by Patricia Rudy
In a few days, some 26 married couples will attend a Marriage Encounter (ME) weekend in the Arlington Diocese to help improve their communication skills and rejuvenate their relationship.
Nick and Dianne Monje, diocesan coordinators of World Wide Marriage Encounter (WWME), an all-volunteer couples ministry, are members of St. John Parish in Leesburg. They have been married 24 years and have one child. In 1992, they went on their first weekend and began volunteering with the ministry the following year.
Prior to that they had reached a point in their marriage where they weren’t communicating effectively. They spoke only about work, their child, the car and home maintenance, Dianne said. “We didn’t make time for each other anymore. We knew there was more, but didn’t know what it was or how to get there. We really loved each other but were too busy to show it.” She said she became lonely and her husband became distant. While stationed in Germany many years ago, they heard a WWME talk given by a priest at Mass and a few years later were invited by another couple to attend a weekend.
“We rediscovered the reason we got married in the first place, a vibrant and exciting love, a very special gift.”
She said the weekend changed their lives and caused them to reassess their values. The Monjes now attend a monthly ME share circle, which sponsors four half-day community activities: a summer picnic; spring and fall enrichment and a Christmas party.
WWME, though not administered through the diocese, is approved and connected with the Office for Family Life. WWME weekends are offered at a local hotel in February, April, June, September and November. The Monjes oversee these weekends and are presenters at a few of them. They also give pulpit talks on ME around the diocese a few times a month to make couples more aware of the ministry.
ME weekends are also offered for the local Hispanic community three times a year. The next will be held in early March. Carlos and Efrend Garcia, members of Queen of Apostles Parish in Alexandria, are the diocesan Spanish Encounter contact couple. They have been married for 40 years and active with WWME for the past three years.
ME weekend couples are encouraged to become involved at their parish so they can be “a living symbol of God’s love in the community,” Efrend said. Only 18 of the 25 diocesan parishes that offer Spanish Masses have a ME representative couple.
During a ME weekend, a team of three couples and a priest gives a series of presentations, interspersed with reflections. It begins at 7:30 p.m. Friday and ends at about 4 p.m. on Sunday. Though presentations are given to the whole assembly, after each session couples are given time and privacy for personal conversation. Over the two-and-a-half days, couples learn and practice a communication technique with their spouse.
Couples do not need to be Catholic, though the weekend is presented from the perspective of the Catholic faith. Dianne says it is important for a couple to get away to enhance their relationship where there are “no distractions — work, kids or traffic.” Two to three weeks after the weekend, a recommended follow-up reunion is held for a few hours.
Nick said the three facets include Engaged Encounter, for pre-marital communication; Marriage Encounter, for couples who have been together a year or more and are experiencing some disillusionment; and Retrouvaille (French for “renew”), for healing troubled marriages.
Nick’s involvement with WWME has helped him “deal with anger and dispute issues. The problem is never as important as our relationship,” he said.
Cornerstones of the WWME movement include daily dialogue, community involvement and spiritual intimacy. Couples are “companions on the journey” of life, said Nick. “No one gets to heaven by themselves.” He stressed the importance of the power of prayer together.
WWME began in 1952, when Father Gabriel Calvo, a young priest in Spain, began developing a series of conferences for married couples. It spread throughout Spain and then Venezuela, in Latin America, and on to Spanish-speaking couples in the United States. By the summer of 1968, the movement had 50 couples and 29 priests presenting weekends in the U.S. In 1969, a national executive board was formed to coordinate the movement’s development in the U.S. and Canada, and a few years later Marriage Encounter Weekends were expanded to other parts of the world. It is now offered in many languages and dialects in 76 countries.
Tom and Ann McCabe brought the Marriage Encounter movement to the Arlington Diocese. After attending a weekend in New York, they worked with Father Chuck Gallagher, Jesuit Father Vince Alagia from Maryland, and other couples. They presented the first weekend in Northern Virginia in October 1972. It was received enthusiastically.
Dennis and Peggy Fargo, a presenting team couple for WWME, helped at three weekends in the diocese during the last year. Members of St. John Neumann Parish in Reston, they became involved in ME following the weekend that they attended in October 1982.
“We gained so much personally from our ME weekend that we felt a deep calling to give back in some way to others,” said Dennis.
“The greatest and most evident benefit we have seen participating couples gain from a weekend is the profound awareness that their love for one another is still very much present,” said Peggy. “By Saturday, most couples become keenly aware that what they have is tremendously precious and requires ongoing attention to truly be God's sacrament in today's world. By Sunday afternoon, most couples say they have rediscovered their best friend and are simply overwhelmed with the gift of their mutual love.”
Having supported WWME for 19 years, the Fargos held leadership positions at the local level as well as at the regional level, which includes the Arlington Diocese.
“The network of volunteers is simply incredible. We have so many priests in Marriage Encounter who, despite long hours within their parish or community missions, commit themselves to building up God's people and Church. This is truly the greatest need for M.E. at this time … we need more priests. It is the priest on the weekend who becomes God's instrument of conversion,” said Dennis.
Bishop John Kaising, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, first heard about WWME while stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., in the early 1970s.
“Members of my family made the weekend and just raved about it,” he said. When he was assigned to Fort McClellan, Ala., in 1978, Dave and Lucy Snyder, now the Section 5 executive couple of the encounter, invited him to make the weekend, which he did in October 1978 in Birmingham. Subsequently, he became part of the community that presented weekends.
Involved ever since, Bishop Kaising has presented weekends in Alabama, Louisiana, Hawaii, Virginia, New Jersey, Germany, Italy, Spain and Iceland. He has served in leadership positions in Germany, New Jersey and Virginia, where he served on the board of directors.
He currently gives weekends locally and is a member of the Team which gives Deeper Weekends for those who have been asked to be presenters. Bishop Kaising, speaking at a WWME Convention in Atlanta this summer, said that the reason he is still involved is “that they are people who know how to love.”
For information on World Wide Marriage Encounter call 1-800/828-3351 or go to www.wwme.org. For the English-language encounter weekends, contact Nick and Dianne Monje at 703/771-9765; for the Spanish-language encounter weekends, contact Carlos and Efrend Garcia at 703/461-0944.
(This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)
