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What is Worldwide Marriage Encounter?
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Worldwide Marriage Encounter is 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, and joys.
Worldwide Marriage Encounter is not a professional counseling service. It is not a retreat, nor is it a marriage clinic or sensitivity course. It is not a time to look at the past, but rather to look to your future together. The weekend is a positive, simple, common sense experience between a husband and wife that revitalizes marriage.
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Who is Worldwide Marriage Encounter for?
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Worldwide Marriage Encounter is 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.
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Do you have to be Catholic?
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No! The weekend is presented by three Catholic couples and a priest. It is Catholic in its theology of marriage as a Sacrament of the Church, but couples of all faiths can benefit from it and are encouraged to attend. Worldwide Marriage Encounter is open to all happily married couples regardless of faith, race, age, education, or financial status.
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What happens at a Worldwide Marriage Encounter?
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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!
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Does the Weekend respect the couple's privacy?
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Yes! Worldwide Marriage 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.
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How does a Worldwide Marriage Encounter enhance a marriage?
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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 of the most significant experiences of their lives.
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When and where are Weekends held?
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Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekends are held periodically at local hotels. Registration several months in advance of when you want to attend may be advisable. The weekend begins on Friday evening at 8:00 and ends Sunday afternoon at 4:30, after Mass. Meals are provided on the weekend.
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What does Worldwide Marriage Encounter cost?
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A non-refundable registration fee confirms your food and lodging. At the end of the weekend, each couple is given a blank envelope and asked to make a donation to cover the cost of their weekend. No one is ever refused the opportunity to make a Weekend because of lack of funds.
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Where can we find out more?
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For further information, visit the Worldwide Marriage Encounter website.
Worldwide Marriage Encounter is the most successful and dynamic marriage enrichment experience in the world today.
Since its beginning in the United States in 1968, couples and priests have given their time and energies to bring Worldwide Marriage Encounter to couples everywhere. Today, more than two million couples in over 87 countries have experienced the beauty and the gift of their weekend. They want to share that experience with you because they found something worth passing on.
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How do we sign up?
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Download and print the Arizona Registration Form, and send it along with the registration fee to the address included in the form. We look forward to seeing you on a weekend!
Category: Weekend
Some comments from couples who have made a Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend:
"Bob and I no longer celebrate our wedding anniversary once a year. Since Worldwide Marriage Encounter we celebrate our marriage every day!"
"Rick and I love each other very much, but we felt as if the world was slowly pushing us apart. Daily problems of money, job, and children were steadily becoming more important than our relationship. Worldwide Marriage Encounter helped to put things back into proper perspective for us. It's great!"
"Not only did we experience a deep sense of unity and joy during the weekend, but the intimacy and excitement continued after."
"Before Worldwide Marriage Encounter, all Jim and I ever talked about were our kids, his job, the house, or money. Now we talk about us."
"When some friend suggested that Shelia and I make a Worldwide Marriage Encounter, we were shocked and more than a little hurt. We were very happily married, and frankly it surprised us that they thought we needed 'marriage counseling.' When we finally told them how we felt, they laughed and said they had suggested the Encounter because we were a happily married couple. Now, I'm glad they did. We got an awful lot out of it precisely because we brought a lot to it."
"Our lives have been so much enriched and we had thought after nearly 36 years of marriage that we had a rich and satisfying marriage, but we surely found out we had only scratched the surface."
"Tony and I have been married for five years. During that time I've gotten ahead in my job and settled down nicely into marriage. Worldwide Marriage Encounter showed me how I can get ahead in my marriage too."
"This weekend gave me a new look at people and what the world can truly be. The change in our relationship to each other has already brought about a unique awareness of our children."
"Thank you for the most rewarding weekend of our lives. We are eagerly looking forward to many more exciting years together and wish every married couple could have a Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend."