Today I found myself as a lone wolf among a vocal Twitter mob talking about the fees that most Western civilization parishes charge to conduct a Catholic wedding.

It was truly disturbing to see so much ignorance about what goes on behind the scenes in preparation for a wedding, to see how sunk we are in consumer mentality rather than collaborative mission, and to see how little the time and service of the priesthood was valued. Even those in clerical office whom I expected to know better weighed in on the wrong side, which means that their parish/episcopal staff have been shielding them effectively from the nitty gritty of wedding preparation, especially the financial bits.

Here is a brilliant article which I had high hopes of exonerating me from writing about this topic: https://canonlawmadeeasy.com/2013/11/07/stipends-and-sacraments/
It includes all the canon law references that pertain to stipends for Mass offerings and sacramental celebrations. Please read it.

Let's go back to the plan of God in the scriptures.

We see Melchizedek provide Abraham spiritual services of a ritual nature, and Abraham in thanksgiving to God for the battle victory and for all else God had done for him including the post battle blessing, gave to God through Melchizedek a tenth (tithe) of everything.

We see in the offerings and sacrifices made according to the law of Moses, that specific portions of it were to be set aside for either the consecrated priesthood, or for them and their families. It was the way God designed for the priests and their families to be able to give themselves fully to the requirements of the ritual worship of Israel.

If you want to delve deeper into the meanings of Temple worship, this article by a Presbyterian scholar is helpful. https://www.fpcjackson.org/resource-library/sermons/priestly-pay-the-priest-s-portion-of-the-grain-offering

And this article on the tithes of the Old Testament is useful also, https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/1958/09/the-three-tithes-of-the-old-testament

Now I need you to comprehend how this tithe and offering process and the spiritual impetus behind it is very different to the crime of simony we see in Acts 8, where Simon the magician notes that people that Peter and John impose hands upon receive the charisms of the Holy Spirit. He wants to be able to do what Peter and John do, and offers them money. Simon would be set for life being able to charge for passing on these valuable charisms to others. Peter gives him a vehement rebuke.

The Church still takes this seriously, eg if an object has been blessed it can no longer be sold.

The closest thing I see to simony today is people doing 'prophetic activations' online, and charging money to be part of them. The promise is that your capacity to receive prophecy, dreams and visions etc will be unlocked through prayer. That is very different to attending a paid conference or seminar that has times of prayer ministry where such things might happen but are never guaranteed to happen, and would only happen if it was God initiated.

'What you have received without charge, give without charge' has to be balanced with 'the labourer is worthy of his hire'.

The tithes and offerings are made first and foremost to God, and then generally the tithes keep the families of priests and the temple and its furnishings and other requirements for worship (vestments, musical instruments, offering vessels) in good repair, and part of the offerings goes directly to the priests.

From this thinking comes our first collection for the upkeep of the priests and our second collection for the upkeep of the parish, and by extension the diocesan services. It isn't paying for sacraments as much as keeping the mechanisms going that make receiving the sacraments possible.

I really hope you get that distinction, because that is what underpins the thinking on marriage fees.

In a perfect world couples getting married would naturally express their thanksgiving to God for such a priceless gift. That expression could be through money, or in offerings in kind (cattle, produce), manual labour as often happens in rural impoverished areas, and given to God through both parish and priest, and also to the poor and needy. But it falls under the keeping the mechanisms that make receiving the sacraments possible thinking, not under the payment for sacraments thinking (which would be simony).

So let's look now at what goes on behind the scenes in a parish to make a wedding possible:

There is paperwork to be done to apply for the marriage certificate for the civil side of the marriage dealing with government laws and regulations. Then there is the paperwork to determine whether the bride and groom are sacramentally capable of contracting a Catholic marriage. That's why you need baptism certificates, confirmation certificates. They usually have to be verified by the parishes in which those sacraments were received. Rarely is this simple, usually it entails significant time for parish secretaries to complete. If there have been prior marriages it is even more complicated. If the paperwork cannot be verified, then the spouse to be without the verification is invited to have a conditional baptism and chrismation (Dear God we don’t know whether this person was validly baptised or not, but You do, if they weren't baptised back then open up the gift of Holy Baptism for them now, and if they were validly baptised back then, please bless them for recommitting themselves to You).

The priest is obliged to do all he can to ascertain whether both bride and groom are both able and capable of giving full consent to the marriage. Often this is done through a series of marriage preparation meetings and talks, and depending on diocesan policy attending some kind of marriage preparation course eg Engaged Encounter. Frequently this process time with the priest is the only time a couple gets to focus on preparing for the marriage, and not just the wedding, and the insights and advice are useful for a lifetime. Everything else (invitations, wedding cake, formal gear, photographer etc) is focussed on the wedding day, only this is attempting to set you up to succeed in married life.

Then there is the work to be done selecting scripture readings and hymns and which of the various options for prayers during the Mass or Liturgy of the Word are preferred.

The priest has to prepare a homily. Ditto if a deacon is presiding over the ceremony. Preparing homilies takes time and effort.
Then there is the time the priest gives to the wedding ceremony itself, getting there early, often doing part of the set-up.

These are not inconsequential commitments of time by both priest/deacon and parish staff, and it doesn't stop there.

Those doing the music have to be contacted and scheduled, they have to practice the music. They also have to submit the copyright permissions for the music chosen, and there are fees to use music depending on what kind of copyright payment mechanisms the parish already has. Popular hymns would already be paid for under parish licence, less common hymns may attract additional charges. If the musicians don’t already have the music desired, they have to pay for the sheet music. Copyright is charged whether the music if live or pre-recorded, because no matter the delivery method it is still being utilised in a public setting.

