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Together for Life Online Team

Sep 28
0

Extraordinary Love

By | Communication, Family Life, Marriage Enrichment, Spirituality | No Comments

By Nicole Rodriguez  Have you ever noticed that God likes to work outside of our paradigm? He loves to do the unthinkable and the unimaginable in our lives. With the most ordinary of circumstances, he creates the extraordinary. Such as with the simple question posed to me many years ago: “How many children do you want?”   My story begins with a desire to have children in the beautifully ordinary way. After losing our first child to miscarriage, my husband, Lance, and I waited six long years before discovering with delight that I was pregnant again. Our excitement and joy for Thomas, our second baby boy, were understandably tempered with anxiety, and within just a few short weeks, our hopes were dashed.  We were both heartbroken. Instead of turning inward in our suffering, we made a choice to turn to God and our prayer community. As our community gathered around us to share in our suffering and to pray with us, one friend asked…

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Sep 28
1

Patience, a Virtue for Our Time

By | Communication, Family Life, Marriage Enrichment, Meaning of Marriage, Uncategorized | No Comments

By John Bosio  After months of a pandemic, with physical and social restrictions, most of us feel the effect of chronic stress. This manifests itself in our homes through arguments about money and bills, disagreements about managing the children, spats about whose turn it is to do a task in the home, and disconnects in other aspects of daily life. If you find yourself having difficult and tense conversations with your spouse and with your children, it may be helpful to pray for an increase in patience and tolerance, and to consider the following suggestions gathered from marriage experts:  Pick your battles—Not every conflict needs to turn into a battle. John Gottman, a respected researcher on marriage, points out that 69 percent of conflicts in a marriage are recurring; they are not solvable. Couples need to learn to live with them. He and other psychologists point out that patience and compromise are essential virtues in marriage. 2. Control how you respond—Many conflicts with our spouse or our children are not…

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Aug 27
0

Enthronement Offers a New Beginning in Your Marriage

By | Communication, Family Life, Finding Joy, Marriage Enrichment, Marriage Preparation, Spirituality | No Comments

By Emily Jaminet More than seven years ago, my family welcomed Jesus in a special way through the enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. On that day, my husband and I were joined by our six children and my parents for this momentous occasion. At the time, we felt like “life was good” and marriage was “fine,” but we soon discovered that the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus was offering us so much more! The enthronement allowed us to hit the pause button as a couple amid our very busy lives and pray that our Lord would come into our lives in a new way. Over the years, I have realized that every other significant spiritually impacting experience took place on retreats, at conferences, at our church, and in Holy Mass. The enthronement was the first time where as a couple and a family we were strengthened in the…

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Aug 27
1

The Marriage Matrix

By | Communication, Finding Joy, Marriage Enrichment, Marriage Preparation, Meaning of Marriage, Romance, Spirituality | No Comments

By John Bosio With the release of the film trilogy The Matrix, a new word entered our popular vocabulary. The word “matrix” is actually an old word, according to the Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary. It dates back to the sixteenth century and has its roots in Latin. Matrix means “something from which something else originates”  and “form or mold, and pattern.” Matrix is a word that describes well God’s relationship with humanity and our relationship with God. He is our matrix; the source of our being and of our life. God is the pattern in the likeness of whom we were made. The prophet Isaiah proclaimed, “O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay and you are the potter: we are all the work of your hands.” (Is 64:8) Marriage is not an institution invented by humans: God created it. When God made the first man and the first…

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Jul 27
0

Family Planning the Natural Way

By | Catholic Weddings, Communication, Family Life, Marriage Enrichment, Sexual Intimacy and NFP | No Comments

By John Bosio  Do you remember private conversations before your wedding about how many children you wanted? I remember Teri dreaming out loud that she wanted to have six, just like her mother, but coming from a family of three I was secretly hoping it would not be so. I would say, “let’s start with one at a time.”   The conversation about children and when to have them is one that leads couples to choose a method for managing their fertility. Many women today choose to manage their fertility through some form of hormonal contraception—a method that has many side effects and risks. The Catholic Church considers all methods of artificial contraception as misguided. Let me explain.  In a Catholic wedding, just before reciting the vows, the priest asks the couple: “Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?”   According…

