Marriage Encounter
Bukas-Loob sa Diyos
(Open in Spirit to God)
A community of Encountered Couples and Families
Joyfully invites you to share the Fruits of our
MARRIAGE ENCOUNTER WEEKEND
Our Threshold of the HOUSEHOLD OF GOD
THE SUBSTANCE OF THE “ENCOUNTER”
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The Encounter presented by the Bukas-Loob sa Diyos (Open in Spirit to God) is open to couples married sacramentally in the Catholic Church. The Marriage Encounter is an invaluable experience of renewing our marriage relationship. It enriches the process of communication between husband and wife. It guarantees to make good marriages “better” and not-so-good marriages “good”! It is presented in a full weekend detached from the usual everyday distractions.
An “ecclesial team” trained and prepared for ministering the Encounter process conducts the Weekend; a “Team Priest” and at least two “Team Couples” ,who manage together its instructional and experiential component.
Most, if not all, who received the Encounter experience have fully rediscovered their marriage relationships, strengthened their conjugal and family life and become fully aware of the living presence of God in their marriage and family life.
All of us have discovered through the Encounter what Jesus referred to as “pearl of great price.”
WHAT IS MARRIAGE ENCOUNTER?
The Marriage Encounter Weekend is a positive and personal experience for couples, which offers them a technique of loving communication that they can use for the rest of their lives. It is an opportunity to look deeply into their relationship with each other and with God. Also, it is a time to share their feelings, their hopes, fears, joys and frustrations.
Marriage Encounter is not a retreat, nor is it a marriage clinic or sensitivity course. It is not a time to dwell on the past, but a time to look to your future together. The Weekend is a positive, simple, common-sense experience between husband and wife, that revitalizes marriage by helping couples to see how their relationship could and should be. It is a Catholic expression open to all happily married couples regardless of faith, race, age, education or financial status.
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WHAT IS MARRIAGE ENCOUNTER FOR?
The Marriage Encounter is for any couple who wants to enrich their marriage. The Weekend is designed to expand and deepen the joys a couple share together whether they have been married for a short time or for many years. Marriage Encounter is also for Priests and Religious who want to revitalize their relationship with the people of God and develop an even deeper appreciation for their own vocation.
WHAT HAPPENS AT MARRIAGE ENCOUNTER?
An atmosphere is created on the weekend in which the couple can concentrate exclusively on one another. A series of talks are given by a team of trained couples and Priest. Each talk gives a husband and wife the opportunity to look at themselves as individuals and to look at their relationships with each other, with God and with others. Marriage Encounter starts with the love you have for your spouse and helps you build, expand and deepen that relationship. The Weekend shows you the way to do this and provides you with the means – the rest is up to you! The only talent one must have to make a Marriage Encounter is the talent to love and desire to make a good marriage even better.
DOES THE MARRIAGE ENCOUNTER WEEKEND RESPECT THE COUPLE’S PRIVACY?
Yes! Marriage Encounter emphasizes communication between husband and wife through a weekend experience, which is free of the everyday distractions and tensions. You concentrate on your spouse to such an extent that you are hardly aware of the other couples who are on the weekend. The presentations are given to the group as a whole. After each presentation the husband and wife have time in the privacy of their room for their own personal sharing using the communications technique they are learning on the weekend. There is no group discussion.
HOW DOES MARRIAGE ENCOUNTER ENHANCE THE MARRIAGE?
The fundamental difference between marriages that are good, average or poor is the level of communication between husband and wife. In all marriages, there are times when we take each other and our relationship for granted. The Weekend presents each couple with the opportunity to get off the “Modern World Treadmill,” to stop and to take a fresh look at the two of us, at our marriage, and at our priorities.
We learn a communication technique which allows and encourages us to explore the important areas of our life together in a spirit of love and understanding. The weekend experience offers every couple the insights, the tools and the confidence to enrich their marriage and to strengthen their love for one another. For many couples “The Weekend is one of the most significant experiences of their live.”
The following are some of the “objections and rationalization” that we received as to why a couple may feel that Marriage Encounter is not for them and our responses:
Objection: “We already have a good marriage.”