In high summer or deep winter the bills for lighting and air-conditioning will be higher, but even outside of those intense climate times there will still be light and power usage.

Altar servers may be required, and they give of their time too.

If there is a wedding practice beforehand, then that is additional time given by priest, musicians and others.

The parish also has to cover itself in case things go wrong, and that happens more frequently than you imagine. Normal things like a child spilling a drink, or throwing up, or lots of grassy detritus leftover from weddings of people from Pacific Island heritage. Someone has to clean them up, and sometimes the damage is costly to repair.

Then the other things that can go wrong include a wedding guest having a fall, breaking a bone or two, or similar calamity, and then suing the parish. Public liability insurance is no longer cheap, and the more times unfortunate things happen the dearer it gets.

For particularly eye catching chapels and churches the waiting lists tend to be longer, and in the meantime the couple can split up (and not tell the parish, it happens more than you think) or find another venue they want more (and not tell the parish, it happens more than you think), so these were the first places to ask for some kind of deposit to reserve a place on the parish's marriage calendar. If you have paid for something, you are more likely to show up, and more likely to contact a place to get your money back.

For cathedrals there might be extra costs due to forgone revenue from tourist donations when the wedding is taking place and non-guests are dissuaded from entering.

Those eye-catching chapels and churches usually have a high annual maintenance bill, and some of the 'fee for use' will go towards that bill.

Often parishes help with putting together a wedding booklet, and that alone is a time consuming task taking many hours even if working from a basic template, and even if there are no alterations and changes of mind about readings and hymns etc along the way. Add printing costs to that.

It definitely isn't free for a parish to provide the wherewithal for a marriage to take place. Expecting all of those services to be provided gratis even for a super active member of the parish is unreasonable.

Generally there is a flat fee that encompasses all these things, and in reality it is a token only and not the full cost at all. The suggested voluntary and yet expected stipend for the priest technically should be separate, but parish secretaries are pragmatic and they know that bundling things into a single fee reduces the amount of time they have to spend explaining why a fee is necessary in the first place. Explaining one is hard enough, explaining two, forget it! Let alone all of the histrionics and other verbal abuse that exudes from people stressed out over wedding preparations that such fees illicit and the parish secretaries cop.

With weddings of two practicing Catholics running at around 1 in 10, or less, you have to factor additional time educating brides and grooms with minimum understanding of Catholic ritual.

Because the knowledge of how things are done has rapidly decreased with each virtually unchurched generation, parishes were finding that the priest's stipends were not even on the radar. Even the best of us gets upset after receiving no tangible appreciation for time and effort five or more weddings in a row. In former days (many decades past) providing a stipend was just general knowledge and expected behaviour. People back then knew what amount was a reasonable offering, they don’t now. And it is not just weddings. Parishes have had to introduce the fee structure for funerals as well to ensure that the priest gets a minimum token of appreciation/stipend.

Cases of genuine hardship will always be accommodated somehow, if requested respectfully.

So what is reasonable fee wise? A lot of people are going to be putting in a lot of hours from the parish making your wedding day possible. May I suggest that you take the average hourly wage/salary of bride and groom and multiply it by 10. Even though 10 hours is an extremely conservative estimate, the vast majority of fees will be under that. Be grateful, and cheerfully give. If over, then the parish you are dealing with has high maintenance and security costs and/or a recent spate of very expensive bad experiences.

Some people have suggested taking up a once a year collection to subsidise the fees for weddings and baptisms. I suspect you will find that the user pays principle has been so embedded in Western civilisation that the average parishioner will be outraged, because the people most likely to be subsidised are obviously absent from weekly Sunday worship. It would also take away that biblical notion of expressing personal gratitude to God.
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If you still think that fees for church weddings are utterly wrong, then go and consult an expert. Contact a parish secretary, bring her (or him) a cup of coffee, ask them about why that parish has wedding fees and be prepared to listen and listen and listen as they tell you the stories behind each and everyone one of the fee decisions the parish has reluctantly had to make.

Mass, Sunday 20 Jan 2019, CCRNSW Retreat

Fr Hugh Thomas CssR was the celebrant for this Sunday Mass during the #CCRNSW retreat weekend. You can learn a bit more about him here and here.

The readings were taken from Sunday Week 2 in Ordinary Time, Year C.

The first reading came from the Prophet Isaiah beginning, 'About Zion I will not be silent'. The Psalm response was, 'Proclaim His marvellous deeds to all the nations'. The second reading came from 1 Corinthians 12 about the variety of gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Gospel came from the section of St John where Jesus changes the water into wine at the wedding at Cana.

Fr Hugh Thomas

Today in most churches we talk about marriage because of the setting of the Gospel at a wedding feast. The ministry of Jesus began by His attending a marriage of a man and a woman.

Bride and bridegroom is a theme running all through Scripture beginning in Genesis when He made them male and female. God uses this image of marriage to illustrate His love for us.

We are a people constantly unfaithful to God, but constantly called back to Him. God only chose one race at that time, the Jewish people, yet they were rebellious and inconstant. Sometimes He had to punish them to bring them back to their senses. Despite everything, He still loved them. He still delights in them, and in us. He never took back His choice.

Marriage is important in God's eyes. That's why it is under so much attack.

God loves marriage so much! Is it irreparably damaged? God is able to change things. How? Through us.

