MENTORING

Mentoring the Engaged
is universally accepted as the best possible approach to preparing couples to marry .
Preparing to Live in Love combines the benefits of a personal mentor with the insights and skills of a completemarriage education course resulting in the ideal adult learning experience.

Parish based Mentoring
builds relationships within 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.

Preparing to Live in Love
matches an empowered and specially trained mentor couple one-on-one with an engaged couple. They meet once a week for seven weeks in the home of the mentor where the atmosphere is relaxed and real, yet engaging and enlightening. Through the mentor couple's personal sharing and real-life examples, the engaged couple sees a clear picture of how the Sacrament of Matrimony can be lived out in ordinary terms. The experiential exercises and practical skills that are taught combine to allow the engaged couple to experience what the church teaches, make it their own, literally grow closer as a couple, and gain the confidence and tools they 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.

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