Speakers encourage spouses to pray together, be open to the sacraments' graces during Together in Holiness Conference
BLOOMFIELD HILLS — Seventy Catholic couples from across the Archdiocese of Detroit gathered for a day of prayer and spiritual formation Oct. 14 during the annual Together in Holiness Conference at St. Hugo of the Hills Parish in Bloomfield Hills.
The one-day retreat co-sponsored by the Archdiocese of Detroit’s Office of Family Ministry and the Houston-based St. John Paul II Foundation featured talks from national and local speakers along with time for private prayer and reflection between husbands and wives.
The conference opened with Mass celebrated by Detroit Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron, who congratulated the couples for reserving a day in their busy lives to focus on their marital vocation, a point of emphasis for the Office of Family Ministry.
“You are giving your time today to understand and recommit yourself to the holiness that is your marriage,” Archbishop Vigneron said in his homily. “I’m certainly edified by that, and not just by my implication, the world needs your witness, particularly today. Since Synod 16, we’ve focused very much on our evangelizing ministry and mission, and your witness is indispensable. For that, I give God thanks.”
Archbishop Vigneron reflected on the Gospel passage in which Jesus told the crowd that "blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it," noting that following the Word of God means following His commandments not only during times of prosperity, trials and tribulations, but in the mundane as well.
“I understand that it’s not only in the cosmos, the stars, and the moon, where things can be falling apart,” Archbishop Vigneron said. “It can be in the household. It can be when the toilet is overflowing, the baby is screaming, the roast is burning. It can seem at least like the end of one corner of the world. The Gospel tells us in those times, to hear what the Lord says and do what the Father is telling us to do, that we are blessed when we try to put that into practice.”
Charlotte Sacco of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston gave the first talk, titled “The Holy Eucharist: The Source and Summit of Marriage and Family Life,” a fitting topic immediately following Mass, where she challenged couples to open themselves more fully to the abundant graces that come from the Holy Sacrament.
“St. John Paul II said to open our minds and hearts to the beauty that God has made and to His special personal love for each of you,” Sacco said. “Our challenge today is how do we allow the Lord to love us in and through the Eucharist? How do we open our hearts to receive that love, so we are so filled with it that it spreads to our marriage, our family, our children, and into the world? That is our challenge.”
Sacco, who on Oct. 3 celebrated her 25th wedding anniversary with her husband, Jason, spoke of a time when it seemed her family was “going through the motions” in their faith, more worried about getting the family to Mass on time and not addressing the stresses she put on herself and her family.
It wasn’t until her husband suggested they take a trip to Niagara Falls for their 20th anniversary that she became aware of God’s abundant mercy, all while standing on a boat next to the falls, dressed in a rain-soaked poncho.
“We are more beachy people, so I wasn’t too thrilled with my husband on this trip," Sacco said. "But when we got there, I remember standing before Niagara Falls and thinking, ‘What the heck, how long has this been running here for so many years? Where is all this water coming from?’ I was in awe of it, taking all of the beauty in. Then I heard the Lord say, ‘Charlotte, my love is more abundant, my mercy is more abundant, my grace is more abundant, than all that is happening before you.”
That grace is found every time one goes to Communion, Sacco said. God so loves and He cares for His children that He becomes present in the Eucharist as spiritual food to go through life’s journey, she added.
“If we allow God to love us in this way, then we are able to go out and love our spouse with that Christ-like love,” Sacco said. “Go to the Eucharist frequently in adoration, and I challenge you, even when you receive Jesus right there at the altar, in that moment, He can bring healing when we ask it. And when that happens, our eyes will be open to His glory.”
The conference also featured Damon Owens, founder and executive director of “Joyful Ever After,” a nonprofit ministry dedicated to encouraging and educating couples through the teachings of St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.” Owens’ talk, “To Love and Cherish: Deepening Love and Intimacy in Marriage,” focused on the significance of cherishing one’s spouse in the challenges of daily family life.
Ken and Signe Castel of the Archdiocese of Detroit brought a local flavor to the conference, speaking about the importance of praying together as a couple as a critical way to maintain intimacy and spiritual connection between spouses.
“Family prayer and even individual prayer can’t replace couple prayer time,” Ken Castel said. “You've got to pray together as a couple. And this isn’t just me talking about it; no matter who you listen to, no matter what book you are going to read, they are going to talk about how you need to pray together."
The Castels discussed how through the first part of their 48 years of marriage, no one mentioned the importance of praying together, but after attending a couples' prayer series 18 years ago, they found that by praying together they were growing closer to God, and each other.
“Like so many of us, we lost sight of our need for God and His living presence in our marriage and our family,” Signe Castel said. “By putting God in the center of our marriage, we realized our priorities had become disordered.
“It’s not unusual for jobs and children to become a primary focus for married couples,” Signe Castel said. “But the right order is God first, spouse second and then followed by children, extended family, hobbies, work and everything else. I tell my husband, 'I love you, but for a while, you weren’t second to God.' So putting God first, your spouse second, makes for a rock-solid marriage.”
Ken Castel said making the time, even if it is only 15 minutes, can make a world of difference in the health of one’s marriage. He cited statistics showing half of marriages end in divorce, but that number improves to one in six when the couples regularly attend religious services and one in 1,105 when the couple regularly prays together.
“That is what praying together for a marriage looks like,” Ken Castel said. “That is a great statistic if the purpose of marriage is to survive it. But prayer does more. It makes it abundant. Jesus came to give us abundant life, not tolerable or mediocre life, but abundant life. If you’re married, your marriage must be the core and center of that abundant life.”
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