Even if you have been wounded, you still have a part to play.

Our witness shows that Christian marriage is still possible, whether it be 15 years to 58 years.

Jesus wanted the guests at the wedding and the wedding couple to have a good time, because marriages are worth celebrating.

These things equally apply not only to Israel but to each of us individually too. In God's eyes we are a princely crown, 'not forsaken, My delight'. God delights in us, even when we are messing it all up.

Some of the Saints have had the mystical marriage experience. He has this for each and every one of us.

It was the Mother of God who noticed that there was a problem with the wine supplies. She knew He would never refuse her. We ask her to pray for all the families who are here – especially for those who are struggling and for families broken but still loved. One day He will restore everything. Believe it!!
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The final session of the CCRNSW Retreat wasn't exactly a prayer meeting. The chairs were rearranged into circular formation with an altar-table in the middle. After a brief explanation, Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance was brought in and put on the altar-table, and participants were free to just have some 'me and God' time, or to join in the praise and singing that accompanied the Eucharistic adoration. Passages from Rev 5 about the throne room of God, and from Rev 21 about the new heavens and new earth were read out. 'You are the people of Revelation. This is now.' Sometime later prayer teams went around quietly praying over the targets on our individual backs. Following that prayer time people were invited to give testimony to how God had been working in them and speaking to them during the retreat.
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​And here is the PDF of the notes from the whole Retreat weekend. They run to 18 A4 pages. 

Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 16
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More prayers from the pit for guidance: If they resonate with you please make them your own. If they don't resonate with you, please pray them on behalf of the rest of us.

Yes, that's right. Still absolutely no change is on the horizon. The waiting (and sometimes praying) game continues. Today we invoke the intercession of St Gertrude the Great, since it is her feast day, and because she was never afraid to ask God questions and audaciously bold in all that she asked of Him (and obtained too!!). May she pray with us, and for us.

Family

If Your prophets are to be believed Heavenly Father, then You want to bring big breakthroughs in our family relationships. There's a really important family event coming up soon, and there's a really important family member who at this point is not going to attend. It is hard, this feeling of no account, since this family member has been able to rearrange the schedule to attend other events this year. Please bless this family member. Only You can change this heart, and if it is Your will, arrange things so that attending becomes both easy and something desired. Only You can give me the power to forgive the hurt and the rejection, and the needed compassion for what this family member deals with in secret.

If we are going to ask Heavenly Father, we may as well ask for even bigger things too. Between a father and a son there is a really big rift, a rift that only got worse last year when opportunities for rapprochement were rejected. Neither one of them is getting any younger. Due to the rift there are grandchildren growing up without any knowledge of a grandfather. The stubborn streak runs strong in this family. Only You can undo the damage of past misinformation. Only You can help an adult reconsider adolescent years from a more objective perspective. Only You can put the will and the desire into both sides to mend the rift and forgive and open up communication channels. Please work this wonder.

Wisdom

Heavenly Father our country rather publicly rejected Your plans for marriage and family yesterday. We are so sorry about that. Please forgive us. Please guide our parliamentarians and give them Your own wisdom to enable them to balance fairly the needs of those who embrace alternative lifestyles and the needs of those who desire to maintain the freedom to think and say and act without penalty according to Your plans for marriage and family. Grant to them divine wisdom in drawing up and approving legislation and amendments to that legislation. Please take away from their minds and hearts any blinders preventing them seeing the holy path of Your will and following it.

We also need the wisdom that You gave to young King Solomon, Heavenly Father. In light of the national plebiscite results and the rush to get legislation through parliament, many of us are going to receive invitations to wedding ceremonies that could never be sacramental. How do we balance our affection for these friends and relatives, and our respect for the love that is between them and their intendeds, with our love for You and for Your holy will for marriage and family? How do we show our love for the persons, and not implicitly condone actions contrary to Your will. Please, please, please grant us Your holy wisdom. Only You can help us find the narrow path, and the strength to walk it. How we desperately need Your holy wisdom in this!

Unity

Your desire for unity is so strong, Heavenly Father. But our desire for it is so weak. Only You can change that. Please change that. All of our efforts to obtain opportunities to sit down and chat with leaders of other churches have come to nothing. Do we do as the persistent widow, and ask yet again? Should we do the dust shaking thing, and see if efforts to initiate meetings of laity from other churches come to something? Are we as David, with too much blood on our hands for this kind of work? Should we be praying that You raise up a Solomon to spearhead this work of unity locally? All we have are questions. We don't have the answers, but we know that You do. At the moment all we have is fear that if we step out and try and initiate anything, that we will both fall on our faces in the spilt milk and ruin whatever delicate plans You already had in train. We need Your wisdom, we need the clear unequivocal guidance of Your will for our concrete local circumstances. Please, please, please, show us what You want us to do, and just as clearly what You don't want us to do.
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For all the unanswered emails and unresponded to messages, we thank You and ask the grace to forgive and not to bear grudges. For all of our efforts towards unity that have backfired, we seek Your pardon and the restoration of what was lost. For the times that we failed to seek and achieve peace when squabbles broke out among our own, please forgive us. Please forgive us our own local petty jealousies and misunderstandings and prejudices. Please bring in the healing and unity and peace that we cannot achieve on our own. Only You can do it. Only You can break us out of our silos and cliques and into service of the whole rather than our private fiefdoms. Please do.

