Preparing to Live in Love


Overview
Alternative Group Formats
Satisfying Pre-Cana
The Core Curriculum
Post-Program Evaluation

Overview

Preparing to Live in Love is the best available marriage preparation in the church today!  It combines three key components that make the program incredibly effective and uniquely helpful – program content, authentic witness, and experiential delivery.

Preparing to Live in Love is skills oriented. The program provides in-depth understanding of interpersonal relationship at the most intimate level and provides the tools necessary to nurture that relationship through all the changing circumstances of married life. Topics are practical and relevant giving couples a sense of control over their own destiny and the confidence that they have the tools to live the life they desire. The experiential exercises and practical skills that are taught combine to allow you to experience what the church teaches, make it your own, literally grow closer as a couple, and gain the confidence and tools you will need for a joyful and lasting marriage. Each fiance(e) receives a take-home workbook that summarizes the content of each session, provides homework for further reflection and discussion, and includes excerpts from John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body” that correspond to each session.

Each engaged couple has the opportunity to experience the immediate benefit and then put into practice the skills taught in Preparing to Live in Love. Each session includes exercises that personalize the content for the engaged and helps them to learn by doing under the guidance of their mentor couple. Homework assignments reinforce the program content with everyday activities that drive home the practical reality of living in love amid the chaos of life, allow the engaged to adopt helpful behaviors, and practice the skills they have learned.

Preparing to Live in Love is facilitated by a specially trained married couple who is a living, credible witness of what the program teaches. They are themselves striving to live in love and share personally from their own lives to motivate and inspire the engaged to embrace the vision for matrimony that the church holds up for its sacramental couples.

If you decide to choose Preparing to Live in Love for your marriage preparation, you will be assigned your own personal Mentor Couple who will guide you through a seven session experiential curriculum. You will meet nominally once a week in their home where the atmosphere is relaxed and real, yet engaging and enlightening. Through your mentor couple’s personal sharing and real-life examples, you will see a clear picture of how the Sacrament of Matrimony can be lived out in ordinary terms. You will work your schedule directly with your Mentors and they will tailor the course to your specific needs. We are confident that you will find it practical, relevant, and useful.

Alternative Group Formats

In some areas, you may have the choice of experiencing the Preparing to Live in Love course content and skills training in a group setting rather than one-on-one with a personal Mentor. The group adaptation is normally referred to as “Beginning to Live in Love”. To learn more about this option and to see if it is offered in your area, please click on “Beginning to Live in Love” under “Our Programs” in the right hand column.

Convalidating couples, those who have been married civilly or are long-term cohabitating with children, have the preferred option of participating in a group setting specifically tailored to their situation called “Secular to Sacramental.” To learn more about this option and to see if it is offered in your area, please click on “Secular to Sacramental” under “Our Programs” in the right hand column.

Satisfying Pre-Cana

While you can expect Preparing to Live in Love to fulfill the Pre-Cana requirement of the Catholic Church, please check with your priest to confirm this with him and determine if there are any other local requirements.

Preparing to Live in Love is not yet available everywhere. If there is any question about it being available where you live, please contact us directly. Once you are ready to sign up, just click on the Register Now button. Once we receive your registration, we will contact you.

The Core Curriculum

A Mission to Love
An invitation to approach marriage as a pro-active mission to live in love; an affirmation of the gift of sexuality as a resource to help the couple to embrace a life of other-centered generosity

Smart Loving
A package of fun-filled, helpful exercises designed to free us from any limiting expectations formed in our family of origin while discovering how to love the way the other most wants and needs to be loved

Communicating for Intimacy
Practical skills to build intimacy and trust while avoiding misunderstanding through feeling level verbal communication and empathetic listening

Sex as Sacred Body Language
Explores making love as the ultimate language of the body, the language of our wedding vows, rather than just an activity; witnesses to the gift of paternity and maternity and Natural Family Planning

Sacrament of Matrimony
Illuminating the call of the church to live a deeply sexual, passionate, and intimate love as a sign of Christ’s love for the church supported by prayer and the community of the faithful. A simple approach to helping couples share their unique experiences of faith and prayer with each other as they begin or continue their journey of becoming one in the Lord

Healing and Forgiveness
Principles, processes, and practices for growing closer through forgiveness and healing along with strategies to combat emotional injuries from outside the relationship

Becoming a Couple
Developing couple values, examining individual decision-making styles, and learning strategies for couple decision making based on making what is important to you important to me. Planning for a lifetime of intentionally growing in love

Parish-based Marriage Preparation

Sacraments happen in parishes.  More and more, the church is encouraging preparation for the Sacrament of Marriage to also take place in the parish reversing the trend for large group diocesan events.  As a parish-based marriage mentoring program,  Preparing to Live in Love offers the convenience of local availability and scheduling while personally involving the community of the faithful in which the couple has grown up or intends to live as a married couple.  The joy of the engaged couple evangelizes the parish while the parish takes a more active role in forming and supporting the couples sacramental calling.

Parish based Mentoring builds relationships within the community that continue after the wedding.  The precious friendship that forms between mentor and engaged couple helps the engaged to feel connected to the church and they gain a resource to return to as they succeed or struggle through the early years of adjusting to married life.

Mentoring

Mentoring is universally accepted as the best possible approach to preparing couples to marry, but traditional mentoring programs do not always include comprehensive content.   Preparing to Live in Love combines the benefits of a personal mentor with the insights and skills of a complete marriage education course resulting in the ideal adult learning experience.

The authentic witness of the mentor couple makes the insights and skills of Preparing to Live in Love both credible and desirable.  The engaged typically finish the program filled with the conviction that it is not only possible for them to have the marriage they desire but they now have the tools they need to make it a reality.

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Post-Program Evaluation

As someone who has completed the Preparing to Live in Love program, please take a few minutes to provide feedback on your unique experience. Your input will be extremely valuable to us in communicating the effectiveness of the program in order to promote it in new parishes and dioceses, as well as encouraging other engaged couples to experience Preparing to Live in Love.

Post-Program Evaluation

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