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  Family - Weekend Effect

Our Weekend Was Not a Dream

Bishop Francis Dunn

(Excerpted from Fall 1987 Matrimony magazine)

Whenever I'm with a group of encountered couples, and one of them has to write a talk for a gathering of other encountered couples, priests and sisters, someone always tells them, "Just share your story!" I guess that's where I'd like to begin. I'd like to share my story with you...the story of how I made my Weekend, and how l eventually became your representative to the American bishops.

In August of 1977, a priest friend in the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa, had just returned from giving his first Weekend as a team member. St. Louis had sent out a distress signal that a Weekend was ready to go and full to capacity, but without a priest for the team. My friend, still putting the finishing touches on the talks he had just written, caught a plane for St. Louis and filled in. He returned full of enthusiasm for the program. I was his first recruit! | gave in rather easily, because for 15 years before becoming bishop I had been family life director of the Archdiocese, and had seen the steady erosion of the commitment of married couples. I was searching for a movement that would be able to do something positive and dramatic for married couples. That priest convinced me there was something very powerful in this relatively new program.

I went to Dixon, Illinois, the very next Friday, and made the Weekend, and I've never been the same since. I saw couples who had gone through the stages of Romance, Disillusionment, and Joy, and I saw their marriages come alive again within 44 hours. I saw their love rekindled and later saw them renew their closeness with their children. And I realized during those three days something that Pope John Paul II put into words in 1983 when he said, "l place much of my hope for the future in Marriage Encounter."

After that Weekend I was called on to celebrate the closing liturgies at various conventions. At those conventions I met couples who were models of intimacy with one another and with their children; couples whose enthusiasm for ministering in their parishes was amazing. It was a secret too important to keep to myself, so I started telling other bishops about it at our meetings. Perhaps too much, because one day I heard a bishop say, "Here comes Bishop Dunn. We'd better duck; he will start talking about Marriage Encounter again." Anyway, the fact that l was promoting you must have reached the ears of the national leadership. Because they asked me to become your bishop's representative, and without even a second thought, I accepted.

So that's my story. You and I have had the same experience. We shared a Weekend in which we came closer to our spouses and closer to the Lord than ever before in our lives. What we experienced on our Weekend was not a dream, nor was it simply a quest. It was reality. You couples around the world testify to that reality; with each other, with your children, and in your love and service to your parishes and dioceses.

In July I drove from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to DeKalb, Illinois to attend a sectional convention l was able to be there and share with couples, priests and sisters on Friday night and Saturday morning. Then I drove on to Chicago where I caught a plane for Boston, and on Saturday evening and Sunday I was able to share with all those attending their sectional convention. Several couples told me they were surprised that I would choose such a hectic schedule and asked why I had done so. I told them I came for the same reason they did. True, I came as an official representative of the bishops. But I also came because I wanted to bring back the magic of that weekend I made 9 years ago. I wanted to bring back the bright and shining glory of Dulcinea. It certainly happened for me at those conventions. I hope it happened for all of you.

My beloved couples, our Church needs you. You teach relationship, you teach us sacrifice, you teach us how to love. By your very lives of ministry, you answer the call of our Church today. Continue to call forth one another to serve in your parishes and dioceses. Be relentless in your efforts to bring more couples into active leadership in our Church. Strengthen them in your communities and send them forth to teach our people that they are good, that God loves them, that love is a decision, that God has a plan for their lives, that marriage is a journey of joy instead of a burden, and that service to others bears fruit in their own lives, as well as in the lives of others.

Through your love you've become ministers of the gospel and proclaimers of the good news. You radiate in a simple, unaffected way, a faith in values that go beyond current modern world values, and a hope in something that is not seen, and that before your Weekend, indeed you would not have dared to imagine! The day will come when those in the Church who look at you and ask, "Why are they in our midst?" will have their answer: "They are here to change the world - through our Church - with their love."

God bless you. I am so proud to be one with you.

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