The most important part of the MARRIAGE CARE™ Ministry are the volunteers willing to listen, pray, draw out significant insights, teach and coach a few important skills, and, share their gifts and their marriage with others.
Why Marriage Angels? God sent Angels to give important messages. Angels are often depicted as ministers of God’s mercy and compassion, and often they fight against the forces of evil. God sent Angels to help people. God sent Angels to protect us. Father Larry Rice, CFP says: “The most important thing to remember about angels is that they are a manifestation of God’s love and care for us.”
While not actual angels with wings, we believe God is asking for “earthly angels” to share God’s love and care one marriage at a time to help restore marriages!
The role of Marriage Angels! …is to Share God’s Love &
Care One Marriage at a time.
Marriage Angels! can be clergy and religious, but the vast majority of them will be married couples. We WANT TO have trained, seasoned married couples to become Marriage Angels!
Marriage Angels! don’t diagnose. They don’t set out to solve anyone’s problems. What they do is pray with and for distressed couples. They listen for understanding and coach spouses to do the same with meaningful skills and techniques. They help the distressed couple look for “solutions” rather than at the “problems.”
St. Paul encourages Christians to press forward toward God’s unfolding purpose, trusting God each step of the way. “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).
Therein lies the solution. The solution amounts to an entirely new way of perceiving life — an extraordinary shift of paradigms (pg. 16). All this happens in spite of the problems the couple/individual is facing. St. Paul, when speaking to the church in Corinth, declared that everyone who trusts in Christ becomes a new creation, and that changes everything. In Christ, hope is restored and personal control is reestablished.
As a Christian, it is our encounter with Jesus, our belief that he was speaking the truth and is totally worthy of our trust, that transforms lives. It is in this truth that our perception of reality is altered. And in this new way of looking, one finds the ability to see through difficult problems and take hold of solutions that God’s Spirit reveals.
It is here, within our Church, that distressed couples can find caring and loving mentors; a healthy and supportive community of fellow believers; and most important, the transforming power of the Word of God.
Our role as Marriage Angels! impowers us to “coach” couples with helpful skills and insights that invite couples to find hope and help. We are able to give witness to the power of God’s love and transformation. And, Marriage Angels! do their homework by having a list of Referrals that are used to help a couple make a Journey to Recovery. And, the Marriage Angels! help the couple stick to their Plan.
When MARRIAGE CARE™ is implemented by trained “Marriage Angels!” it is both dynamic in its fruits as well as simple in its design. Trained Marriage Angels! are made available to “look out for” couples in need in the parish.
Marriage Angels! are able to WALK with a couple in some of their darkest or saddest moments and ask questions. The answers are owned by the couple. This process works. The couple is soon asking: “What do we do next?” and saying: “I think we have found HOPE.”
Marriage Angels! give witness that marriages can navigate their way through most difficulties. In many instances, they allow couples to become stronger having weathered each storm.
These volunteer couples believe in the power of prayer and become able to PRAY with and for the couples “they are looking out for.” It is the idea that these couples become like “Angels” who, like the stories from the Bible remind us, are “looking out for” us humans.