Matrimony

A message from Bishop Vann

“The institution of marriage is facing serious challenges and threats today. In our postmodern culture the tendency is to view marriage through the lens of individual rights without referencing its relation either to God or to the common good of society. One result is a widespread obliviousness to the fact that marriage is given us by God and rooted in a relationship with him.”

Most Reverend Kevin W. Vann

from his book, What God has joined:A Catholic teaching on marriage

Diocese Sacramental guidelines (English)

Diocese Sacramental guidelines (Spanish)

Parish Guidelines

Here at Immaculate Conception we require six (6) months in order to prepare a couple for the Sacrament of Marriage. Marriage preparation is very important. It has been proven to slow the divorce rate for at least the first 10 years of marriage.

Completion of the following programs during the six months preparation period is required:

Marriage Information Session – held the third Thursday of each month except in December. The sessions begin at 6:30 PM in the Parish Office and usually last an hour and a half to two hours.

Engaged Encounter Weekend – can be attended in Fort Worth, Dallas or in any other Diocese that offers it.

Pre-Cana Day – takes place on any number of Sundays in Fort Worth.

Sponsor Couple – each couple is assigned a married couple who has been trained to review the results of the FOCCUS with the engaged couple. FOCCUS, a questionnaire covering all areas of married life, is taken by the couple at the initial wedding information meeting and each mark their answers without consulting the other.

Priest Meetings – Several meetings with one of the priests or our deacon are required to finish up the preparation. At the last meeting, the paperwork required by the Diocese of Fort Worth is completed.

Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.” The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been “in the beginning:
So they are no longer two, but one flesh. (Gen 2, Mat 19)

The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman form with each other an intimate communion of life and love, has been founded and endowed with its own special laws by the Creator. By its very nature it is ordered to the good of the couple, as well as to the generation and education of children. Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament.

The sacrament of Matrimony signifies the union of Christ and the Church. It gives spouses the grace to love each other with the love with which Christ has loved his Church; the grace of the sacrament thus perfects the human love of the spouses, strengthens their indissoluble unity, and sanctifies them on the way to eternal life.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church