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eMatrimony.org Supporting, Encouraging, and Challenging the WWME Community |
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| Family - Weekend Effect A Call To Be F.A.M.I.S. Bill & Mary Anne Boylan and Fr. Ray Jackson (Excerpted from Fall 1990 Matrimony magazine) On Sunday afternoon of our Weekend, we were told about community, that is, a group of encountered couples, priests, and religious in our local area who could and would support this dialoging lifestyle that was so new to us. St. Augustine defines community as ''a group of people who have decided to join together in the peaceful sharing of the things they love". It is our belief that if our Marriage Encounter Movement is to flourish, it will depend to a very large extent on the health and vibrancy of the local Marriage Encounter Communities...not on the message of our Weekend, but on the people who live the message. Small groups have a wonderful opportunity to be a sign of the Kingdom, a place where our Weekend concepts are applied to daily living. Inviting others to our Weekend is natural. Daily dialogue is believed in and supported. These communities - small churches - are people becoming the extension of Christ in our world. Five elements combine to make a community vibrant and prospering. They are:
We believe in community. We also believe we can learn from each other - in a sense "take a page from each other's book" - and, as a Worldwide Family, be all the richer for the sharing. Now, we want to tell you the story of a community right in our own backyard that is prospering and how they live the five elements of Christian Community. Here, let them speak to you themselves... FUN In July of 1976 we were on vacation and saw a TV spot on the Marriage
Encounter Convention in Philadelphia. We wanted to be part of the
power, strength and Christian joy we saw on that TV screen. Our
most recent experience of fun and joy was at a thank you dinner
for Ed & Margie who had just stepped aside as our community
leaders. Next month we are going to be part of a skit for Charlie's
birthday. Once a year we go to a cabin in the mountains together. It is open
to all and not very expensive - a real place to have fun. John & Chris moved to another state. Recently something bittersweet
happened in their lives. We caravanned down...calling it a "mental
health weekend." It felt good and right to go the extra miles
and support John & Chris - they said we turned things around
for them. We have fun when we make it a point to somehow share in the significant
moments in each other's lives - like Al & Mary Liz's 25th anniversary
and who can forget Jack & Catherine on their 50th anniversary
driving away in their fancy limo like young honeymooners. ACCOUNTABILITY Our community works because we work at it. Each of us has come
to realize we do have a stake in one another. It took the two of
us one whole year to understand this. We had been a keep-to-ourselves
kind of couple, even at our meetings. It wasn't until we invested
more of ourselves that we really felt like part of the group. Amen to the above! We also were in community one year and we had
not even shared. Quietly, we thought maybe we should quit before
they throw us out. Finally we signed to give a talk and felt like
a true part of community. The Weekend discipline which is strictly maintained at our community
evenings helps us all to be accountable for ourselves. Advice is
not given, nor are sharings commented on. Couples come to keep their
relationship first in their lives. We are accountable for our time and focus, e.g. we come together
for presentation, writing, dialogue, and sharing. Coffee and cake
is next and is optional. One can skip that without feeling any pressure. We believe in The Dream and in daily dialogue and we work at living
that out. At times we feel overwhelmed, but then we look around
at others and what they are doing. They are not quitting on their
dreams and their dialog, so why should we? MISSION We are drawn to invest our energies in our Mission to change our
world via His Weekend. It even gives us zip when we are tired if
we dig in and help at a Church Pulpit Talk. Recently, 12 of us signed
up to man the phones at the Children's Hospital Telethon. We wore
baseball caps with large M.E. logos on the front so they could be
seen on TV. In our parishes our gang is involved in RCIA, Parish
Council, Pre-Cana, and Pro-Life. Giving Pulpit Talks at churches in our Archdiocese makes us truly
feel part of our Worldwide Family and contributors to making the
Impossible Dream possible. After Mass it is thrilling to watch our
community leave to visit the couples who indicated they'd like more
information. It's a “go get 'em” feeling being partners
in The Dream. Our own Jack & Catherine were Prayer Couple Coordinator for
many years. We became so aware of Prayer Couples being a critical
mission...to be enthusiastic when ''your couple" returns from
their Weekend, to travel to their Renewal with them and to make
them realize the value of community. Right now we are dealing with the issue of leadership within our
group. We noticed our focus on His Weekend was low and we were floundering.
We have been addressing this and staying with our discussion until
we come up with a solution we can all agree on. We both need and
want to support the couple that says “yes”, because
supporting our mission will re-strengthen us INTIMACY At our post-Weekend coffee, we first experienced intimacy. These
strangers really listened and wanted to hear all about our Weekend.
They risked too – encouraging our dialogue and the need to
stay around dialogueing couples and that if not, by next year we
could lose all that our Weekend had awakened in us. We didn't want to be intimate. We'd just moved from a super M.E.
Community and planned on putting M.E. on the shelf. Then we met
our neighbors, Charlie & Carol. For 6 months they invited us
and we rejected them. The 7th month we said yes. It has become so
good. We are reminded of St. Peter who said to Christ. ''Lord, where
would we go?" Our bad times have made us pull together and become more intimate.
It was heavy when there was a marriage breakup - again, when a couple
left the Church – and again when one of our priests left the
priesthood and married. We leaned on each other and realized we
needed each others love and strength. It was Stan & Nancy's vigorous pursuit of us for an entire
summer that touched us. They were genuinely interested in Rich &
Mary and are the main reason we became part of community. Then,
later on there was a two year span when Mary was in college full
time and we were building our home and doing most of the work ourselves...but
after those two years, we were welcomed back and it was as though
we had never left. Intimacy came in a very creative way when we moved to Phoenix.
Each month we would receive a tape of that month’s presentation
and dialogue and sharing question from our lovers in the east. Then
one Christmas someone snuck us the community presentation outline
for December. We prepared it in Phoenix, taped our story and sent
it back east. We were the surprise presenters that month. It was
fun. SPIRITUALITY Each Holy Thursday our community spends an hour at church together
for our Parish Vigil. On a daily basis, we accept each other "as
is" and there is no cattiness or criticism. We really do make
it a point to see the Christ in each other. We also encourage each
other's couple spirituality. Our prescription is an original Weekend
experience for each couple. It's sort of like an industrial strength
“couple spirituality” booster shot! We believe in each other and work at living that belief. One of
our community is separated from her husband. We still embrace her
emotionally, spiritually and physically. She is included in as many
things as we can. Ray was out of work last winter. Our community loved us by leaving
food, gifts and goodies on our front door step. In its own way it
turned out to be our best Christmas because we were loved so much. When my Jayne died on May 2lst, our Phoenix Community was right
there for me. Then I came back east and our former community had
a Memorial Mass for Jayne. Joe & Geri and Tom & Denise offered
their musical gifts; Stan & Jan created a wonderful booklet
for the liturgy. In the back were noted special memories we had
shared as well as the special qualities they saw in My Bride, Jayne.
Rich & Mary offered their home for an open house after Mass.
Food was brought by the entire gang and Fr. Joe came a great distance
to celebrate Mass with his former community. This community is spiritual
in the way they hold each other in good times and in bad. This community has prospered because, as Jim Pickard said, they hold on to one another in good times and in bad. They do consistently go the extra mile for one another - to be that extension of Christ alive and real today. They are F.A.M.I.S. in the way they work at living those five elements of Christian Community highlighted above. This is not a community without trials and troubles, but it is a group of people who, in their very souls, believe in The Dream, and the gift His Weekend is. They work at living that belief everyday. Because of that, their worlds are changed.
Dialogue Question: What do I/we need to do to make our Community F.A.M.I.S.? Click here for a printable version (PDF, 23KB)
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