Response: The difference between a “good” marriage and a “BEAUTIFUL” marriage is the Marriage Encounter experience. Even if many difficult experiences are made right in the Encounter, many more couples with already good marriages have received continuing blessings after the Weekend.
Objection: “We already have good communication between us.” Response: Please take a closer look. Can you truly communicate with each other about your intimate feelings, aspirations, fears and anxieties. Do you have oneness and accord in your major decisions?
Objection: “We are too young.”
Response: That’s wonderful! Wouldn’t you want to prevent growing old too fast or growing old alone? Wouldn’t you want to be trained in living fully with each other as early as possible?
Objection: “We are too old.”
Response: Then, you can be young again! Don’t you agree there’s always something you may have missed because you were not always aware of what was really in your spouse’s mind and heart? Wouldn’t you want a fresh look at each other?
Objection: “I don’t feel at ease in spiritual retreats.”
Response: That’s the way many of us felt before (and even during) our Encounter Weekend. But when we saw and met others like us who had successfully coped with the initial “uneasiness”, we soon felt at home with the “Spirituality” of the Encounter. And later, we wanted more of it.
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PROCESS AND CONTENTS
There is a “rhythm” in the encounter process –
The presentation of a truth;
The personal reflection; and
The conjugal dialogue,
A truth is drawn from Scripture or from Church’s teaching and made alive by the life experiences of the presenting team. The “encounter truths” build up in four stages:
The “I” stage
The “You” and “I” (or “WE”) stage
The “WE”, GOD and
The “COMMUNITY” stage;
The “total” truth about ourselves as persons, as spouses, as parents and as members of the Church, unfolds as the weekend progresses.
After a truth is presented, we are given time for personal reflection on these truths. During these reflective times, we learn to commune with the interior life that each of us have.
The conjugal dialogue is the heart of the encounter process. We express our deep-rooted feelings and responses to our spouse, and listen actively to our spouse’s feelings and responses. The dialogue allows us to commune with our spouse and as we probe into the depths or each other in our relationship of consecrated love, we are given the opportunity to finally commune with the Spirit of Love – the apex of our marriage triangle.
The content of the encounter is the new covenant – the covenant of love – which is the core of Christian Life. It is the new covenant which we receive and place as the foundation of our marriage, our family and our community. At the center of the encounter is a profound opening of our spirit to the Being who is Love – GOD.
Our process, therefore, is to be “bukas-loob”. Our content – the ONE who “fills us” – is “DIYOS” – THE PERSON OF GOD.
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The next Marriage Encounter is on June 8-9, 2024.
If interested to join, please reach out to Jojo and Gwen Bustamante at gwenandjojo2011@gmail.com.
Download the Marriage Encounter Forms here.
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What is God's plan in our married life?
“Love never fails.”
(1 Cor 13:8)
My husband, Gene, and I enjoyed the opportunity to attend a Marriage Encounter(ME) Weekend during the last October 29-30. It was hosted right at St. Patrick’s. Often, a Marriage Encounter Weekend is held at a hotel. This means people stay overnight. We really liked being able to go home to our own bed. When Fr. Edison first announced the ME weekend at Mass, Gene was pretty interested in going. I was more hesitant. We’ve been married a long time. Do we really need “marriage lessons”? Are we going to be surrounded by people with perfect marriages? Are we going to be lectured on everything wrong with our relationship? We love the Lord and our faith, but we sometimes give prayer a short shrift. Would we be judged by people who absolutely never forget the 3 pm prayers? I definitely had some concerns.
