Marriage and Family: Strengthening the Domestic Church

Randy Sly

 

No other establishment on earth, while so important, is entered by most so unprepared. The purpose of this class is to gain an understanding of the basic principles of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony and the importance of the family – the Domestic Church. In addition, the class will work on establishing some best practices in the interpersonal areas of marriage.. 

 

In his book Love and Responsibility, Blessed John Paul II states, “Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and binds them to their eventual souls, with whom they make up a sole family - a domestic church.”

 

This gift must be constantly nurtured and refined through prayer, participation and good old-fashioned hard work. In the five sessions below we will focus on two goals – inform and reform. We want to provide good information on what marriage is, how God intends for it to work and what responsibilities are “owned” by the husband and wife.

 

Schedule:Five sessions: 2/16, 3/1, 3/15, 3/29, 4/12, 2012

 

Time: 7:00pm to 9:00pm

 

Format: 30-45 minute presentation, Q&A, “laboratory practices”

 

Resources: Holy Scripture, Catechism of the Catholic Church,Christian Family in the Modern World (FamiliarisConsortio) – Pope John Paul II, Communication books by Norman Wright, Temperaments books by Tim LaHaye and Art Bennett, and others.

 

 

1. Establishing the Domestic Church: Holy Matrimony - Covenant and Sacrament (February 16, 2012)

◦        Marriage as a Covenant
1662 Marriage is based on the consent of the contracting parties, that is, on their will to give themselves, each to the other, mutually and definitively, in order to live a covenant of faithful and fruitful love.

▪       "Cutting of a Covenant" - from the OT

▪       Marriage as Covenant

◦        Marriage as a Sacrament
1661The sacrament of Matrimony signifies the union of Christ and the Church. It gives spouses the grace to love each other with the love with which Christ has loved his Church; the grace of the sacrament thus perfects the human love of the spouses, strengthens their indissoluble unity, and sanctifies them on the way to eternal life (cf. Council of Trent: DS 1799).

▪       Christ elevated marriage

▪       Understanding of a sacramental marriage

◦       Maintaining your marriage as sacrament

▪       Marriage principles based upon the Church’s teaching in the Catechism of the Catholic Church

2. Roles in the Domestic Church: The Biblical Marriage Model – St. Paul on Husbands and Wives (March 1)

◦       The presentation potion of this class will focus on the Pauline teaching of marriage found in Ephesians 5.

▪       This portion of Scripture has been mishandled and misrepresented a great deal over time.

▪       These misrepresentations have dimished the receptivity of Christians to accept Paul’s teaching.

◦       Husbands, love your wives – what this really means

◦       Wives, submit to your husbands – what this means and what is doesn't!

◦       Modeling the Church – The family as an expression of Christ and His Church to the world.

3. Communication in the Domestic Church– the Key to a good marriage (March 15, 2012)

◦       Communication is the primary reason why marriages break down, the second is also communication, as is the third.

▪       The main difference between the three is what they are talking about.

▪       The goal of this class is two-fold:

·         Gain an better understanding of communications dynamics and styles

·         Gain a greater ability to clearly communicate The Power of Words

◦       The Gift of Listening

◦       Are Men really from Mars and Women from Venus?

▪       Communication styles

▪       Inductive and Deductive Communicators

◦       Communication and the Temperaments

◦       Making Decisions

◦       Dealing with Anger

4. Worship in the Domestic Church (March 29, 2012) 

◦       Most families don’t have much of a strategy in place for prayer and a devotional at home

▪       We will explore devotional options and opportunities

▪       We will look at resources.

▪       This will also be a time where those who have some victories in this area can share with others what they do

▪        Priesthood of the baptized
1657 It is here that the father of the family, the mother, children, and all members of the family exercise the priesthood of the baptized in a privileged way "by the reception of the sacraments, prayer and thanksgiving, the witness of a holy life, and self-denial and active charity."¹⁷⁰ Thus the home is the first school of Christian life and "a school for human enrichment."¹⁷¹ Here one learns endurance and the joy of work, fraternal love, generous - even repeated - forgiveness, and above all divine worship in prayer and the offering of one's life.

◦       Establishing patterns of prayer

◦       Ring around the Rosary – developing an approach to family devotion

◦       Making the Mass a Family Affair

▪       Establishing family patterns

▪       Dealing with objections

5. Family in the domestic church – Becoming who you are (April 12, 2012)

◦        The final class really moves more into the realm of children and the family
1656 In our own time, in a world often alien and even hostile to faith, believing families are of primary importance as centers of living, radiant faith. For this reason the Second Vatican Council, using an ancient expression, calls the family the Ecclesia domestic ("the domestic church").¹⁶⁸ It is in the bosom of the family that parents are "by word and example . . . the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children. They should encourage them in the vocation which is proper to each child, fostering with special care any religious vocation."¹⁶⁹

◦       Making Memories

◦       Is there anything to birth order?

                  ◦       Creating a family legacy

 

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Randy Sly serves as Associate Editor for Catholic Online (www.catholic.org) and CEO for the Catholic Online Virginia Edition - North. He is also the Owner and President of WriteView, LLC, a commercial writing and communications company specializing in content for print, web, and multi-media as well as consulting for brand messaging, marketing communications strategies, public speaking and the new media. He works with corporations and associations, as well as consulting with churches and ministries regarding their communications tasks.

Born and raised in The Episcopal Church, Sly spent over thirty years in parish and denominational ministry, serving churches in Michigan, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Virginia. He became a member of the Wesleyan Methodist Church during college and later served for 20 years in parish leadership as a pastor as well as in communications work. In 1992, he joined the Charismatic Episcopal Church (CEC) where he was ordained a priest and ultimately consecrated a bishop. He served as the Archbishop of the Eastern Province and Supervising Archbishop of the International Office of Communications. In November, 2006 he and his wife, Sandy, were received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church.  Sly is a graduate of Spring Arbor University (B.A.), Asbury Theological Seminary (M.Div. with honors), and pursued Ph.D. studies in Educational Media at Kansas State University. He was awarded a Doctor of Divinity Degree (Honoris Causa) from Holy Trinity Theological College and Seminary. Prior to his call to ministry, he worked in radio as a disk jockey and broadcast journalist, in television broadcasting and multimedia