Best Practices - Catechumenal Model

The goal of Marriage Preparation Coordinators is to ensure each couple receives the accompaniment and support they need before and after the wedding.  

Check out these Best Practices to keep in mind.

• Know our audience:  most couples cohabitate, have a weak relationship with the church, & are in their most stressful point of their life, so be patient.
• Engage & accompany ALL couples who come for marriage prep.  If they are NOT from your parish invite them to consider becoming a member.  Be clear that marriage is a journey as a Catholic couple but also into the life of the parish family.
• Approach Marriage Prep through the lens of the New Evangelization with the end in mind (helping them become life-long Catholic Disciples).
• Apply the RCIA Model:  Assume nothing, build trust - foster relationship, invite and evangelize & follow up with post Wedding Mystagogy and accompaniment.
• Providing radical hospitality and flexibility is key to connect busy couples to parish life.
• Get Trained in the New Marriage Prep Framework (online or in person) in Witness to Love Program with Prepare-Enrich – See link below.
• Explain that research says marriage prep decrease divorce.
• Identify a faithful married person/couple to coordinate who is an active in the parish who can be trained to serve as the Marriage Prep Coordinator (MPC)
• Engaged Couples select their Sponsor Couple (married 5 years, active in parish, inspire engaged couple) to accompany them in marriage prep (see framework).  This accelerates trust and relationship to better connect them to the life of the parish.
• Pastors should not do all the marriage preparation, but should be involved in the process (see framework – most especially if they are preaching the wedding).
• Deacons are ideal ministers to serve as the Marriage Prep Coordinator. 
• Marriage Prep should ideally take place at the parish where the couple will attend after the wedding so that a relationship with the church community can be fostered and nourished after the wedding. 
• Do NOT outsource all of your marriage prep to a 3rd party, as this is a missed opportunity to bring couples into the parish family. Vicariate or Regional Marriage Prep encouraged. 
• Recommended prep 9 months before weddings (required to 6 months before wedding)
• “What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are but how you deal with incompatibility.”  ~ Leo Tolstoy
• Marriage is a life-long journey of dying to self, so you can offer yourself as a gift of love.
• Good marriages don’t just happen by accident, they take work. So, let’s learn together.
• Divorce is NOT a 50/50 gamble.  If this is the first marriage for each couple and they go through Marriage Prep, there is about a 30%-35% rate of divorce.
• God should be the center of your relationship so that He can be the 3rd strand in your relationship (Ecclesiastes 4:12)
• Couples preparing for marriage should be attending Sunday Mass as part of their preparation (ideally together and/or with a Sponsor Couple)
• Both couples should go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation before the wedding.

Best Practices for Marriage Prep Download