Click image to see upcoming dates and locations I’m a believer in Retrouvaille, a weekend workshop for marriages needing help. And which of our marriages does not need help? I think everyone should do this workshop at some point in their marriage! Last weekend I helped at a Retrouvaille, and I was again inspired by the heroism of couples fighting to rebuild and protect their families from the floodtide against marriage. As one of the presenting couples said, “Growing up I didn’t have a clue about real marriage. Everything I had seen in movies and TV, or heard at school or learned from my extended family, taught me that no one really keeps their marriage vows. They told me in so many ways that taking chastity seriously was unhealthy.” Every one of us must thank those couples who fight for their marriages, and so fight for our whole society.
Another tide rises to meet the toxic waves of the “sexual revolution.” The world is charged with the grandeur of God, and grace swells all about us. Eighteen couples arrived last Friday night at the conference room in Mountain View, overwhelmed by tides of sadness, hurt, and despair. They were drowning, but the Retrouvaille couples at our weekend (five of them, all of whom had been drowning themselves not so long ago) threw them a life line. The couples who began the Retrouvaille movement in French-speaking Canada in 1977 chose the life preserver as their symbol.
My favorite moment in the 44-hour workshop is Saturday night, when we open it up to individual testimonies. The sad darkness from just the night before has been replaced by smiles. A lightness of spirit fills the room as couples witness to the glimmers of hope they are beginning to see. Maybe we can recover love, they say. The presenting couples have done it. Why can’t we, if there is a God?
Another tide rises to meet the toxic waves of the “sexual revolution.” The world is charged with the grandeur of God, and grace swells all about us. Eighteen couples arrived last Friday night at the conference room in Mountain View, overwhelmed by tides of sadness, hurt, and despair. They were drowning, but the Retrouvaille couples at our weekend (five of them, all of whom had been drowning themselves not so long ago) threw them a life line. The couples who began the Retrouvaille movement in French-speaking Canada in 1977 chose the life preserver as their symbol.
My favorite moment in the 44-hour workshop is Saturday night, when we open it up to individual testimonies. The sad darkness from just the night before has been replaced by smiles. A lightness of spirit fills the room as couples witness to the glimmers of hope they are beginning to see. Maybe we can recover love, they say. The presenting couples have done it. Why can’t we, if there is a God?
The naked tabernacle before which we prayed My second favorite moment in the 44-hour workshop is a three-hour break in the presentation schedule for the couples to spend quiet time together. It’s also free time for the priest, and as soon as I was released from the conference room I got on my bike to find a church with the Blessed Sacrament. After all, I needed to spend some alone time with my spouse too. But as I drove up to the nearest church I could hear horns trumpeting from inside: a Quinsinera was in progress. I drove on to the second church and saw a stretch limo out front—a wedding was in progress. So I ended up sitting on a hillside under the bright sun. Not a bad holy hour, but I longed for the Blessed Sacrament. The next morning my guardian angel woke me quite early, and I drove to the nearest church again. It was not yet open, but an old man was sitting in his car in the empty parking lot. “Is there a way I can get into the church?” I asked him. “Sure, padre. I’ll let you in.” And so he did, and he prayed with me before the tabernacle. Others came in, even though the first Sunday Mass wouldn’t be for another hour, and the church became a beautiful and quiet and prayerful community.
But the church building was not beautiful. It had been built as a gym, and then the church never got built, although a state of the art gymnasium did get built, while altar and tabernacle remained in the old gym. As we prayed in that drafty and plain structure, I gazed at the cheap felt banners, threadbare carpet, dull concrete walls, and naked tabernacle. Hooks meant to hold the veil were still in place, but the veil had been torn away. Despite the “bare ruined choirs” of many of our parishes, where sports is given so much more time and money than divine worship, people still come to pray. The faith has not been completely eradicated, nor can it be. No one can stop the work of God in our parishes and schools. We can delay it, through fear and neglect, but we cannot stop it. A rising tide of grace will always flood the earth, now that Christ is risen and sent his Holy Spirit among us.
But the church building was not beautiful. It had been built as a gym, and then the church never got built, although a state of the art gymnasium did get built, while altar and tabernacle remained in the old gym. As we prayed in that drafty and plain structure, I gazed at the cheap felt banners, threadbare carpet, dull concrete walls, and naked tabernacle. Hooks meant to hold the veil were still in place, but the veil had been torn away. Despite the “bare ruined choirs” of many of our parishes, where sports is given so much more time and money than divine worship, people still come to pray. The faith has not been completely eradicated, nor can it be. No one can stop the work of God in our parishes and schools. We can delay it, through fear and neglect, but we cannot stop it. A rising tide of grace will always flood the earth, now that Christ is risen and sent his Holy Spirit among us.
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