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Marriage resources

“Love is never something that is ready-made, something merely ‘given’ to man and woman; it is always at the same time a ‘task’ which they are set. Love should be seen as something which in a sense never ‘is’ but is always only ‘becoming,’ and what it becomes depends upon the contribution of both persons and the depth of their commitment.”

– Pope St. John Paul II

 

These resources have been compiled by the Office of Discipleship and Evangelization Marriage Ministry department to assist parishes in serving parishioners.

Marriage Preparation

The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis has two main documents outlining the policies for marriage preparation. Please read the two policies below.

  • The FOCCUS© Pre-Marriage Inventory is a comprehensive, user-friendly tool for use by lay individuals, couples or professionals who are helping couples prepare for marriage, and who become trained as FOCCUS Facilitators. The FOCCUS© Inventory is designed to help engaged couples appreciate their unique relationship, learn more about themselves, and discuss topics important to their lifelong marriage.

  • The Prepare/Enrich assessment and accompanying workbook create a spiritually enriching experience for couples that reflects the sacramental teaching of the Catholic Church. It has received the Censors Librorum’s declaration of Nihil Obstat & Imprimatur and is backed by over 40 years of research.

  • Fully Engaged is a sponsor couple program for engaged couples (as well as those seeking Convalidation) to help them learn more about the Sacrament of Matrimony. It is a Catholic premarital inventory designed to help couples solidify the foundation upon which they, together with Christ, will build their life together. Grounded in Church teaching, this premarital inventory is a trustworthy guide which meets the real challenges couples face.

    • Fully Engaged is self-diagnostic and designed to help couples learn more about themselves and their unique relationship. It provides individualized couple feedback on where each partner stands in regard to topic areas important to marriage. Fully Engaged was developed to reflect the values and ideals of marriage as sacred.

  • Witness to Love is a virtues-based, Catechumenate model of marriage formation that integrates modern principles of psychology and the virtues to help couples facilitate an authentic dialogue about their relationship.
  • Better Together was created by Dynamic Catholic can be used in multiple formats including, small group, pre-Cana retreat, and sponsor couple.  Dynamic Catholic also features their own free inventory.

  • Together for Life has wedding planning, marriage preparation and marriage enrichment resources for couples. It also a Catholic Wedding Planning Checklist for download.

  • Archdiocesan Marriage Preparation Retreat: Offered in a weekend format, Living God’s Love is structured to help engaged couples reflect on the beauty and richness of the Church’s teachings on marriage and the family. Couples receive presentations by priests, educators, physicians and married couples that share the beauty of the Church’s teaching about the vocation of marriage as a call to holiness and a gift of self. 
  • Chapter 2 Retreat: For Those Entering a Second Marriage or Convalidation

For Your Marriage helps couples at all stages of life to understand and live God’s plan for happy, holy marriages by providing educational and spiritual resources.

The website was launched in 2007 as part of the National Pastoral Initiative for Marriage, an initiative of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to communicate the meaning and value of married life for the Church and for society.

Resources include: 

In the Order of Celebrating Matrimony, there are many different prayers, texts for the Mass, readings and more to go over with couples. 

The Catholic Church provides three different forms of celebrating the Rite of Marriage. When two Catholics are marrying, the celebration will normally take place within a Mass. The second form, which does not include a Mass, is used when a Catholic marries another baptized Christian. A third form, also outside Mass, is usually celebrated when a Catholic marries someone who is not baptized. The second and third forms are structured around the celebration of the Liturgy of the Word.

  • First form: When two Catholics marry, the Sacrament of Matrimony normally takes place within Mass. This is fitting because of the connections all sacraments have with the Paschal mystery of Christ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1621) and because it is in the Eucharist that Catholic married couples “meet the one who is the source of their marriage” (USCCB, Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan, p. 52). Receiving the Eucharist as their “first meal” together is a beautiful expression of the newlyweds’ reliance on God to sustain and strengthen them throughout their lives.
  • Second form: There are several reasons why a Catholic wedding would take place without a Mass: when a Catholic marries a baptized non-Catholic Christian (although such couples can request permission from the bishop to hold their wedding within Mass); when a significant number of wedding guests are not Catholic; or when a priest is not available. Either a priest or a deacon can use the Order of Celebrating Matrimony without Mass. Interchurch couples (a Catholic and a baptized Christian) might wish to talk with the priest or deacon about the participation of clergy from the non-Catholic party’s church. If the couple wishes to hold their wedding at the non-Catholic’s church, they need to receive permission from the bishop to do so in order for the marriage to be valid.
  • Third form: When a Catholic marries an unbaptized person or a person preparing for baptism (a catechumen), the following form of the wedding ceremony is used. While the marriage will not be a sacrament (since that requires both bride and groom to be baptized), it will be a valid Catholic marriage as long as the couple has received permission from the local bishop. The celebration can take place in a church or in another suitable place; this is something the couple should discuss with the Catholic’s parish priest.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, there is guidance on the sacrament of marriage. 

On Nov. 22, 1981, Pope St. John Paul II published an Apostolic Exhortation to the faithful on the role of the Christian family in the modern world, called Familiaris Consortio. 

At a moment of history in which the family is the object of numerous forces that seek to destroy it or in some way to deform it, and aware that the well-being of society and her own good are intimately tied to the good of the family, the Church perceives in a more urgent and compelling way her mission of proclaiming to all people the plan of God for marriage and the family, ensuring their full vitality and human and Christian development, and thus contributing to the renewal of society and of the People of God. – Familiaris Consortio, 3

Natural Family Planning

Direct couples to the Archdiocesan NFP page for information about NFP. Other resources to share with couples can be found below.

Flyer to share with couples

Billings Ovulation Method

The CREIGHTON MODEL FertilityCare™ System (CrMS), also referred to as FertilityCare, is a groundbreaking approach centered on the knowledge and understanding of the naturally occurring phases of a woman’s fertility and infertility. Through standardized observations and charting of specific biological markers, CrMS empowers a woman to take charge of her gynecological and reproductive health like never before. It’s about more than just knowing her cycles; it’s about harnessing that information to maintain optimal well-being. 

The Marquette Model brings 21st-century technology to NFP by using urine fertility biomarkers collected at home that measure hormone levels. These biomarkers can be used in conjunction with cervical mucus or basal body temperature and an algorithm to confidently determine the woman’s fertile window.

SymptoPro™ Fertility Education is an effective, scientifically based method, that treats fertility as a normal, healthy process. SymptoPro is a Sympto-Thermal Method of fertility awareness, based on changes in a woman’s cervical mucus, waking or resting temperature, and cervix.

Couple to Couple League (CCL) emphasize the relationship between at least two of the primary signs of fertility (for most, this is the change in cervical mucus and the BBT). Whichever two primary signs first support each other, it is very important to make accurate observations, record them, identify the Peak Day of fertility correctly, and confirm the beginning of the infertile time.

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