Employment

Dear Heavenly Father, our young people are finding it so hard to find employment, and it is even harder for those seeking their first job. How can we truthfully say that You are watching out for them, that You have everything in hand, and that it is all going to turn out OK, when week by week and month by month so opportunities for them appear on the horizon? Us older ones, we can take the uncertainty and the perplexity a bit better. But these young ones are vulnerable in a special way to the whispers of the evil one that You don't care for them, and that You are never going to provide a way to make a living for them. We confess that we do not understand Your ways. We confess our anger and frustration at the delays in seeing Your answers especially for these young ones. They have so much self-doubt as it is. How can we ask them to believe that You are a loving and provident God, when in such an important area we have no proof to show them? Please Heavenly Father remove all the delays that hinder the answer to our prayers for employment for our young people. Don't make them wait, and lose even more hope, any longer. They are so vulnerable to exploitation. Please grant them good holy and wholesome employers, just wages and work that develops their unique skills and talents for the benefit of all humanity. Only You can do this. Please come through for them and for us. Only You can provide the connections, the happy meetings, and the opportunities that have holy flashing lights over them. All of our own efforts have failed. We look to You as our only hope. Please Lord show us that our hope and trust has not been misplaced or in vain.

Amen.

Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 11
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All of the votes are in for the federal plebiscite on the definition of marriage. In the middle of next week the results will be revealed, and whichever way it goes the fallout is unlikely to be pretty.

Around 80% of those eligible to vote sent in a ballot paper. Since truth is the first casualty in any war, we can wonder just how many of those 80% actually knew the implications of how they voted. Emotionalism was rife, and many didn't have the patience to wade through the intellectual and logical arguments.

The line I found hardest to swallow was that a Yes vote would change nothing beyond permitting a minority to express their love. Consulting the recent histories of those countries who have changed the definition of marriage shows that this is a falsehood.

It would be so good to see a Brexit or Trump-like result, where the underdog vote wins and the matter is put to rest for good.

Whatever the voting result is, we are left with a level of national disunity that we've never had before. Each side seems incapable of listening to the other side, and there's no room for grey in the middle.

It has been a truism up until now that our country was too full of apathy to ever have a civil war, but now I'm not so sure. On both sides, the culture of life and the culture of death, have both been strengthened by the plebiscite process. The prophecy that once looked so strange, (that the final battle of our era would be fought about marriage and the family), doesn't look so strange any more.

Even prior to the outcome of the plebiscite we've already seen the persecution of people upholding the pre-historical truth that marriage is about one man and one woman for life. In the past I've read about the totalitarian regimes of history and considered that such thought policing couldn't happen here – but I was wrong, and sadly I've already seen it. Someone we know was almost removed of their duties because on an internal company forum they voiced an opinion different to the popularist one. It was only because the legislation has not yet been enacted that the employment was saved, and due to a good lawyer.

You have to see the irony of a corporation going on about being an inclusive institution, and then not permitting all points of view to co-exist.

An image that keeps recurring for me is that of a small child having a spectacular tantrum because the child wants something that would be harmful not only for the child but for the family and community too. The government in this image plays the parent. Will the government give into the sad brown eyes, the tears, the pleading of the child, and the big scene the child is making? Or will the government choose the long term good of all, child, family and community, and say No? It seems to me that every time 'culture of death' legislation is introduced, that this scenario plays out. Sadly there is a track record in both state and federal parliaments of giving in.

During the week the current battle will have an outcome, but the war will be far from over.

To bring back society to the culture of life is going to require the Benedict plan, prayer and work. The spiritual battle for hearts and minds is going on at the same time as the lobbying, the legislation drafting, the debating, social media posting and boardroom discussions. On both the prayer and the work fronts people of goodwill need to remain engaged. Prayer alone won't solve it. Work along won't solve it. But prayer and work together can be effective and ultimately win.

Those of us who value freedom of thought, freedom of conscience, free speech, freedom of religion and freedom of employment will need to band together closer than ever before, and pray and work together until the culture of life prevails over the culture of death. Be prepared for a long fight.

Heavenly Father we don't yet know the outcome of the federal plebiscite, but You do. Please protect our country from further inroads of the culture of death. Please raise up and gather together those prepared to fight for Your culture of life to prevail, with both prayer and work. Grant to them the heavenly strategies that will make a real difference. May Your kingdom at last reign upon earth, and may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. May those who have been misled into traps laid by the culture of death be released and given freedom to walk the way of the culture of life. Amen.

As this is written Australia has begun a postal plebiscite to gauge the opinions of all adult Australians on whether the definition of marriage should be changed to include same sex relationships.

The stakes are surprisingly high: free speech, freedom of religion, gender fluidity indoctrination in schools, children denied access to either a biological father or a biological mother and the truth.

'God created man in the image of Himself, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. This is why a man leaves his father and mother and joins himself to his wife and they become one body.' Genesis 1:27, 2:24

The truth is something you can only accept or reject. The truth is something that cannot be changed.

If these passages from Genesis are true, then marriage and family is God's idea and God's plan for human happiness and the well-being of each person. If these passages are true, then what we are seeing today is the final battle of our era forcing each person to choose whether to live in a God designed world or to live in a world in total rebellion against God.

It is a final battle in a war that began a bit over 100 years ago.
Most of the preceding battles were lost, and you can only truly understand this war if you grasp how badly the enemy wants to completely undo all of God's handiwork. Let's take a walk through history….

We start with the forces of nationalism which didn't want to see a humanity united under Christendom anymore. Nationalism was a significant contributing factor to World War 1. Many of those who came back from the war questioned God's existence in the face of so much human misery. While the troops were away, women needed to take on roles to keep things going back home. They found that they could do the same jobs.

