Friday, February 24, 2017
Sample Pre-Nuptial Investigation Forms
Here is a sample pre-nuptial investigation form for the Diocese of Providence:
http://uploads.weconnect.com/mce/1966e694bad90686516f99cdf432800fdca39290/Weddings/Premarital%20Investigation%20Form%202011.pdf
Here from the Diocese of Trenton, the steps for marriage from the parish point of view:
http://www.dioceseoftrenton.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/5-Parish-Guidelines-for-Preparing-Engaged-Couples-for-Marriage.pdf
Here is a sample Freedom to Marry affidavit, that relatives or friends must sign, (2 per groom, 2 per bride):
Sunday, February 19, 2017
A Pope Francis audience on Family
The three key words of the family:
please, thank you,
sorry
Vatican City, 13 May 2015 (VIS) -
“Please, thank you and sorry” are the three words that Pope Francis “would
write on the door of every family home” as they are the key to living well and
in peace both inside and outside the home. They are simple words, much easier
to say than to put into practice, but “they contain great strength: the
strength of protecting the home, even through a thousand difficulties and
trials; instead, when they are lacking, cracks gradually open up that can even
lead it to collapse”.
The Pope dedicated the catechesis of
today's general audience to these three words, normally considered as the words
of politeness. “A great bishop, St. Francis of Sales, said that kindness is
halfway to holiness. However, beware”, he warned, “as in history we have also
known a formalism of good manners that can become a mask to conceal an arid
heart and lack of interest in others. … Not even religion is immune to this
risk, in which formal observance may slip into spiritual worldliness. The devil
who tempts Jesus shows off his good manners and cites the Sacred Scriptures.
His style appears correct, but his intention is to deviate from the truth of
God's love”.
The first word is “please. “To enter
into the life of another person, even when that person forms part of our life,
requires the delicacy of a non-intrusive attitude, that renews trust and
respect. Confidence, then, does not authorise us to take everything for
granted. Love, the more intimate and profound it is, the more it demands
respect for freedom and the capacity to wait for the other to open the door of
his or her heart”.
The second phrase is “thank you”.
“At times”, observed the Holy Father, “it seems that we are becoming a
civilisation of poor manners and unpleasant words. … Politeness and the
capacity to thank are seen as a sign of weakness, and at times even arouse
distrust. This tendency should be opposed within the family itself. We must
become intransigent in the education of gratitude and recognition: the dignity
of the person and social justice both come from this. If this approach is
neglected in family life, it will also be lost in social life”.
The third word is “sorry”, as “when
it is lacking, small cracks become larger … to the point of becoming deep
trenches. It is not by chance that in the prayer taught by Jesus, the Lord's
prayer that summarises all the essential questions for our life, we find the
expression 'forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against
us'. Acknowledging our errors and being willing to restore what has been
removed – respect, sincerity, love – makes one worthy of forgiveness. … If we
are not capable of apologising, it means we are not capable of forgiveness
either. … Many hurt feelings, many lesions in the family begin with the loss of
those precious words: 'I am sorry'. In married life there are many arguments …
but I advise you never to let the day end without making peace. And for this, a
small gesture is enough”.
“These three key words for the
family are simple words, and perhaps at first they make us smile. But … perhaps
our education neglects them too much. May the Lord help us to restore them to
their rightful place in our heart, in our home, and also in our civil
co-existence”.
Claire Levis Zeron and Jose Zeron, newlyweds blessed by the Pope
Familiaris Consortio on Vocation
FAMILIARIS CONSORTIO
POPE JOHN PAUL II
PART TWO
THE PLAN OF GOD FOR MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY
Man, the Image of the God Who Is Love
11. God created man in His own image and
likeness[20]: calling him to existence through love, He called him at the same
time for love.
God is love[21] and in Himself He lives a mystery of
personal loving communion. Creating the human race in His own image and
continually keeping it in being, God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman
the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and
communion.[22] Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every
human being.
As an incarnate spirit, that is a soul which
expresses itself in a body and a body informed by an immortal spirit, man is
called to love in his unified totality. Love includes the human body, and the
body is made a sharer in spiritual love.
Christian revelation recognizes two specific ways of
realizing the vocation of the human person in its entirety, to love: marriage
and virginity or celibacy. Either one is, in its own proper form, an actuation
of the most profound truth of man, of his being "created in the image of
God."
Consequently, sexuality, by means of which man and
woman give themselves to one another through the acts which are proper and
exclusive to spouses, is by no means something purely biological, but concerns
the innermost being of the human person as such. It is realized in a truly
human way only if it is an integral part of the love by which a man and a woman
commit themselves totally to one another until death. The total physical
self-giving would be a lie if it were not the sign and fruit of a total
personal self-giving, in which the whole person, including the temporal
dimension, is present: if the person were to withhold something or reserve the
possibility of deciding otherwise in the future, by this very fact he or she would
not be giving totally.
This totality which is required by conjugal love
also corresponds to the demands of responsible fertility. This fertility is
directed to the generation of a human being, and so by its nature it surpasses
the purely biological order and involves a whole series of personal values. For
the harmonious growth of these values a persevering and unified contribution by
both parents is necessary.
The only "place" in which this self-giving
in its whole truth is made possible is marriage, the covenant of conjugal love
freely and consciously chosen, whereby man and woman accept the intimate
community of life and love willed by God Himself[23] which only in this light
manifests its true meaning. The institution of marriage is not an undue interference
by society or authority, nor the extrinsic imposition of a form. Rather it is
an interior requirement of the covenant of conjugal love which is publicly
affirmed as unique and exclusive, in order to live in complete fidelity to the
plan of God, the Creator. A person's freedom, far from being restricted by this
fidelity, is secured against every form of subjectivism or relativism and is
made a sharer in creative Wisdom.
