
• The Archdiocese of Detroit, Michigan

 

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Marriage and Family Life Resources

To access a wealth of information and resources, you may wish to visit the Catholic O rganization for Life and the Family at  http://www.colf.ca/en. 

To watch a video from Pope Francis with tips for married people:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwNa7rY5oCg 

To visit the Dicastary for Laity, Family and Life website visit: http://www.laityfamilylife.va/content/laityfamilylife/en.html 

To access a compendium of the Catechism of the Church Catholic visit http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc/index.htm 

Are you, or do you know, someone who is separated or civilly divorced?   'Surviving Divorce' is a website that offers hope and healing for the Catholic family. 

We are aware of the following Natural Family Planning practitioners in the Southwestern Ontario region.  This information is provided as a service and not necessarily endorsed by the Diocese.
 

• Anne Marie Posella, FCP, Familiaris FertilityCare, [email protected]
• Please note that Rosemarie Vandebrink and Christina Bahati and are no longer in practice.

Below are several links regarding the Creighton Model FertilityCare System and NaProTECHNOLOGY.   These are provided as a service and are not necessarily endorsed by the Diocese.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JT-m4-iEWE    NAPRO: A Quiet Revolution
http://www.loamagazine.org/nr/family_life/in_vitro_life_at.html  In Vitro: Life at the Cost of Lives
http://www.loamagazine.org/nr/a_testimony/from_in_vitro_fertilization.html    From In Vitro Fertilization to NaProTECHNOLOGY