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BENEFACTORS:
The need for marriage preparation
has never been so needed and your efforts will pay dividends in years to come.
Strong families and healthy marriages are what contributed to the greatness of
this country. As these values decline, so does the United States. This is one
reason we believe so strongly in your efforts.
Carolyn
and Bob, NC
PRIESTS AND DEACONS:
Christine and
Christian,
I love your program! I am having all my couples
preparing for marriage do it! Thanks again!Father Austin Titus
Holy Family Parish, NY
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God bless you
Christian, your family and your ministry!
I keep sending the couples to you. Your program is the best.
Blessings to you,
Father Bill, Denver CO
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In our last Deanery meeting,
the subject of marriage preparation was discussed. When the various programs
being offered currently in the Archdiocese were discussed, there was an
overwhelming consensus that the formula offered by Christian and his wife is
very popular and very effective. Numerous pastors already recommend their
marriage preparation over and above other marriage programs in the Archdiocese.
Father Stephen, CO
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ONLINE CLASSES:
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It was nice to be taking a class from a married couple and the
flexibility of doing the class on line was awesome. Because of our work
schedules and where we live, there was really no other way we could have
filled our requirements to get married in the Catholic Church. Thanks
for all the love and support! You have been a very positive experience
in our journey towards marriage. We hope the launch of the program
online is a huge success.
Matt and Molly, our very first online couple! |
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From a Buddhist
fiancée:
"Initially, the teaching of God and what he represents was a little foreign to
me. I know of Him but it wasn't of tangible understanding and/or of genuine
belief. But going through the worksheets so far is a wonderful experience and I
look forward to the remaining course. Reading the Bible has tremendously piqued
my interest in Catholicism. What extraordinary stories! I couldn't put the Bible
down.
Slowly but surely, I am getting very comfortable with the idea and the teachings
of God. What I am most impressed with is that God is love. Regardless of what
religion/belief that people may have in this world, love is all around us, and
because God is love, He is everywhere. It wouldn't have made sense to me before.
Worksheet 3 is my favorite one. The concept of love and the commitment of one
another in a marriage is of grave importance to me and I strongly believe that
love, honor, and respect in a marriage is exclusive between two people and
should be cherished.
I am really enjoying these workshops. My eyes are being open to new teachings
and to a great experience. Thank you Christine."
Anapin
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We think this class
would be beneficial for any couple wanting to get married in the Church. It
helped us to thing about things and have discussions which we probably would not
have had otherwise.
The class actually exceeded our expectations. Topics were covered in more detail
and provoked more discussion that we thought would be the case for an online
class.
What we liked most was the fact that you actually read our answers and gave us
sincere and tailored feedback rather than just a canned answer sheet!
It definitely made us aware of teachings and touched upon some topics that
really hadn't been addressed in our prior experience.
With moving away from home, school, and finding our first jobs, it's been easy
to loose ourselves in other things. But in getting engaged and considering the
importance of our getting married in the Church, this class has revived our
desire to get closer to God. Discussions about having children that this class
has provoked have also helped reiterate how important it is for us to make God a
part of our children's lives.
Thank you for everything!
Anthony and Shanna
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Both
Andy and I feel that we have emerged from this course with a better
understanding of each other and the commitment we are about to make through
marriage in the Church. We were both surprised at the variety of topics the
class caused us to discuss. Instead of just focusing on religious topics, we had
an opportunity to talk about our values and feelings about kids, family, jobs,
and roles in the household. We definitely feel that we know each other better,
which makes us that much more committed to our upcoming marriage. Before this
class, I think we viewed the Church as a place to get married. Now we both
recognize the bond and role that God will play in our marriage. The links
provided helpful additional information to help clarify answers where felt
unclear.
We both enjoyed taking part in this course. For a couple who was told "no" when
trying to make arrangements to get married in the Church due to our different
locations, we felt that this class resolidified our commitment to the Catholic
Church. Before learning of this course, we had many people tell us that we
wouldn't be able to be married in the Church. We are both incredibly thankful to
have such a wonderful option, and look forward to continuing our lives together
as one. Thank you again for all of your help and support.
Sarah and Andrew
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I most appreciated the way
Christine guided us through every class. I looked forward to the email responses
to our questions, the answer keys and the next worksheet. It has been part of
our routine for the last weeks, and just the other night Michael said we are
going to miss these. It has been a pleasure working with and we would definitely
recommend this course to our friends. As a matter of fact I have passed your
website onto my cousin already. Thanks for taking the time to grade our
worksheets, comment on our worksheets and make us feel like we counted.