Equal pay for equal work became the slogan. It won, but something of great importance was lost. The reason men had higher rates of pay was so that their pay could support a family, a single woman didn't have a family to support. Today we see that by and large both fathers and mothers have to work to earn enough to support a family, and the children have lost a full time parent.

It was a surprise to learn that a hundred years ago there were separate areas for women and men to swim. As that changed the bathing costumes did too, from outfits that covered most of the body to outfits that cover little of the body. Outings that used to be fun of innocent fun to the beach or to the baths now began to be unscripted beauty pageants and dangerous for those who wanted to remain chaste in body, mind and spirit.

For women skirts became shorter, necklines began plunging, and sleeves began their disappearing act. When the skirts could become no shorter they transformed into shorts, trousers, jodhpurs, and leggings. As modesty moved out, so did the kind of femininity that inspired chivalry in men. Now women rarely wear clothing different from men, making us often resort to checking out hands and cheeks to determine who is who. Sadly we don't hear 'Vive la difference!' much anymore.

Back a hundred years ago, marriage and motherhood and courtship were honoured. To file for divorce you had to go through a public court case and prove that you had grounds for your case. The difficulty and cost were a useful deterrent and many couples got through the bad patches with the help of family and friends and found they had a better marriage when the bad patch lifted. Divorce used to be looked on as a public failure. Then came 'no fault' divorce and many salvageable marriages came to an end, many families were broken, many women became sole bread winners for their children and faced an endless struggle street, and the children internalised the conflict. 'Till death do us part' became in practice 'Till I get unhappy' or 'Till I find someone else'. A few learned that they would be less unhappy if they stayed together than if they remained separated and divorced, but most didn't.
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The advent of the contraceptive pill began to split the unitive and procreative aspects of marriage apart. It was now possible to access the goods of marriage with none of the accompanying responsibilities, and if the contraceptive failed then pressure was applied to induce an abortion. This so called women's liberation reduced women from potential life-long partners to objects and one night stands and hardened the hearts of women with pain, loss, abandonment and guilt. Being a single mother lost its stigma, but none of its hardship.

The introduction of recreational drugs enabled people to get the highs without effort that people used to get (and can still get) from serving others, self-sacrifice for a worthy cause, work well done, and encounters with God in prayer. 

The next battle was inclusive language. So that the perceived patriarchal bias would no longer offend anyone there was pressure to talk about humankind rather than mankind, and to remove as many references to 'he' and 'she', 'his' and 'hers' in as many documents, hymns and scripture translations as possible. Achieving this was another step in paving the path to introducing gender fluidity.

Another lost battle was the refusal to love ourselves as God had made us. What a list! Cosmetic surgery, hair dye, hair removal, HRT, metal body piercings, tattoos, implants etc. And when all this began to be considered normal, gender reassignment surgery became a logical progression.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980's focused worldwide attention on homosexual subculture. New levels of compassion and understanding came from this, but also greater levels of social and creative activism. Gradually almost every successful movie and television series had to portray someone in a same sex relationship.

To really win the battle to reject God's plan for male and female to reflect His image in marriage, it was necessary to undermine the credibility of the churches. The horrible crimes against children are not a clergy problem per se as much as a problem throughout society and families; clergy being members of society and family. There's no money and useful publicity in dragging a relative to court, but there's plenty to be had by taking clergy to court.

And so we come to the final battle between God's plan for humanity and the complete rejection of God's plan for humanity. Is it to be male, female and marriage between a man and a woman? Or is to be the multiplicity of gender identities; parent 1 and parent 2; and the legal unions between any 2 (or more) persons classified as marriage?
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What will you choose? Which will you battle for? To live in a God designed world? Or to live in a world in total rebellion against God?

Workshop 2D – The Joy of Love: Evangelising Parishes though the Family and the Couple.

This workshop was led by Francine and Byron Pirola, directors of the Marriage Resource Centre. For 28 years they have been married, and have been blessed with 5 children and an international ministry.

You can follow them under Smart Loving MRC on Facebook and Twitter.

Thank you for coming to this workshop. Why did you choose us?
•We want more for the families doing baptismal preparation, to help plug them into parish life
•We belong to Teams of Our Lady, and are looking for more input
•The topic of the Joy of Love was enough to get me here
•I have a young family, and I'm feeling alone
•Our parish has lots of young families
•Family is the domestic church, so family is crucial
•I'm looking for tips on how to help 3 adults in my life to choose Jesus
•I want to know how to improve on 42 years of marriage
•I want to find out how to engage the families who only seem to show up for sacraments and are never seen again.

In this workshop we'd like to achieve 3 things:
•Give you a fresh mindset for family and parish
•Reflect on Pope Francis' post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia
•Get practical with ideas for what you can actually do in a parish
Family as a force for Evangelisation

Gifts vs Needs.
We can choose to see the families in our parishes as gifts and resources, and not as consumers of resources. The charity model breeds dependency and encourages people to say, 'What's in it for me?'. We have grown up seeing ourselves as consumers, rather than seeing ourselves as co-responsible for the mission of the Church.

'What's in it for me?' thinking actually encourages criticism and comparative evaluation. We can't win that kind of competition. The lure of the beach or the sleep-in eventually wins out.

We need to see families as agents for evangelisation. This requires lay leadership. Inspired by priests, supported by religious, - but done by laity. For this shift in thinking to happen, we have to start searching for the gifts.

