Marriage, Family, and Life
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Please find below some resources to enrich your marriage and life with your spouse and God, including through engagement, marriage, divorce, choosing life, abortion regret, and more.
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Engagement
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A Wedding is a Day, a Marriage is a Lifetime! Catholic Engaged Encounter Inc. is a community of Catholics serving engaged couples by sharing their experiences of living out the values of a sacramental marriage.
They host weekend retreats for engaged couples incorporating presentations, self-reflection, and couple's dialogue.
Local Chapter: Catholic Engaged Encounter of Tucson
Contact: Martin and Delia DeSoto✉ amiramyl@gmail.com
✆ 520-954-3856
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Dynamic Catholic’s free questionnaire will spark incredible conversations that celebrate strengths and highlight opportunities for growth between engaged couples.
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The FOCCUS Pre-Marriage Inventory is a comprehensive, user-friendly tool for use by lay individuals, couples, and professionals who are helping couples prepare for marriage, and who become trained as FOCCUS Facilitators.
The FOCCUS Inventory is designed to help engaged couples appreciate their unique relationship, learn more about themselves, and discuss topics important to their lifelong marriage.Website
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Marriage
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Worldwide Marriage Encounter is a weekend for married Christian couples who value their relationship and desire a richer, fuller life together. Attend a Marriage Encounter weekend and learn the tools needed to keep your marriage strong.
The emphasis of Worldwide Marriage Encounter is on communication between husband and wife, who spend a weekend together away from the distractions and the tensions of everyday life, to concentrate on each other.
This is a time for you and your spouse to be alone together. To rediscover each other and together focus on your relationship for an entire weekend. Every marriage deserves that kind of attention!
Contact: Werner and Annie Mammen
✆ (520)869-9910
✉ werner.annie.mammen@wwme.orgWebsite
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El Encuentro Matrimonial Mundial (Worldwide Marriage Encounter) es la organización de enriquecimiento matrimonial fundamentado en la fe más grande del mundo. Nuestros programas han enriquecido y transformado la vida de parejas casadas y sacerdotes por generaciones. Ofrecemos una experiencia de igual a igual, generalmente durante un fin de semana, donde las parejas casadas y los sacerdotes pueden hacer una pausa y reflexionar en privado sobre el significado de sus vocaciones y aprender herramientas para nutrir su amor. Nuestra misión es proclamar el valor del matrimonio y las órdenes sagradas en la Iglesia y en el mundo.
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Marriage Retorno means turning toward God as a couple. The goal of Marriage Retorno is to provide an atmosphere, a context, in which the couple can open themselves, both as individuals and as a couple to a dialogue with God through Scripture. It is a weekend prayer experience for husband and wife, facilitated by a married couple and a Catholic priest. It provides participating couples with an opportunity for a renewal of their relationship as a couple with God.
Contact: Werner and Annie Mammen(520)869-9910
✉ marriageretornocpr@gmail.com
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Nowadays, "date nights" are popular across our country. Couples taking time out to have fun together is important, very important. But, there’s more.
10 Great Dates offers you Great Dates that are not only fun but also help you build and strengthen your relationship for the long haul.Website
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Dynamic Catholic has developed this tool to help you and your spouse have fruitful conversations about your relationship so you can grow together.
This free inventory includes a questionnaire and resources for marriage enrichment. You are encouraged to revisit the inventory throughout your marriage to take a pulse of your relationship.Website
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The REFOCCUS Marriage Enrichment Inventory is a packet of five questionnaires that a married couple can use and score by themselves, as part of a weekend retreat, or in five weekly evenings in which the general topical areas are discussed with other couples.
REFOCCUS is ideal for married couples who wish to spend time and energy on their relationship, but desire a little direction and skill-building assistance in doing so.Website
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Retrouvaille is for couples with marital problems that want marriage help. Those who are considering marriage separation and those who are already separated or divorced are encouraged to consider the Retrouvaille Program. There is always hope of reviving your relationship.