Pauline and Michael
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We'd like to thank
you for guiding us though all the classes. Five weeks seem like a long time
but they went so quickly. We both learned a lot and really appreciated
everything you shared with us.
We expected it to be easy :Well, it wasn't and we're glad it wasn't. We did a
lot of research and spent a lot of time thinking and discussing. I think the
class is very open to some very important aspects of marriage, i.e. sex, bad
habits, which in our culture, will be quite awkward to confront. We could really
talk about anything. It was great that you showed us the list of important areas
to talk about.
Kangwarn in Denver and Sukanij in Thailand-
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What we appreciated
most was that
we could work together at home and in private. We feel that we were more
able to be honest with each other about certain things. Also the feedback
from Christine was wonderful.
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We
really appreciated this class in so many ways! Ron works as a finance manager
at a car dealership and it is almost impossible to get days off from work, so we
were unable to attend a retreat or classes! We really appreciated the fact that
we could log onto our computer at our own convenience. It really helped us out a
lot! We really appreciate that someone out there is thinking of people who have
really tight schedules such as ourselves!
Thank you and God bless!
Ron and
Nicolle
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The class was really
wonderful, we loved the class, and your comments in particular, your personal
messages, showed us new light that we needed to see, and we are very happy that
we took the class. The fact that we were alone helped us to talk more openly and
without time constraints.
We loved the class, and God bless you for this service.
P.S. every couple should know about this option.
Mauricio and Shekina
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This
class was extremely helpful for the both of us. It has opened our eyes to
issues that we had overlooked. I actually expected it to be bogged down with a
lot of unnecessary worship cycles, but the amount of heavenly input was just
right. It made us feel at ease with the process. What we liked most was the
personal help from our teachers. The opinions and suggestions were very
encouraging. Jason having not been a Catholic has learned a lot about the faith
and has a better grasp on the concepts of the church.
For me, it brought me back to God from my absence
due to school, and I now feel that I have a better understanding of how I
perceive God and my goals, as does Jason.
Thank you for caring about our
future as a couple.
Andrea and Jason
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We
appreciated all that we learned from the class, especially David who is
not a catholic, learned a lot about the religion and God.
Yulissa and David
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Before
we started taking this online class, we felt pretty confident that we had
discussed a great variety of issues that we thought were important to talk about
prior to getting married. The questions addressed in this class were much more
thought provoking and sparked many discussions between us that would not have
come up had we not taken this class.
To tell you the truth, we didn't know what to expect, but we enjoyed the class
much more than we thought we would. Also, it really brought us closer as a
couple. Matt learned a lot more about the Catholic Church through the links
provided in the answer keys, and it also deepened my knowledge and confidence on
the Church's teachings!
There was so much additional information in the links! We have printed out all
of the additional info and we read one topic each night with dinner!
We appreciated the detailed answer sheets that we would receive back from
Christine and Christian. There were several questions that we were unsure of
our answers, but the positive and supportive manner in which you responded was a
relief!
We pledged to stay chaste until our wedding date. We are both in agreement that
since we are getting married in the Church, that in order to respect each other
and the vows that we are going to make to each other for the rest of our lives,
that it will make us appreciate each other even more by waiting until our
wedding night!
I (Jen) just went through the RCIA program in 2002/2003 and felt pretty
confident in my understanding of the Church, but this class covered the topic of
marriage in such great detail, it helped tremendously.
Matt: the class helped me understand the views of the Catholic Church, and have
a greater respect for the faith.
Christine and Christian, thank you so much for all of your feedback and for
being so prompt in your responses to our worksheets!! We feel like the class
has prepared us in ways that we could have never foreseen!!
Jennifer and Matt
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“We have been together for almost eight years and have
remained chaste throughout that time. Now that we have a wedding date that
is three months away, it really feels like we're on the downward slope of
that wait and that once that wait is over, we really will be ready to
consummate our marriage and be open and accepting of the life that will
result. From the beginning of our relationship, I made it clear that sex
before marriage was not for me, and for some crazy reason, Eric agreed with
me even though he had had no religious upbringing and it was clear our
parents ran two different households where sexual attitudes were concerned.