Families evangelise in the ordinary
•They disciple their children, and pass on the faith to them
•They disciple the friends of their children, and the families they come from
•They give hospitality and welcome

Our family homes contain the expression of our faith as the domestic church. Somehow we seem to have forgotten the impact of opening up our homes and have got into the thinking that our homes are not good enough and that everything has to take place in parish meeting rooms. Why is it that we seem to have lost the art of hospitality? Let's start seeing our homes once more as places for evangelisation.

When we go to a zoo, we see the giraffes and lions in artificial environments. It is only when you go on safari that you get to see them in their natural environments. The way we experience those animals and the way we relate to them in those environments is completely different. In the same way, a parish meeting room or gathering area is an artificial environment for experiencing and relating to family life.

In our homes, every day, there are at least a dozen evangelising opportunities: tradesmen, postman, passers-by while gardening, children, relatives, phone calls etc.

A friend of ours who believes in the sacrament of marriage has a dream. He'd like to stand at the door of the church on Sunday mornings and ask each married couple how they would rate their passion for each other on a scale of 0 to 10. For anything less than an 8, he would send them home to the bedroom to work things out – so they could come back and celebrate Eucharist properly.

With happily married couples in our pews, our churches would be full with the people who want what they can see we have in the joys of married love.

Our primary evangelising unit is the family.

When we go to Mass we sit together, we go up to Communion together, and we are warm and responsive to each other. Just doing this makes us witnesses to God's love in a gentle natural way.

However we do have to stop and remember what we are about. We have to make real choices. I can choose to pick at the faults of my wife every day OR I can be surprised that this wonderful woman is still with me.

The families in our pews are the biggest gift we have.

Amoris Laetitia by Pope Francis
What an extraordinary document! It is not a hard read, but it is a long read.

Pope Francis uses two images of the Church. The first is the Light on the Hill, where truth is emphasised: teaching, doctrine, vision, ideals for holy living. The second is the Field Hospital, where hope is emphasised. A Church that ministers to the wounded, and accompanies them, and embraces the process of gradualism (it will take many steps in the right direction, but we'll take it one step at a time). Imperfect love is still valuable. A field hospital deals with the reality of life as it is.

There is a gap between our ideals (Light on the Hill) and the reality (Field Hospital). There is a gap between teaching and practice. What are our options?
•Change the teaching? No
•Shout it louder? Make it clearer? No
•A third way, according to the call of Pope Francis.

Archbishop Prowse uses the analogy between referee and coach.
Referee: defines the rules, pulls up players when the rules are broken.
Coach: encourages and supports, seeks to help players improve performance.
We need BOTH.

Anyone who has raised a child  - is a skilled evangelist.
That's because they understand that there is a process: Just as there are stages in teaching a child how to cross a road safely there are stages in bringing someone into full relationship with Jesus: 1) Don't cross the road 2) Look right, look left 3) Be careful 4) Go for it. The process works because we take them on a journey, and we share our life with them.

If we really understood the Eucharist, we would crawl on our knees in unworthiness. Yet so many of us look at the Eucharist with the wrong lenses: 'It is a right. I've earned it.' We are worried sick about those who do not understand, but we choose to love them and work with them.

When you hear a homily at Mass on Sunday, are you listening with the ears of criticism or with ears open to being challenged?

Back in the Parish: Practical Tips
It is time to see more married leadership in the Church. It will be good for the couples, and good for the Church because it will utilise the charisms of marriage that don't burn out.

We have to see marriages as evangelising opportunities.

Go looking for the sacramental charisms that come from the sacrament of marriage, and that become operative when the couple is ministering as a couple.

It is no longer the case that just showing up is the right qualification for any kind of ministry.

The gift of charisms is part and parcel of the sacrament of marriage. There is the inner dimension for the couple, and the outer dimension for the Church. The graces are given not just for us as a couple, but for the whole Church as well.

How many married couples are on your parish council? How often do we put individuals into roles of service and not the married couple he or she is part of? It happens because we don't think of the married couple as an evangelising unit. Their sacramental witness of their married love is what makes them God-like – because there the power of the Holy Spirit is active.

When we do things from our own skills and strengths, we burn out. However, if we minister from spiritual and sacramental charisms, we don't burn out.

When we are together, we are nicer together. We pull each other up gently and effectively. For example, if a wife is present at a meeting with her husband, and he is beginning to ramble, by a gesture she can get that message through and acted upon - before the others at the meeting get restless. We are much better people together than individually.

How to find them
Pick busy people, because they are natural leaders. Look for couples that radiate energy, joy and love. Affirm them. Tell these couples that you need them, and why you chose them. 'You have a gift. We need you'.

Don't ask for volunteers. If you do that you won't get the best, you will get people with spare time.

Seek people who are joy-filled. Don't get old grumpy-pants.

Think about picking married couples to lead ministries.

When faced with a choice between couples with the sacramental impact of holiness or couples with secular skills, go for the ones with holiness. You want the ones that make you say, 'They are great to be around', not the ones who make you say, 'I'm so glad I'm not like them'.

Marriage Mission Team
Every parish should have a Marriage Mission Team, who can plan, build and grow the marriage mission.

To begin with you need at least 2 married couples in each parish. No committees and no reports are required. What are needed are eyes that are out and about seeking talent in other married couples: Couples that can recruit other couples as parish mentors for younger couples, and who will continue to affirm and support the recruited couples.