Retrouvaille begins with a weekend experience in which couples are helped to re-establish communication and to gain new insights into themselves as individuals and as a couple.
Contact:✆ 1-800-470-2230 or (520) 444-8968
✉ 4003@retrouvaille.orgWebsite
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Hope and Healing for the Catholic Family! You are not alone. There's no such thing as "Catholic divorce" but the bad news is Catholics do civilly divorce.
Surviving Divorce is there to help and encourage healing through the Sacraments where you'll personally encounter Christ - with all His love and tender mercies. And that's the REALLY good news.
Contact: Felicia Klein✆ (520) 425-6529
✉ csdtucson@yahoo.comWebsite
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Pregnancy and Pro-Life
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Theory and Practice of Natural Family Planning
By Rev. Julius Ntalo, OCD. Father Ntalo is a certified Natural Family Planning instructor with a degree in Public Health, now based at Santa Cruz Parish, Tucson.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives us the teaching on marital relations, that sex is a gift with a two-fold purpose: 1) union / bonding; 2) procreation / babies (CCC 2363).
The regulation of birth is an aspect of responsible parenthood (CCC 2368). “If there are well-grounded reasons for spacing birth, married couples may take advantage of natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system … thus, controlling birth in a way which does not in the least offend the moral principles” (Cf, Humane Vitae 16).
Natural Family Planning is child spacing through observing periods of abstinence during the woman’s fertile phase.
There are several methods of Natural Family Planning. To choose the best for you, you should get a certified instructor either online or nearby and she/he will help you to choose. Methods work well according to menstrual cycles: the short cycle of (18 – 25 days), the medium cycle (26- 32 days), the long cycle (33-50 days), and the irregular cycle.
Why is instruction in the theories and practice of Natural Family Planning good for all? It promotes self-knowledge about one’s cycle, it promotes self-control, it encourages communication between the couple, it is easy to learn, and it can be used to both achieve pregnancy or postpone pregnancy.
Among the many methods of Natural Family Planning is self-observation. This works for all cycles.
How does self-observation work? It uses cervical secretions as an indicator of fertility. The woman checks daily for the presence or absence of cervical secretions of any type. In the absence of secretions, the male gamete dies within one to two hours in the acidic environment of the birth canal. However, when cervical secretions are present, the male gamete can live up to three days.
The function of the cervical secretions is to protect the male gamete against the acidic environment in the birth canal and to transport the male gamete to meet the egg after ovulation.The general rule with self-observation is that if a woman notes secretion TODAY and/or YESTERDAY she is considered to be fertile TODAY. If a woman doesn’t note secretion TODAY and/or YESTERDAY she is considered infertile TODAY.
Who can use Natural Family Planning? Women with healthy cervical secretion and who can check cervical secretions daily. This is a habit that can be developed. Couples who communicate well have a great success with Natural Family Planning. NFP also promotes healthy communication in couples.
When to start: women can start using observation at any point of their cycles.
NFP Resources from the Diocese of Tucson
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An unexpected pregnancy is a life-changing event. The caring staff at Reachout Women's Center believe you should know all the facts about your options during pregnancy. You do not have to go through this difficult time alone. Be empowered to make the best decision you can make based on the facts and not fear. Reachout Women's Center will walk with you from the initial steps of your pregnancy, through the first 36 months of your child’s life. All services are confidential and free, including pregnancy testing, limited obstetrical ultrasounds, counseling referrals, and materials assistance.
Contact:
✆ (520) 321-4300
✉ info@reachoutwomenscenter.comWebsite
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Rachel's Vineyard is a safe place to renew, rebuild, and redeem hearts broken by abortion or fetal loss. Weekend retreats offer you a supportive, confidential, and non-judgmental environment where women and men can express, release, and reconcile painful post-abortive emotions to begin the process of restoration, renewal, and healing.
Contact:
✆ (520) 743-6777
✉ rachelsvineyardtucson@gmail.comWebsite
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Latest News
New Outlook’s news and resources for Marriage and Natural Family Planning.
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