​I finally decided “Well, it’s just one weekend. I can put up with it for at least that long.” So, Gene signed us up, and off we went. The first thing we got introduced to was FOOD! This is not the weekend to start a diet. This weekend was being run by the BLD Rochester District. BLD stands for Bukas Loob sa Diyos, or, in English “Open in Spirit to God”. This is a largely Filipino community. That means, the food we were greeted with were a large selection of traditional Filipino breakfast items, like chocolate rice – make sure to wear stretchy pants. Then, it was time to sit down for the first session. The weekend started in the usual way retreats do – with opening prayer, introductions, and singing. There is a lot of singing. A lot. They say that by singing, you pray twice. I am not sure that is so true in my case. I cannot carry a tune at all. Many of you may have recognized my name. Gene and I sit in the front at Mass. I sing all the songs, in my tuneless voice. We are roughly 20 feet from Fr. Edison, so he must hear me at times. God bless him, but he has never once grimaced or said “Look, you are ruining this song, just whisper, okay?” Armed with this confidence, I did sing all the songs at ME with full gusto. They are actually a lot of fun and help to set the heart and mind to listen to the presentations. So, now we were up to the first presentation, which was introductions and setting some guidelines. “Hello, we are Gene and Vicki. We’ve been married for 36 years and have 4 adult children, two sets of twins. Inexplicably, Gene put his foot down regarding a third pregnancy. We have been members of St. Pat’s for 20 years”. The retreat leaders also introduced themselves. The leaders were comprised of two couples and a priest. Guidelines were the usual: be soft spoken and respectful of others, and what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. The reason for that last becomes clear as the presentations continue throughout the weekend. The general format was also the usual thing seen at retreats, a presentation, individual reflection, and discussion. The biggest difference is that it is never a group discussion. Couples speak entirely to each other. These discussions are entirely private. Finally, we were into the start of our “marriage lessons”. But, wait! What’s this? These people did not present themselves as perfect with sage advice on how to achieve their perfection! These folks exposed their flaws, their poor behaviors, and definitely un-Christian thinking. Their sharing was raw, deep, and heartfelt. The reason for a box of tissues provided at everyone’s seat became clear. Tissues aside, the weekend is not actually about the presenting couples. It is about the attendees. These couples bravely, and selflessly bared themselves and made themselves vulnerable as an example of how we needed to approach the weekend. I don’t find it instinctive to look into myself with such honesty. Their examples showed that it is okay to explore that deep part we don’t dare to look. The weekend is how to grow and communicate as a couple, but the first step is understanding myself. It was weird to discover somethings that I did not know about ME.
The rest of the format was that we were each given a question sheet relating to the underlying point of the talk. It wasn’t necessary to answer every question, but that was a very helpful starting point to gather my thoughts. We wrote our answers in provided notebooks, separately from our spouses, with the intent to let each other read them. These are called “love letters”. A very good name as it reminded us that the idea was open communication, not fault finding. We were given about 15 minutes to write. At first, this seems so long, but once I got going, often it was not quite long enough. Following the writing, each couple reunited with their spouse. Couples retreated to a quiet corner to read each other’s letters and discuss them. The presenting couples are not involved in this in any way. We do not share either our love letters or the topic of discussion with the group. The presenting couples are not counselors. Nor was it necessary for Gene and I to try to address anything quite as substantial as the topics presented by the lead couples. We covered everyday concerns, more long-standing concerns, and even where we felt we were doing well. No one critiqued or asked us anything. This was just between he and I. By the end of the weekend, we were exhausted, and a bit drained. Even though we did not share with our fellow attendees, we had eaten every meal with them, sang together, and prayed together. We all knew we had taken a heartfelt journey together. It was hard to say goodbye. Fortunately, there was no goodbye! Following the weekend, we are now considered a community! This is so amazing. The community is what really makes the weekend and the lessons learned last. Marriage is God’s will, it is wonderful, but also hard work. These other couples are very supportive in understanding that. Gene and I find the community just as important as the weekend itself. Oh, and the continued potluck dinners are pretty good, too. Is Marriage Encounter right for you? I can’t answer that question but can definitely say that it is worth it. Worth the time, worth the exhaustion – both physical and emotional, and worth the effort. Our marriage has been and continues to be strengthened by the skills we learned during our weekend.
A caveat is that this is not a counseling weekend. The presenting couples are not counselors, nor are they professional presenters. This weekend is best for marriages that are decent, but maybe you feel a little bit like it is just drifting along, or maybe the busyness of life has made the marriage get put on low priority. This weekend will help put it back on track, teaching communication skills, productive conflict resolution, and adding the essential third party, God, into the relationship.
For those experiencing marital difficulty, there is a similar weekend called Retrouvaille. Check Google for local offerings. If you need to reach out, please do just give me or Gene a call. My phone number is (585) 520-2173 and Gene’s is (585) 503-6084.
—Vicki Petilli
