Welcome to the Office of Marriage and Family Life Ministry
Our Mission
The Office of Marriage and Family Life Ministry strives to encounter, accompany, and integrate leaders and parishes in fruitfully bringing about a renewal of the culture of marriage and family life, by strengthening The Domestic Church, through resources, training, and consultations rooted in the teachings of The Catholic Church.
FOUR PILLARS OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE MINISTRY
Marriage Preparation
Marriage preparation should be a kind of “initiation” to the sacrament of matrimony, providing couples with the help they need to receive the sacrament worthily and to make a solid be- ginning of life as a family
(AL, # 207).
Marriage Enrichment
It is all the more essential that couples be helped during the first years of their married life to enrich and deepen their conscious and free decision to have, hold and love one another for life. (AL, #217).
Marriage Restoration
Once it becomes apparent that the reality is more limited and challenging than one imagined, the solution is not to think quickly and irresponsibly about separation, but to come to the sober realization that married life is a process of growth, in which each spouse is God’s means of helping the other to mature. Change, improvement, the flowering of the good qualities present in each person – all these are possible (AL, # 221).
End of Marriage
It is a matter of reaching out to everyone, of needing to help each person find his or her proper way of participating in the ecclesial community and thus to experience being touched by an “unmerited, unconditional and gratuitous mercy.” (AL, # 297)
Welcome to our Website
Our diocese has begun a unique journey to promote, support, strengthen and protect marriage as the foundation of every Christian family. We, the Diocese of San Bernardino, see the need for a more specialized attention to the vocation of marriage. We have launched a five year Marriage initiative through the diocesan Office of Catechetical Ministry.
“Our goal is to become a “Marriage-Building Church” by promoting a comprehensive approach to ongoing education for the vocation of the Sacrament of Marriage at all stages of life. By doing this, we hope to create a culture in which Christian marriage education is seen as an integral part of people’s lives in becoming the domestic church.”
Bishop Gerald Barnes
Diocese of San Bernardino in letter announcing Marriage Initiative