Sunday 11 May 2008

Mass for Marriage

The splendid cover of the Mass booklet links yesterday's Mass for Married Couples with today's Feast of Pentecost. Over 700 couples with a combined total of more than 43,000 years of marriage celebrated their wedding anniversaries at a special Mass.

By personal invitation from Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, couples from the Diocese of Westminster celebrating their 10th, 25th, 30th, 40th, 50th or 60th wedding anniversaries during 2008 gathered to give thanks, renew their vows and pray for their families and all marriages. The congregation included couples who have been married for over 60 years.

As part of the Mass, after the homily, the couples faced each other and gave an intention to continue to love one another, and were solemnly blessed by the Cardinal. The Mass received wide coverage, was carried on BBC news (link here), and was a wonderful sign of the value and blessings of married life.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great witness!
I saw it on the Philadelphia Public Television syndicated broadcast of the BBCNews!

May I plug Retrouvaille

http://www.retrouvaille.org/pages.php?page=1

as a great peer-to-peer Christian ministry for troubled marriages that has worked well in the States and Canada and is growing in the UK, but needs priests to lead the retreat days... encourage your priests to invest the time to become facilitators, they will get a lot of practical pastoral wisdom and many opportunities to offer the sacrament of reconciliation to hurting couples on the verge of divorce.

My husband (non-Catholic) and I benefited from the 'communio' and we, in return, have offered our testimony here in Pennsylvania as part of the program to help couples who have live with mere memories of phase (1) Romance, suffering (2) Disillusionment or (3) Misery. The high divorce rate means many couples never make it to the 4th Stage: Awakening.
Catholics can offer this ministry to ALL Christian couples, please promote it to your parishes!

God Bless

P.S. came here H/T the cake link at
http://amywelborn.wordpress.com/2008/05/11/pentecost-varia/#comment-6026