COUPLES RETREATS

The Knights of Columbus Couples Retreats are a positive and personal experience for a couple, which offers them a technique of loving communication that they can use for the rest of their lives. It’s an opportunity to look deeply into their relationship with each other and with God. It’s a time to share their feelings, their hopes, fears, frustrations.

The couples’ retreats for any couple who wants to enrich their marriage. The weekend is designed to expand and deepen the joys a couple shares together whether they’ve been married for a short time or for many years. Worldwide Marriage Encounter is also for priests and religious who want to revitalize their relationship with the people of God and develop an even deeper appreciation for their own vocation.

The principles of love, commitment and effective communication translate quite readily to the relationship between a priest and his parish or any group to whom he ministers as well as to a religious community. Priests who have made an Encounter weekend call the experience “life enhancing.”

An atmosphere is created on the weekend in which the couple can concentrate exclusively on one another. A series of talks are given by a team of trained couples and a priest. The talks give a husband and wife the opportunity to look at themselves as individuals and to look at their relationship with each other, with God, and with others. Worldwide Marriage Encounter starts with the love you have for your spouse and helps you to build, expand, and deepen that relationship. The Weekend shows you the way to do this and provides you with the means – the rest is up to you!

The couples retreat encounter emphasizes communication between husband and wife through a weekend experience, which is free of the everyday distractions and tensions. You concentrate on your spouse to such an extent that you are hardly aware of the other couples who are on the weekend. The presentations are given to the group as a whole. After each presentation, the husband and wife have time in the privacy of their own room for their own personal sharing using the communication technique they are learning on the weekend. There is no group discussion.

The fundamental difference between marriages that are good, average, or poor is the level of communication between husband and wife. For those with good communication, it’s a chance to deepen it, and for those whose communication has faded, it’s a chance to begin again. In all marriages, there are times when we take each other and our relationship for granted.

The Weekend presents each  couple with  the opportunity to stop  and  take a fresh  look at their  relationship, marriage, and priorities. Couples learn a communication technique which allows and encourages them to explore the important areas of their life together in a spirit of love and understanding. The Weekend Experience offers every couple the insights, the tools, and the confidence to enrich their marriage and to strengthen their love for one another. For many couples, “Their Weekend” is one the most significant experiences of their lives.

To find a location and set a date or for more information go to www.wwme.org.


YOUNG ADULT RETREATS

A young adult program is important to our growth as brothers. A young adult retreat will empower young people to live s disciples of Jesus Christ in our world today, draw them to responsible participation in the life, mission and work of the Catholic faith community, and foster the total personal and spiritual growth of each young person.

Volunteering in youth ministry is incredibly rewarding and life-giving. Volunteer tasks can range from picking up pizzas, opening doors with a smile, giving talks, leading small group discussions, chaperoning for rallies and retreats, and anything in between – wherever your God-given gifts and talents lie and whatever you are comfortable doing. Our ministry simply cannot function without volunteers. All we ask is for a commitment to the youth of our future.

To assure protection for both youth and adults, it is important that all volunteers complete the Safe Environment Program found on Page 9.

For more information refer to the Spiritual Reflection Program Chairman:

Ross W. Willour, Chairman
(760) 318-3622