Initiatives can be added. Events for anniversaries, Valentine's Day, Blessings for the Engaged (we need to celebrate them and pray for them).

On average couples spend 30 seconds a day in personal intimate conversation. Aim for 4 minutes a day. The biggest impact is from 0-10% not from 90-100%.

Tell your families in the parish how stunning they are. Tell them.

The best most dramatic results come from marriage preparation that is married couple community based. The resources are there, not just in the couples already in your parish but also the very good married couple community based programs that are available to help them.

Affirm your married couples in their greatness.

Smart Loving is the result of 20 years of work developing parish based marriage preparation courses. This couple to couple mentoring program is now available in an online version, accessible cheaply and easily. The programs for both the engaged and the married are successful in helping them as couples and in engaging them in parish life.

50% of separations happen in the first 5 years of marriage. That's why a safety net for the newly married in their home communities is so desperately needed. Marriage Mission Teams and Smart Loving programs are ways to provide this.

A question was asked about how to deal with the battle of weekend sport and keeping the family unit together for Sunday Mass. The answer was to start small. It really helps finding another family, and working out which Mass both families could go to together.
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My response

This was an eye-opening workshop.

So what are the charisms of marriage, and what should we be looking for?

"Some people have an extraordinary gift of making people feel welcome, at home, and loved. When I was a seminarian, a Catholic family welcomed me and several others from the seminary into their home for fellowship and relaxation each Friday evening. The experience of their home had a significant effect on my life. They welcomed us as if we were Christ and we were all built up in the Spirit as a result. Hospitality flowed from their charism of marriage (see 1 Cor. 7:7) which they regularly nourished and exercised. It was the first time I saw married life with Christ as the centre, lived out as a prophetic sign. Their life together was so radical and open to others that on feast days they could sometimes have up to 22 people around the table basking in the warmth of their home." Marcellino D’Ambrosio 11 May 2016

Unity: The gift of being one in mind, heart and body.
Procreation: The gift of welcoming new life.
Reconciliation: The gift of restoring relationship.
Hospitality: The gift of welcome and belonging.
Nurture: The gift of care and education.
Fidelity: The gift of faithful dedication.
Generosity: The gift of sharing without reserve.
Mercy: The gift of forgiveness.
Friendship: The gift of companionship and encouragement.
http://cathfamily.org/the-charisms-of-marriage/

And it might look like this: (from the same link given above)

Sarah and Henry are passionately committed to growing deeper in intimacy. Following prostrate surgery that left Henry impotent, they persisted in seeking new ways to express their unity. Their joyfulness is contagious.

Michelle and Mark have four children. Their home is an open door for the parish youth who are often found at the family table talking to Michelle and Mark about important life decisions.

John and Barbara are the focal point of their parish community, welcoming people each Sunday by name and serving refreshments afterwards. They are often the first ones people call when there is a pastoral crisis.

But there definitely isn't enough research around into the ways that the Holy Spirit gifts married couples as married couples for the good of the Church. There must be other charisms of marriage that we have yet to discover because we haven't been looking for them, calling them forth and celebrating them.

I do think they are right, and that the time has come to treasure the couples living out the sacrament of marriage among us, to call them forth, and to help them to shine and put their married charisms at the service of the Church's mission to make disciples. They are our very best response to the crazy political ideologies of our day.

Our homes should be the hubs of where the evangelistic action is, with less reliance on the parish office and parish meeting rooms. Romans 12:13b 'You should make hospitality your special care', is a call from God through St Paul that we need to be more responsive to. It is something that I have been doing less of, and that needs to change.

What a difference it would make to the effectiveness of our parishes in bringing people to Jesus if we took seriously 'our primary evangelising unit is the family'!

Big positive changes would happen too if we kept on the lookout for people on whom the Holy Spirit is bestowing charisms (individuals and married couples) and encouraged them to use those special gifts for the good of others.
​
Marriage Mission teams sound like a very good, very workable and very fruitful idea to implement in parishes.
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In the next issue will be notes from the keynote speech of Dr Susan Timoney on parish outreach to neighbourhoods.

On Monday 13 June and Tuesday 14 June 2016, the parish of St Benedict's Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, ran a 2 day conference to share their experiences of successful parish renewal. Using #DR16 will get you an overview of the conference via Twitter or Facebook.
 
I wasn't able to attend in person, but I was able to participate through the Livestream video of the plenary sessions which were uploaded to the internet. http://livestream.com/accounts/6379109
 
Here follows a rough transcript of that Plenary Part 2 and then my own response to it. Why bother? Not everyone likes getting their information via video, and going through the process of taking notes and typing them up enables the message to take deeper root – and there's no guarantee how long the Livestream option will be available for.
 
This session could have been entitled 'The Marriage Course'
 
It began with a few words from Archbishop Anthony Mancini, the leader of the archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth in which the parish of St Benedict's resides.
 
'Thinking about the testimonies we heard at the end of the last session, it reminded me of how at the Easter Vigil we all light our little candles from the Paschal Candle by passing on the flame to each other until the whole church is filled with candlelight. That's what missionary disciples, like those we heard from, do : pass the flame of faith from heart to heart, one by one.
 
Thanks to Fr James for what he is doing in this parish, and for what he told us about compassion. The gut is where we feel compassion, but it is also where we feel anxiety, fear and nervousness – which is what I am feeling now.
 
There are not many places where 600 people gather to learn what is behind the Divine Renovation book. It is a book. Just like the Gospel comes to us as a book. They both stay as a book unless you get in touch with the experience behind the book.
 
