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Marriage Preparation Tools

wed-5.gif · 1) Give couples an outstanding "marriage prep packet".
· 2) Set out a table with additional resources.
· 3) Build a powerful Marriage Preparation Curriculum.
· 4) Create a library for couples, presenters, and mentors.
· 5) Provide resources for Hispanic couples as needed.


There is now an online marriage preparation service that works with local Marriage support personal and allows couples in unusual situations (such as one partner being overseas for the time being) to complete a full featured marriage preparation program.


Why Marriage Preparation Matters

The goal of Marriage Preparation is to bring about superb marriages, the kind of marriages where people say, "Aren’t they a wonderful couple!" and mean it. The realities of our culture make this extremely challenging. Nearly all of the couples who come to the Church for marriage are already sexually active with one another; nearly all of them are using contraceptives* to avoid pregnancy before marriage, and half to three quarters of them are already living together. By their lifestyle choices, they have already convinced themselves that the Church has nothing to tell them about male-female relationships or fertility management, and certainly nothing worthwhile to say about sexuality.

So why do they come? Plainly they are looking for something more than they can get from cohabitation. They know from observation of other couples (and possibly their own bitter experience) just how fragile sexual relationships outside of marriage can be. They want something better for themselves and hope that a gorgeous public ceremony or maybe some mysterious "blessing" from the Church can give them that extra something.

So what can the Church do for them? Well, Jesus gave us the best teaching on marriage and relationships ever delivered, and John Paul II has taken that teaching and packaged it so well that we now know more about what makes a marriage work (and what doesn’t) than ever before, and this knowledge is mostly available only through the Catholic Church.

Marriage is a fine-tuned, extremely powerful biological/psychological/spiritual package. Marriage moves couples to create the very best setting for bringing up resourceful, contributing members of society.
That setting is the human family with two highly involved parents. The family, however, revolves around the wholehearted sexual donation of each spouse to the other. Anything that attacks that relationship is highly destructive to marriage and the family. Pornography, for example, involves the husband with imaginary sexual images instead of his wife. Both partners are clearly aware of this disconnection, and sexual activity becomes divisive instead of unitive, with typically disastrous consequences. Birth control is even worse. Contracepted sex is the individual pursuit of physical/emotional gratification instead of a mutual pursuit of greater love and family involvement. This self-centered sex, unlike family-oriented sex, has devastating effects, for example, the huge increase in divorce that has come about as our culture has become saturated with birth control.

Marriage preparation programs can now clearly teach what factors, such as birth control, attack the marriage bond and what factors, such as accepting children, support and enhance it. We owe a great debt to John Paul II, because now we can tell couples not only what to do (and avoid) for a life-long, excellent relationship, but we can also tell them why these practices make such a remarkable difference. Effective marriage preparation, however, calls for a thorough re-education of the trainers as well as the trainees, since all of us are immersed in a culture where sexual values are highly distorted.

This is absolutely worth the effort. Healthy marriages lead to loving families. Loving families lead to functional, productive communities—a culture of life, a Civilization of Love. Anything we can do to foster this society will have an enormous payoff!

Four steps to take:



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How a 40-year-old mother of four and her husband received the grace to welcome one more soul into their family.

Lives have been radically improved by learning the value of fertility through Natural Family Planning

Testimony of Healing: Sterilization Reversal - An Act of Love is the story of one couples experience of the harm of sterilization and the blessings of sterilization reversal.
Stretch Marks
CODE: PSMF
Teaching Fertility Appreciation
CODE: PTFA
Testimony of Healing: Sterilization Reversal - An Act of Love (mp3)
CODE: CTHSm
Price: $0.35


Price: $0.35


Price: $1.00
[this product is electronically distributed]



Traces the Bible's opposition to contraception from Genesis to Revelation with wonderful clarity.

A How-To guide for reading the original audiences of John Paul II's Theology of the Body.

Married persons live longer, have less physical and mental health problems, have higher incomes, and accumulate more wealth than their unmarried counterparts. They experience many other benefits.
The Bible vs Contraception
CODE: PBVC
The Body Reveals God
CODE: BBRG
The Case for Marriage
CODE: BCFM
Price: $0.50


Price: $15.00


Price: $15.95



The testimonies of couples who have suffered anguish, grief, and guilt after realizing that they aborted some of their own children through use of contraception.

The contraceptive movement's overwhelming success in our day, and workable strategies for turning this around

A version of Donum Vitae (the Vatican statement on the rights and dignity of newly conceived humans). The authors discuss numerous reproductive issues: in vitro fertilization, cloning, use of embryonic stem cells, embryo adoption, and much more.
The Contraception of Grief
CODE: BCOG
The Cure
CODE: PTCH
The Dignity of a Person (Dignitatis Personae)
CODE: BDOP
Price: $8.00


Price: $0.35


Price: $5.95



The Infertility Companion for Catholics is the first book to address not only the medical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of infertility, but also the particular needs of Catholic couples who desire to understand and follow Church teaching on the use of assisted reproductive technology.

Christopher West illuminates love’s two dimensions—eros (human) and agape (divine), using key passages from Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, God Is Love. He helps us appreciate the interplay, distinctiveness, and relationship of these dimensions of love. West succeeds as probably no other author could in marrying John Paul II’s Theology of the Body with Benedict’s God Is Love. This is one of those rare books that makes you wish the end would not come so soon.

12 beautiful and powerful 30 minute sessions originally aired on EWTN by Jason and Crystalina Evert covering almost every aspect of living the pure life you can imagine!.
The Infertility Companion for Catholics: Spiritual and Practical Support for Couples
CODE: BICC
The Love That Satisfies
CODE: BTLS
The Pure Life
CODE: DTPL
Price: $16.95


Price: $19.95


Price: $39.95



The insights of Pope John Paul II applied to the issues of marriage, family, contraception, human life, and homosexuality.

The Truth About "Same-Sex Marriage"

"Tunnel of Parenthood: The First Five Years." Now that we have emerged from the Tunnel, I have grown more and more convinced that those were indeed the hardest years.
The Splendor of Love
CODE: BSOL
The Truth About "Same-Sex Marriage"
CODE: CSSM
The Tunnel of Parenthood Encouragement for the First Five Years of Parenting
CODE: PTTP
Price: $16.95


Price: $14.95


Price: $0.35



 The Theology of the Body is a Biblical message that is intended for all Christians. This teaching, originally presented by John Paul II, draws on over 1000 scripture versus concerning God’s original plan for marriage & sexuality, and how an understanding of this plan gives meaning to our lives. In this talk given at an Evangelical church, Theology of the Body expert Christopher West delivers this life-changing message to an enthusiastic Protestant audience. Catholics and Protestants alike will benefit from this teaching as we strive to live out God’s plan for our lives

A teen abstinence card with a chastity quote from Mother Teresa.

A toad looks out from a "No Toads" mug and says, "Okay, let me spell it out for you. . . Toads marry toads. The princess gets the prince. . ."
Theology of the Body: A Bold, biblical response to the Sexual Revolution (CD
CODE: CTOP
To Young People
CODE: ZTYP
Toads Marry Toads
CODE: ZTMT
Price: $9.95


Price: $0.35


Price: $0.35


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