Life Giving Love Retreats

Married for 25 years and expecting our eleventh and last child, we thought we knew pretty much everything there was to know about marriage and family life. Life-long Catholics, we considered ourselves pretty educated about what the Church teaches about marital love. We had even taught classes on the topic. But experiencing a Life Giving Love retreat changed all that. This time spent together gave us a profound new appreciation for the sacrament of marriage and the church’s teaching on sex and sexuality.

The talks were given by ordinary couples who shared their personal experiences that helped to illustrate the truth and beauty of God’s plan for marriage. Much of the power of the weekend lay in the sharing of the presenting couples, whose personal stories witnessed to us the transformational power of the Holy Spirit when the Church’s teachings are embraced and lived out in marriages.

The retreat consists of a series of eleven talks given over two days, usually over a Saturday and Sunday. Along with the team couples, there is also a presenting priest, who introduces each talk, shares personal reflections, and summarizes and expands upon what the couples have shared. The early talks are catechetical in nature explaining God’s plan for each of us. Later topics include children and the family, the negative influences of society, human love, conscience formation and communication. Because each talk builds on the last one, retreatants are strongly encouraged to stay for all the talks and activities. The retreat includes an introduction to Natural Family Planning. Life Giving Love is open to single people, religious, and those considering the religious life as well.

The retreat was written as a response to the need for engaged and married couples, immersed in an increasingly secular world hostile to the Church’s teachings, to learn the truth and beauty of marriage. The timeless message of the retreat is inspiring for all Christians. Based on the apostolic exhortation of Pope St. John Paul II, On The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World, it was developed and written by Fr. Larry Toschi O.S.J.

Couples often come to the retreat with their own opinions and misunderstandings, as we did, and enter hesitantly into the experience. Many later share that they have been surprised and challenged by the clarity and depth of the Church’s teachings regarding life and love and want to more ardently live these truths out in their relationships. Non-Catholics have expressed appreciation for the beauty of God’s plan for marriage, the Church’s defense of marriage and have a desire to learn more about the Church because of the retreat.

Bruce and Christina Simmons shared that the retreat, “…opened our minds and hearts and brought us much closer to each other.” They found it refreshing to hear the Church’s teaching in a new way. Vern and Junior Delgado said that after hearing the talks they discovered that children are a gift and it made them want to have more than the two they had planned. They said, “Before the weekend God wasn’t a part of our life but after the weekend we started praying together and attending church together.”

The weekend closes with an introduction to devotion to Mary and Joseph as the Holy Spouses. “The Holy Spouses are most important models and intercessors for couples, for families, and for every Christian believer.” (from the introduction to the Holy Spouses Rosary, by Fr. Larry Toschi, O.S.J.) We had a devotion to Mary and Joseph as individuals before the Life Giving Love retreat, but practicing devotion to the Holy Spouses has transformed our relationship. Mary and Joseph, as a married couple, have become models and companions for us in our relationships, with each other, with our children and grandchildren and especially in our prayer life. Who better to help us to become more conformed to Christ than the two people closest to Him on earth?

“The modern Christian family is often tempted to be discouraged and is distressed at the growth of its difficulties; it is an eminent form of love to give it back its reasons for confidence in itself, in the riches that it possesses by nature and grace, and in the mission that God has entrusted to it.” (On The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World, #86) Those of us struggling to raise Christian families can be encouraged and emboldened by the teachings of our faith. We were challenged on Life Giving Love to see that our family has been entrusted with a mission given us by God. The gift of the Church’s teachings that we thought we knew so well, presented so beautifully on the Life Giving Love retreat, gave us a new vision for our marriage and family, and a renewed hope and confidence “in the riches it possesses by nature and grace”.

Note: See What’s Happening for dates of next Life Giving Love Retreat offered by the Madera and Bakersfield Life Giving Love Teams, in both English and Spanish, or call Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Bakersfield at 661-323-3662.