Lectio Divina for Newly Married Couples: Reconsidering Christian Families as Domestic Churches
Married couples today, especially the newlyweds, face several challenges caused by both internal crises and external forces that threaten and weaken their relationships. The Catholic Church has always recognized these challenges and worked to defend marriage, seeing a significant link between healthy marriages and the society's well-being. The Church has consistently called baptized married couples to live vibrant and holy marriages and to build their families as communities of discipleship--to form domestic churches--that foster love within and outside their boundaries. Most, however, are not familiar with this call probably due to the lack of ministry to newly married couples. The current project was created with the primary purpose to strengthen marital relationships and build Catholic families as domestic churches through lectio divina. A five-session program of lectio divina and marital process designed for baptized, newly married couples had two intentions: (1) to reclaim the lost concept of domestic church and (2) familiarize them with the practice of lectio divina. Seventeen couples who have been married in the Roman Catholic Church within the past five years participated in the entire process. They met to learn, practice, and pray with lectio divina following three steps: breathing exercise, reading and meditating on a sacred text, and marital processing. They continued scriptural readings each day and shared their experiences. Dialogue and conversation during the last step was sustained by topics of contemplation, communication, reconciliation, sacramental life, commitment and mission, etc. To measure the health of their marriages and the impact of lectio divina on their marriages and families, they took an online pre-program and post-program marriage assessment and survey. Data collected would evaluate the effectiveness of the program. The goal of this program was to bring lectio divina into family life in order to build holy families or domestic churches by cultivating the awareness of the presence of God and God's Word in married life. The results of the research confirmed that the practice of lectio divina and marital processing brought about the positive formation and transformation of marriage and family life. The participating couples testified their awareness of God's presence more than ever before. Prayer and dialogue were key to this awareness and transformation.
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