Marriage and Communion Between God and People
12. The communion of love between God and people, a
fundamental part of the Revelation and faith experience of Israel, finds a
meaningful expression in the marriage covenant which is established between a
man and a woman.
For this reason the central word of Revelation,
"God loves His people," is likewise proclaimed through the living and
concrete word whereby a man and a woman express their conjugal love. Their bond
of love becomes the image and the symbol of the covenant which unites God and
His people.[24] And the same sin which can harm the conjugal covenant becomes
an image of the infidelity of the people to their God: idolatry is
prostitution,[25] infidelity is adultery, disobedience to the law is
abandonment of the spousal love of the Lord. But the infidelity of Israel does
not destroy the eternal fidelity of the Lord, and therefore the ever faithful
love of God is put forward as the model of the of faithful love which should
exist between spouses.[26]
[20] Cf. Gn 1: 26-27.
[21] 1 Jn 4: 8.
[22] Cf. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et spes, 12.
[23] Ibid., 48.
[24] Cf. e.g. Hos, 2: 21; Jer 3: 6-13; Is 54.
[25] Cf. Ez 16: 25.
[26] Cf. Hos 3.
The wife - the radiant sun of the family
An address by Pope Pius XII to newly married couples
The wife - the radiant sun of the family |
---|
The family is illuminated by its own radiant sun, which is the wife. Of her Scripture says, with feeling:
The grace of a wife will charm her husband,her accomplishments will make him the stronger.
A silent wife is a gift from the Lord, no price can be put on a well-trained character.
A modest wife is a boon twice over,a chaste character cannot be weighed on scales.
Like the sun rising over the mountains of the Lord is the beauty of a good wife in a well-kept house.
The wife and mother is indeed like the sun shining in the
family. She shines by her generosity and the way she gives herself to
others. She shines by her alertness and watchfulness and by her wise and
gentle providing of all that can give joy to her husband and children.
She radiates light and warmth.
A marriage will prosper if each partner goes into it not
for his own happiness but the other’s happiness – but although it
belongs to both partners, this emotion, this goal is particularly a
quality of the woman. Her very nature as a mother entails it. Her wisdom
and prudence mean that even if she encounters troubles she will respond
to them with joy; if she is belittled, she will respond with unaltered
dignity and respect. She is like the sun that brightens a cloudy morning
with the dawn; the sun that illuminates the shower-clouds at dusk.
The wife is like the sun shining in the family with the
brightness of her glance and the ardour of her speech. Her looks and
words enter into the souls of her family, softening them, touching them,
raising them up from the tumult of emotion. They recall her husband to
joy in good things and delight in family life after his uninterrupted
and often heavy work of the day, whether in an office, in the fields, in
trade or in industry.
The wife is like the sun shining in the family by her
unforced, transparent sincerity, by her simple dignity, by her decent
Christian behaviour; by her inward thoughts and her upright heart; and
also by the appropriateness of her dress and bearing, adorned by her
open and honest way of life. Subtle signs of feeling, shades of
expression, silences and unmalicious smiles, little nods of approval –
all these give her the grace of an exquisite but simple flower opening
its petals to reflect the colours of sunlight.
If only you could know the full depth of the feelings of
love and gratitude that such a perfect wife and mother inspires in her
husband and children!
Definition of Marriage in Canon Law
Code of Canon Law
TITLE VII.
MARRIAGE (Canons 1055 - 1165)
definitions and preliminaries, canons 1055 to 1062
Can. 1055 §1.
The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between
themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its
nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of
offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament
between the baptized.
§2. For this reason, a valid matrimonial contract
cannot exist between the baptized without it being by that fact a sacrament.
Can. 1056 The
essential properties of marriage are unity and indissolubility, which in Christian
marriage obtain a special firmness by reason of the sacrament.
Can. 1057 §1.
The consent of the parties, legitimately manifested between persons qualified
by law, makes marriage; no human power is able to supply this consent.
§2. Matrimonial consent is an act of the will by
which a man and a woman mutually give and accept each other through an
irrevocable covenant in order to establish marriage.
Can. 1058 All
persons who are not prohibited by law can contract marriage.
Can. 1059
Even if only one party is Catholic, the marriage of Catholics is governed not
only by divine law but also by canon law, without prejudice to the competence
of civil authority concerning the merely civil effects of the same marriage.
Can. 1060 Marriage
possesses the favor of law; therefore, in a case of doubt, the validity of a
marriage must be upheld until the contrary is proven.
Can. 1061 §1.
A valid marriage between the baptized is called ratum tantum if it has not been
consummated; it is called ratum et consummatum if the spouses have performed
between themselves in a human fashion a conjugal act which is suitable in
itself for the procreation of offspring, to which marriage is ordered by its
nature and by which the spouses become one flesh.
§2. After a marriage has been celebrated, if the
spouses have lived together consummation is presumed until the contrary is
proven.
§3. An invalid marriage is called putative if at
least one party celebrated it in good faith, until both parties become certain
of its nullity.
Can. 1062 §1.
A promise of marriage, whether unilateral or bilateral, which is called an
engagement, is governed by the particular law established by the conference of
bishops, after it has considered any existing customs and civil laws.
§2. A promise to marry does not give rise to an
action to seek the celebration of marriage; an action to repair damages,
however, does arise if warranted.
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