Convention Aims at 'Helping Good Marriages Become Great'

TOWSON, Md. — When John Geer recalled his first Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekend 10 years ago, he remembered it being a "life-changing event ... like coming out of a cave."

The Arlington resident and his wife, Ann, had been married 27 years when they decided to participate in a Marriage Encounter weekend, where they learned to better dialogue and communicate their feelings with one another.

Like many of the 700 couples participating in the national Worldwide Marriage Encounter convention at Towson University July 8-10, the Geers, now married nearly 37 years, have become much closer and developed a stronger marriage as a result of Marriage Encounter.

"I have discovered more about my husband in the last 10 years than in the 30 years (of knowing him) prior to that," said Ann Geer as she sat in the Towson Center auditorium the morning of July 9.

More than 300 children were also at the convention, engaging in fun-filled activities while their parents listened to talks related to the convention theme, "In God We Trust."

For non-English-speaking participants, the convention talks were also presented in Spanish and Korean.

Priests participate in Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekends, and about 70 priests attended the convention.

"I also have to learn how to share my feelings," said Father Dennis Hughes, a priest of 30 years from the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Fla. "I had learned for many years through high school and the seminary to just keep my feelings to myself. Through the Marriage Encounter weekend, I learned to express those feelings. It's a lot healthier."

Father Mario Barbero, a Consolata Missionary who serves in Africa, participated in his first Worldwide Marriage Encounter event on that continent decades ago.

"Every weekend, it was like a miracle happening," the priest, in a heavily accented voice, told The Catholic Review, newspaper of the Baltimore Archdiocese.

The story of Worldwide Marriage Encounter begins in Spain in the 1950s. By the late 1960s, more than two dozen priests and some 50 couples were presenting weekends in the United States, helping couples to communicate better and to revitalize their marriages.

During Marriage Encounter weekends, couples and priests learn to dialogue, spending 10 minutes writing a response to a question and then 10 minutes discussing it. Couples keep the weekend experience going in their area by joining small groups that meet monthly in couples' homes.

More than 50 volunteers helped coordinate the 2005 convention, which energized Worldwide Marriage Encounter participants.

"This is renewing to our relationships to witness the joy and enthusiasm of other couples," said Ann Geer.

Dave and Lucy Snyder of Tampa, Fla., who made their first Marriage Encounter weekend 28 years ago, spent the morning of July 9 talking with Father Hughes.

"It recharges our batteries," Lucy Snyder said. "And we love seeing all our priests together."

Deacon Fred Passauer and his wife, Kathy, who have been married 26 years, were admittedly skeptical when they participated in their first Marriage Encounter weekend.

"But the weekend was phenomenal," said Kathy Passauer. "We made time to communicate intimately, and that makes a real difference."

Deacon Passauer, who serves at Our Lady of Grace in Parkton, said through Marriage Encounter, he learned that his wife did not want a "successful" husband as much as she wanted a husband who "stood by her side."

The couple, who are now presenters at Marriage Encounter weekends, say they have "grown so much."

Andrew and Augustina Chung of St. Andrew Kim Parish in Orange, N.J., participated in the national convention for the first time.

"Everybody said it would be good to go there," said Augustina Chung of the couple's first Marriage Encounter weekend 20 years ago. "Our lives changed. We trust God, and our marriage is not just our choice, it is God's plan."

Her husband said, "At least I know how to express my feelings when we have an occasional disagreement against each other by approaching it in a nice way."

Ann Geer said Worldwide Marriage Encounter is not for people who have troubled relationships.

"It's for good marriages, to help them become great," she said.

Cardinal William H. Keeler celebrated the closing Mass July 10, telling the couples what a joy it was to be with them. He recalled a gathering of couples from across the country several years ago for "a liturgy of thanksgiving for so much good being accomplished through Marriage Encounter."

He also asked the couples to pray for the success of a meeting of representatives of the interfaith Religious Alliance Against Pornography and the U.S. attorney general that was to take place during the week of July 11.

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