Marriage & Family

Mission Statement:

The Our Lady of Sorrows Marriage & Family Life Committee seeks to actively provide Catholic, faith based support and fellowship throughout all stages of marriage and family life by embracing families where they are and accompanying them on their journey toward, and relationship with, Jesus Christ and our parish family.

The three main focuses of the committee are:

Married Couples

1. Focus will be to support/enrich all marriages, struggling marriages, and engaged couples

2. Meets Goal 1 from Unleash the Gospel: Assist couples to understand the meaning of the sacrament of marriage and how to live it out in their daily lives.

* Initial priority will be to focus on a married couples event

Families

1. Focus will be to support families in general, including families with young/school-aged children, parents with special needs children, and families that are home-schooling

2. Meets Goal 2 from Unleash the Gospel: Assist families to understand the meaning of the domestic church and how to live it out in their daily lives.

Significant Loss

1. Focus will be to support families experiencing grief/loss through death, divorce/separation, and other life-changes

2. Meets Goal 3 from Unleash the Gospel: Support families in difficult circumstances (divorced/separated, widowed, addictions, infertility, loss, etc.)

Marriage Enrichment

FOR YOUR MARRIAGE is a resources from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. For Your Marriage helps couples at all stages of life to understand and live God’s plan for happy, holy marriages by providing educational and spiritual resources.

The Family Life & Parenting section of FOR YOUR MARRIAGE can help families become places of prayer and faith (domestic Churches) and navigate the challenges that come with parenting, extended family relationships, care-giving and more.

Learn more about how “Marriage Encounter” can enhance your marriage with this short video.

In our Family Healing and Support series Fr. Palazzolo spoke about the Church’s understanding of the Sacrament of Marriage and explain the process whereby someone may petition the ecclesiastical court of the Church to investigate if their marriage was sacramentally valid (How one may seek an ‘annulment’).

The Archdiocese of Detroit provides resources for married couples. Click below.

REPRODUCTION:

Natural Family Planning (NFP) is the general title for the scientific, natural and moral methods of family planning that can help married couples either achieve or postpone pregnancies.

NFP methods are based on the observation of the naturally occurring signs and symptoms of the fertile and infertile phases of a woman's menstrual cycle. No drugs, devices, or surgical procedures are used to avoid pregnancy.

Springs in the Desert is a Catholic ministry devoted to helping women and couples struggling with infertility to process and move beyond their grief to find the fruitfulness God has planned for their marriage.

FOR STRUGGLING MARRIAGES:

The Alexander House is an international, Catholic, apostolate dedicated to creating programs and service to assist marriages, families and relationships to be the best that God desires for them to be. It is the result of Greg and Julie bouncing back from the brink of divorce 19 years ago. After living most of their married life by the prescriptions of the world, they hit "rock-bottom" and concluded that divorce was the only way out of the pain and misery they were causing each other.

After an attempt to find resolve through their parish priest and a Catholic therapist they realized that a divorce was inevitable and called their 911 Marriage two kids into the room, Chris - 9 and Lauren - 7, and explained that they were going to get a divorce.

As they continued to go to Mass every Sunday, they befriended a visiting priest who filled in for their pastor for the summer. This new friend just happened to be the Tribunal Vicar for their diocese and after learning about their struggles, suggest that they go back and discover God's plan for marriage as opposed to their plan.

Let's just say that the rest is history and Greg and Julie felt called to create an apostolate to share with others what they discovered!

FOR PORNOGRAPHY ISSUES:

When it comes to pornography use in marriages, there are many myths that need to be dispelled. Doing so can improve a couple’s ability to heal and restore their personal lives and their marriages. Here are eight common myths I’ve found in the couples I’ve worked with over the years.

Same Sex Attraction