That was reason number one I knew he was special. Through our years of
dating and being engaged and postponing the wedding and now planning it
again, I think remaining chaste has really helped us focus on the important
things to be resolved with clear thinking and maturity.”
Maura
and Eric
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Daniel and I want to thank
you and the Church for this amazing experience. At first, we were a little
worried about doing this part of our marriage preparation on-line.
Much to our surprise, it turned out to be such a growing experience for us in
our faith, our love and in other aspects of our relationship. We very much
enjoyed our time working on these lessons and enjoyed hearing back from you.
This class was an amazing experience for both of us. We actually did talk about
some of the issues that were in the worksheets prior to taking the class.
However, this class brought up many important discussions that really made us
communicate and brought us closer together in our love and in our faith. It went
beyond our expectations! After each and every class, we were reminded how
important the bond between God and our relationship was. We truly did realize
that this relationship was created by God and our love, faith and trust in one
another grew tremendously.
We both felt that when we were children, our catechism classes were okay but
there were many holes in those classes. We felt like this class in particular
helped us to understand things that weren't clear to us years ago. This has also
helped us to further our own religious education and grow together in this area.
One particular
aspect of this class that helped us was to feel much more comfortable praying
together. We both have been on our own for a great deal of time and have been
used to praying alone. This helped us to open up and share some of our prayers
together and how to communicate with God as a couple.
Best wishes to you and thank you again for the time you spent with us.
God Bless,
Rhonda and Daniel
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We both
felt that we learned things that will be helpful in our lives together and I
think that we will continue to refer back to things that we have taken from
this. It's nice to know that you both are there for us too. You offered such
wonderfully supportive messages and it's nice to know that you will be around to
continue to provide us with that.
We are not sure what we expected but we definitely felt that we were challenged
by the questions regarding the teachings of the church and those regarding
marriage. It was a good challenge.
What we appreciated most was your responses to our worksheets. We really felt
that you were supporting us in such a positive way and therefore allowed us to
feel good about our learning and growing. It gave us confidence in ourselves
and as a couple because you made us feel like we were "getting it." It was kind
of funny because we would celebrate the answer we would answer correctly.....it
made it fun.
It' so amazing to study the teachings of the Church in this way. We both have
not read much from the bible in several years so it refreshed our memory and
opened up a lot of discussion between us.
We feel that we have become closer to each other and have a better understanding
of the importance of God in our marriage. We want to continue to work on
keeping our relationship with God strong for both us and our children.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us and thank you for your sincere
support.
We are very excited for our next adventure in life!
God Bless!
Zeek and Kate
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We
expected to have to read a workbook and fill in answers that we found in the
book. But this was much better. It was more time consuming, but totally
worth it because we were able to really look inside and discover how we
feel.
After reading some of the chapters in the book you sent us, we were able to
further understand WHY pornography is sinful, cohabitation is not okay and
premarital sex is wrong. Not just that we shouldn't do it. We have also
learned the roles that God has given man an woman. We feel more obligated
and committed to our faith. We feel like we are doing something even greater
now!
Thank you so much for all of your encouragement. We don't' think that we
were able to fully express to yall how this program has affected our
relationship. In the beginning of the 5 weeks, we had some difficulty making
time to work on the worksheets and digging inside to answer these questions.
Sometimes it was even embarrassing to reveal how we felt about certain
issues to each other. We had to learn how to open up to each other in a way
that we never had before. By the end of the 5th week, we feel so much closer
and in tune to each others spiritually and in our personal thoughts. We are
so thankful that yall were able to guide us through this encounter.
Sincerely,
Erin in Louisiana and Alex in Germany
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The
class taught us more about Catholic rules for marriage. You have made this our
first step towards our wonderful wedding. Thank you soooo much. We expected much
less than we received. I think we have gotten more out of this class than we
would have at our church, because of our cultural difference. We could take our
time and really study. What we liked most was the depth of the classes, the
quick response when we sent our worksheets. We made the decision to abstain of
sexual relations until our wedding. We are not going to try, we are going to DO!
For me, Tracey, it gave me more of an insight to the Church. It also made my
decision to convert much easier. Again thanks!We
can't say than you enough.
What a wonderful, complete program you have put together. We work such odd
hours, that this worked so well for us. Your hard work is very much appreciated.
With love and appreciation,
Tracey (Baptist) and Minh,
Phoenix, Arizona
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2008
Christine Meert