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Jun 22
1

Help Those Suffering Because of the Pandemic

By | Communication, Family Life, Finances | No Comments

By John Bosio  In these days, whenever I read statistics about job losses due to the coronavirus pandemic, (20.5 million jobs lost in April alone) my heart aches for the families affected. I think of the people those numbers represent: the tears shed; the anxiety of fathers and mothers who wonder how to tell their children. I imagine the private conversations between parents on how to meet the family obligations: rent and bills of all sorts. I think about couples discussing how to stretch the family budget, the disagreements that under the stress of the moment escalate into arguments and can at times explode into violence. I think of the single parents who have to weather this crisis alone. My heart aches for all these families. Anyone who has experienced a job loss knows some of the pains.  The news of job losses brings back memories of a time when, during an…

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May 26
0

For an Increase of Faith, Hope, and Charity

By | Uncategorized | No Comments

By Ann M. Garrido  I woke this morning on what feels like Day 419 of the ‘Rona—as my son has taken to calling it—and his father has once again left a half-drunk soda can in the middle of the coffee table overnight.  I snarl as I don mask and hat.  I search for the apartment key, which is not where I left it, as I stumble over his huge, heavy shoes deposited right in front of the door.  (Seriously, why can’t anyone put anything away in this place? And by anyone, I mean my husband.)  And, oh yes, I search for my rosary.  I’ve taken to praying it again as I walk in the morning so I put that in my pocket as well.  I typically say a decade for Steve—a friend of a friend who is suffering from multiple myeloma. A decade for my sister-in-law undergoing her second round…

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May 26
0

Marriage Can Nourish Your Spiritual Life

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By John Kindschuh Couples struggle with challenges in life, but I would assert that my spouse enabled me to better serve others—and God—after a significant medical emergency. I had a cerebellar stroke at thirty-five years old in September of 2013. My wife Cindy and I had a three-year-old son, Ryan, and a newborn daughter, Maggie. Cindy was my constant in a chaotic world.  Since nearly dying more than six years ago, I have been truly reborn.    Cindy’s devout support makes me reflect upon marriage in ways that may help other couples reexamine their relationship. My wife has taught me a great number of things about the Sacrament of Marriage, but there are seven things that I want to emphasize.    First, would you have married your spouse if you could have predicted his or her hardest times? For a few months I could not walk, so I was in a wheelchair. I could not effectively communicate: I…

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May 26
0

Is There a Silver Lining?

By | Uncategorized | No Comments

By John Bosio I am writing these notes while we are still in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since our country, state and city are on lockdown, Teri and I are spending our days at home, each morning trying to figure out what day this is, since our routines are similar day after day. We remind each other of the movie Groundhog Day.  While there is gloom and fear in the air, from time to time I am pleased to find in my inbox articles that spotlight a possible silver lining when it comes to the future of marriage and the family. A series of such articles came from the Institute for Family Studies. I want to share what experts are projecting.  The rise of a “family first” model of marriage  Bradford Wilcox, visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, believes that the current upheavals will change the way couples look at marriage. Unmarried men and women faced with economic insecurity and unemployment will be looking for…

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Apr 20
0

Creating Your Spiritual Top 10

By | Uncategorized | No Comments

By Fr. Joe Laramie, S.J. Live-stream Masses. E-rosaries. Zoom Stations of the Cross. It was a strange Lent, for sure.   Many of us broke our Lenten resolutions—and gave up far more than we ever imagined.  Now that we’re in the Easter season, how can we make the most of these challenging times? Specifically, how is Christ calling us to grow in our most important relationships?  Here’s an activity for you and your spouse/fiancé to share after your next live-stream Mass together: Reflect on your “Spiritual Top 10.”  What’s a Spiritual Top 10? Everyone loves top ten lists, right? Top 10 movies. Top 10 quarterbacks. Even top ten bargain rosé wines.   These Spiritual Top 10 experiences are those times that you felt a special closeness to God. This could be an explicitly religious event such as your Confirmation, a great retreat, or cousin’s Baptism. These might also be powerful moments of love and grace in other settings, perhaps a college hiking trip to Colorado or a great family meal. Surely several of these events…

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