VATICAN CITY, 26 SEP 2008 (VIS) - This morning in Castelgandolfo, the Holy Father received 300 participants in an international meeting of the "Retrouvaille" Association, which has the aim of helping married couples in crisis.
The Pope recalled how the group came into being in Canada in 1977, thanks to the efforts of Canadian husband and wife, Guy and Jeannine Beland, "to help couples in serious crisis to face their problems with a specific programme aimed at rebuilding their relationship, not as an alternative to psychological therapies but following a different and complementary route.
"You are not professionals", he added, "you are married people who in many cases have experienced the same difficulties yourselves, and you have overcome them with the grace of God and the support of Retrouvaille, experiencing in your turn the desire and joy of placing your experience at the service of others. Among you are a number of priests who accompany the married people on their journey".
A serious matrimonial crisis, said Pope Benedict, "has two faces. On the one hand, and especially in its most acute and painful phase, it appears to be a failure; ... this is the negative face. But there is another face, one we are often unaware of but that God sees. In fact, as nature shows us, each crisis is a passage to a new phase of life. ... At the moment of break-up", he told his audience, "you offer couples ... a positive reference to which to entrust themselves in their desperation". In this way "your meetings offer a 'handhold' so as not to lose the way altogether and gradually to climb back up the slope".
Recalling the evangelical episode of the wedding at Cana, the Holy Father indicated that the "good wine" held back until the end "is a symbol of salvation, of the new nuptial alliance that Jesus came to seal with humankind". In this context he affirmed that "when married couples in difficulties or - as your experience shows - already separated, entrust themselves to Mary and turn to Him Who made them 'a single flesh', they can be certain that the crisis will - with the help of the Lord - become a way to grow, and that love will be purified, matured and reinforced".
"Yours is a 'counter-current' service", he told the members of the association. "Today, in fact, when a couple goes into crisis many people are to be found who advise them to separate. Divorce is even easily proposed to people married in the name of the Lord, forgetting that man cannot separate what God has brought together".
"In order to achieve your mission", the Pope concluded, "you need to nourish your spiritual life continually, to put love into what you do so that contact with difficult situations does not cause your hope to run dry or be reduced to a mere formula".
AC/MARRIAGE CRISIS/RETROUVAILLE VIS 20080926 (490)
The Pope recalled how the group came into being in Canada in 1977, thanks to the efforts of Canadian husband and wife, Guy and Jeannine Beland, "to help couples in serious crisis to face their problems with a specific programme aimed at rebuilding their relationship, not as an alternative to psychological therapies but following a different and complementary route.
"You are not professionals", he added, "you are married people who in many cases have experienced the same difficulties yourselves, and you have overcome them with the grace of God and the support of Retrouvaille, experiencing in your turn the desire and joy of placing your experience at the service of others. Among you are a number of priests who accompany the married people on their journey".
A serious matrimonial crisis, said Pope Benedict, "has two faces. On the one hand, and especially in its most acute and painful phase, it appears to be a failure; ... this is the negative face. But there is another face, one we are often unaware of but that God sees. In fact, as nature shows us, each crisis is a passage to a new phase of life. ... At the moment of break-up", he told his audience, "you offer couples ... a positive reference to which to entrust themselves in their desperation". In this way "your meetings offer a 'handhold' so as not to lose the way altogether and gradually to climb back up the slope".
Recalling the evangelical episode of the wedding at Cana, the Holy Father indicated that the "good wine" held back until the end "is a symbol of salvation, of the new nuptial alliance that Jesus came to seal with humankind". In this context he affirmed that "when married couples in difficulties or - as your experience shows - already separated, entrust themselves to Mary and turn to Him Who made them 'a single flesh', they can be certain that the crisis will - with the help of the Lord - become a way to grow, and that love will be purified, matured and reinforced".
"Yours is a 'counter-current' service", he told the members of the association. "Today, in fact, when a couple goes into crisis many people are to be found who advise them to separate. Divorce is even easily proposed to people married in the name of the Lord, forgetting that man cannot separate what God has brought together".
"In order to achieve your mission", the Pope concluded, "you need to nourish your spiritual life continually, to put love into what you do so that contact with difficult situations does not cause your hope to run dry or be reduced to a mere formula".
AC/MARRIAGE CRISIS/RETROUVAILLE VIS 20080926 (490)
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