Engaged Encounter weekend

To anyone expecting wedding stuff, tune in tomorrow.  I promise I have a lot of girly wedding things lined up, including photos from my 2nd fitting, and an interview with a budding fashion designer.  But today, I'm talking about the M-word.

Last Friday, Jeffy and I attended an Engaged Encounter weekend at Summerfield Suites in Gaithersburg, MD, and we both loved it.   You may remember that in February, we completed our Pre-Cana requirement in Brooklyn.  In order to be married in the Catholic Church, couples are required to complete either a Pre-Cana or an Engaged Encounter program, but my mother insisted (and though reluctant to give up a weekend, I admit I agreed with her) that Jeff and I complete both.  In fact, a couple does not need to be Catholic in order to participate in either one, and I personally feel that any engaged couple could benefit immensely from the experience.

 

 Front of the hotel

Engaged Encounter is basically a longer, more intense version of pre-Cana.  The pre-Cana program took place on a Friday evening after work and all-day on Saturday, but we went home in between sessions.  Engaged Encounter took place in a hotel from Friday through Sunday, and we stayed in separate suites at night.  Because there was so much more time in the Engaged Encounter, there was much more emphasis on spirituality and faith, rather than the more practical nature of the pre-Cana.  There were more leaders on Engaged Encounter: a “senior” couple (grandparents Jim and Janet), a “junior” couple (6-year husband and wife Jason and Bethie), and a priest (Father Ed, from Westchester).  As was the case with pre-Cana, the personalities of the leading couple really determined how enjoyable the weekend was, and Jeff and I had a fantastic time.  Jim and Janet covered the majority of the topics, and they were so honest and funny and, at times, openly emotional that I thought it was really something special to witness.  Father Ed was funny and self-effacing, and had either a cliché, racist or hilariously inappropriate joke ready for nearly every situation.  No lie, one joke started out with: “So there’s an Irishman, German and a Polish gentleman in a police station…". And during the closing mass, his cell phone went off! He opened it and said, "Hello, Father?"

The weekend was grueling, not least because Jeff and I really didn’t get any sleep last week (still working on invitations for my parents’ friends), and arrived to the site at 11pm after a four-hour bus ride, and had to wake up at 7am both Saturday and Sunday morning.  Strictly speaking, the program begins on Friday at 7:30pm, but Jeff and I were given permission to arrive late as we had already completed a pre-Cana and were coming in from New York.  On Saturday, we had breakfast at 7:30 and the program went on until 11pm that night, with one 2-hour break to nap(me) and watch the Cavs game(Jeff).  We began again at 7am on Sunday and finished at 3pm.

Going into the weekend, Jeff and I were most anxious about the fact that we would be split up, and each would have a same sex roommate.  We were relieved to find that we were actually in a suite, so we each had a private bedroom and bathroom, and shared a common living room and kitchen with a roommate.  Our roommates, Matt and Mary respectively, were extremely sweet.

This is just the living area, you can't even see the entire bedroom or the bath

The weekend followed a simple schedule: we all met in a conference room and listened to the couples and Father Ed discuss their perspective on various topics.  At the end of every topic, each engaged couple would split up and write answers to questions in a notebook for twenty minutes.  We would then meet up in one of our rooms to discuss our answers for twenty more minutes before returning to the conference room for the next topic.  I have to admit that at times I full-out bawled when Jeff and I shared privately in his room, because of how sweet his answers were, and how much these activities reminded me that we really are soulmates.  And I don’t even think Jeff would deny that at one point (towards the end of the weekend when we shared love letters) he got a bit emotional.

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In the course of twenty-one hours you can imagine we covered a lot of topics, so I couldn’t possibly summarize them all.  I would definitely recommend that all engaged couples take part in a marriage preparation program.  I found myself constantly wondering throughout the weekend if so many celebrities would be divorcing so quickly if they were able to participate in a program like this one.

There were two topics in particular that really resonated with me: the Decision to Love, and Marriage as a Vocation.

The Decision to Love
Love, they explained, is not so much a feeling as a decision.  And a relationship's success depends entirely on each person making the decision to love daily.  All relationships undergo a recurring cycle of three stages: romance, then disillusionment, then joy.  Looking back just on our four-year relationship, I could easily see these same stages that Jim and Janet described from their decades-long marriage.  It was so refreshing to see the disillusionment stage acknowledged, and to know that it is a natural part of being in a relationship.  The disillusionment stage is colloquially referred to as a “rut,” but the term “rut” doesn’t really give any insight on how to get past it.   Knowing that disillusionment is just a step in a natural cycle helps us to recognize it, make a decision to love, and then take the necessary steps to move towards joy.  This was such a novel concept to me; I don’t know that anyone else was as awed by it as I was.

Marriage as a Vocation
Maybe the most profound concept that I recall is the idea of marriage as a vocation.  Bethie, the “junior” wife, explained to us that before she met Jason, he was preparing to enter the priesthood.  She said she was teased by a priest friend that she was a “VW: vocation wrecker.”  But Jason explained to her that the sacrament of Matrimony is no less a religious vocation than the sacrament of Holy Orders.  This struck me.  That marriage is not only our relationship between each other and God, but also a role in the Church as ministers of God’s love.  How many people would get divorced if they approached marriage with the same preparation, sincerity and determination as a man entering the priesthood? Or even with the same dedication and hard work as one applying for a dream job, or to medical school?

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One of my favorite aspects of the weekend was being surrounded by so many couples at the same stage in their relationship as us.  There were 25 other couples, and although Jeff and I were definitely the youngest people there, it was wonderful to be with so many kindred spirits.  The other couples were so kind, so charismatic, and so clearly in love.  It was a beautiful, love-filled weekend, and I am so grateful that we did it.

If you attended a marriage preparation program, I would love to hear your thoughts on the experience.  This post is long enough I know, but I could seriously talk about this for days.

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Though this could be another post unto itself, I feel like I have to conclude with some thoughts on my relationship with the Church.  The Catholic Church and my relationship to God play an important part in my life, and Jeff and I definitely grew closer when we began attending mass and saying prayers together.  We intend to raise our children in the Catholic faith.  However, I am deeply in conflict with the Church in some ways, particularly with how the Church is dealing with the victims and perpetrators of pedophilia, and the Church’s teachings on homosexuality.  I posted in March how happy I was that DC legalized same-sex marriages, but I didn't report later how devastated I was when I learned that the Archdiocese reacted by ending DC's foster care program.  As much as I disagree with these things, I can't just let go of my faith and all the beautiful things that I admire in the Church.  Maybe that makes me a hypocrite, but I personally can live with that.  The Church isn't perfect, and it certainly doesn't claim to be.  I'm proud to be a Catholic, while still praying for change in the Church.