All of us are facing the challenge of making our Church able to speak to our world in ways that will touch the hearts of people. What do we do? What can we do? The answers won't just be found in the written word, but in the lived community that birthed the book.
 
It is mind-boggling for a bishop to be here. However, the point is not for us to be in this building – but to get the hell out of this building. We have Holy Doors for people to come in, but we also need to use them to go out as missionary disciples.
 
So welcome to Halifax-Yarmouth, Enjoy your visit, and may God bless your efforts here and when you return home to your parishes.'
 
We were then introduced to Nicky and Sila Lee, the Anglican founders of The Marriage Course. You can find out more about them through Twitter : https://twitter.com/nickyandsilalee and more about The Marriage Course http://www.themarriagecourses.org/try/the-marriage-course/ and The Marriage Preparation Course http://www.themarriagecourses.org/try/the-marriage-preparation-course/ . And there's a book too: https://www.amazon.com/Marriage-Book-Nicky-Lee/dp/1934564656
 
To begin their session a short video was shown that gave some background information. In 1985 they began writing the course, which started in 1986. By 2001 it was being used internationally. In 2010 it went to China. In 2011 the parenting courses began. In 2011-12 a Spanish version was released. In 2012 a version for rural Africa was prepared. In 2013 it became available in Arabic. In 2014 it received Vatican endorsement.
 
We are excited and honoured to be family together here. Fr James has visited us in London many times. The two of us met when we were 17 and 18 while we were on holiday. We are from non-church-going families. There was belief in God, but it wasn't acted up. Only on Christmas Day would we normally go to church. While at university Nicky heard about the possibility of a personal relationship with God. He was intrigued. After a couple of months of listening to talks on Christianity he came to the point of saying 'I think this is all true'. On February 14 he got Sila to come and listen to the talks too, and that day they gave their lives together to Christ. Their conversion happened about the same time as Nicky Gumbel's. From that day Jesus gave us a new freedom and depth in our friendship and love together. 2.5 years later we were married.
 
How did the marriage course begin? In 1985 we were on staff at Holy Trinity, Brompton (HTB) and were asked to take on marriage preparation in the parish. The 5 week marriage preparation course we wrote came out of our own experience, and we aimed it at a very practical level. Later on we wrote the marriage course.
 
The first course started with 3 couples. We were soon asked, 'Could my friend come too…even though they are not church-goers?' It was heartening that outsiders wanted to come and learn. We found that those that came wanted more, so the parenting children course and the parenting teens course were written.
 
Where did the vision come from? God broke our hearts for the sake of family life, and gave us a passion for marriage at the heart of family life. Some 50% of marriages break up, and it doesn't have to be like that. We have huge hope for change in couple relationships. One couple who came to the marriage course (as we found out later) had been married for 3 years, separated for the last 6 months, and had an 18 month old child. The course helped them find their way back to each other. There are 100s and 1000s of couples like that out there.
 
Conversation is the most important part of the course, the private conversation between spouses within a 'date night' atmosphere. We have seen marriages changed, redeemed, transformed and saved.
 
In some ways the marriage course functions as a pre-evangelization course. We see a lot of couples doing the course and then doing Alpha – but there are a good number who do Alpha and then do the marriage course.
 
(At this point the video tape stopped as they began to talk about how the marriage course got to China.
 
The video tape restarted with the story of how Vatican endorsement came about.)
 
It was a friendship with a 70 year old parish priest from northern Italy. He had connections with the Italian Bishops Council for Marriage, and had a passion for couples to not only be the objects of evangelization but the subjects of evangelization. In his parish the marriage course was first run in people's homes. From the success of those courses came an invitation to do a seminar at the World Meeting of Families.
 
Our vision is to turn the tide on the breakdown of marriage and family life. The only way for it to happen is through the local church.
 
Do you have any words for us gathered here today? Read 'Divine Renovation' . This is the work of the Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit, come and fill Your people and then release them for Your purpose of creating missionary disciples. If you are married, each week make time for a date night with your spouse.
 
Things then moved into a time of prayer ministry.
 
It is the Holy Spirit who ignites the passion of His call in us, and Who seeks to clarify a vision with us. Send Your fire into our hearts. People lose hope through hurt. God will work healing, especially among those let down, not appreciated and overlooked. Maybe there is someone you need to forgive. Can you be weak enough in your heart to say that you need Me?
 
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My own response
 
Yes, I need healing for all three of those hurts. I wouldn't be alone there.
 
I know of far too many people who gave of themselves generously in Christian service over long periods of time for whom that service ended in bitter tears at a time not of their choosing, or who were given no support in the difficult transition from full time lay ministry to regular life, or who got burnt out due to lack of support and lack of pastoral care. They need healing too, and we lose too many good people because there is no obvious pathway to seek that healing. Could the Rachel's Vineyard weekends that bring healing to those suffering from abortions be a model for how to assist the healing process for those wounded in ministry?
 
It is good to hear that there is a marriage course out there, that seems easy to set up, and that works.
 
It sounds like all you need is a meeting space, equipment to project video from a DVD onto a large screen, tables set up nicely (tablecloth, candles etc) with two chairs per table, a couple to act as facilitators and a few people who love to cook preparing some food.
 
I'm thinking that the school hall of the local parish primary school might be the best location. Firstly because it wouldn't require anyone to step outside their comfort zone and go to church, and secondly because (sad to say) many of the parents of the primary school aged children are at risk of separation and divorce. They are also most likely to know of couples who need a little help in their relationships.