Members of Worldwide Marriage Encounter (WWME) in Australia are hoping for renewed local support for the movement after it received canonical recognition as an international private association of the faithful earlier this year.

The process of obtaining Vatican approval started more than 20 years ago, according to the WWME Australia/New Zealand National Ecclesial Team, which is made up Charlie and Joy Saba from Adelaide and Fr Carl Telford SM from Auckland.

“We're hoping that there will be more openness and more understanding about what Marriage Encounter does, and that we might be able to partner with parishes to do marriage enrichment workshops and things like that to support married couples and families,” Joy said.

WWME’s origins go back to 1952 in Spain, where a local priest began presenting conferences specifically for married couples. In 1968, as the movement spread to the United States, it began to offer couples, priests and religious a unique weekend retreat experience and introduction into a community of other faith-filled couples who journey together.

“An Australian couple, Ron and Mavis Pirola, attended a WWME weekend in America and they brought it back to Australia in 1974,” Charlie explained.

“It’s currently active in New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland and New Zealand.”

At the heart of the movement is a desire to promote the Sacraments of Matrimony and Holy Orders by providing married couples, priests and religious with a shared formation experience based on intentional communication and reflection. The weekend retreat experience seeks to give couples an opportunity to step away from the busyness of life, to re-focus on their relationship, and to learn tools to strengthen their communication through active listening and sharing of feelings.

“You come along to the weekend and you get to understand yourself better, you get to understand your spouse better, and then you also get to understand how God is in our relationship as well,” Charlie said.

A key theme of the WWME weekend is “transformation”, Fr Carl explained.

“It begins with yourself, who you are, what sort of person you are, how you react to life, what sort of personality type you are,” he said. “Then they go a bit deeper and talk about the three stages of marriage – the honeymoon stage, the time of disillusionment, and the decision to love.

“When couples do the weekend, they don't realise they are a living sacrament of matrimony. He might be involved with St Vincent de Paul, she might be involved with the Catholic Women's League… but as a couple you have a light to share with the Church.”

Fr Carl said his experience with WWME, which started in 1994, had been enriching for his priestly ministry.

“Priests can be lonely and isolated… so it’s a wonderful thing to be part of this movement; it’s changed my life as a priest,” he said.

Joy and Charlie said their first WWME weekend – also in 1994 – was transformative.

“Before that weekend life was busy,” Charlie said, “and my priorities were making enough money to support the family, making sure I'm a really good dad… and then what was left over, almost, I could give to Joy.

“The weekend flipped that completely around for me… I’ve reprioritised the centre of my life.”

The Sabas have been meeting with other couples monthly since that first weekend 32 years ago, developing deep friendships based on a shared desire for stronger marriages.

“We would see couples that were 20, 30 years older than us, still very much in love, still very much connected,” Charlie said. “And it would help to make us a better couple, knowing that we can still be in love for many, many more years to come.

“The priests also get to know us on a deeper level, we get to know them on a more personal level, and we journey alongside each other… and become very close friends.”

Joy said WWME had helped her to communicate with Charlie on a “deeper level”.

“We still have arguments and conflicts, but they're usually smaller and more easily fixed because we're in good communication with each other along the way,” she said.

“Doing our second WWME weekend also started a journey for me personally to work in ministry. I worked in chaplaincy for about 15 years and that's definitely because of the transformation of my faith that we had on our second weekend.”

In each of the past two years, more than 100 couples have attended a WWME weekend in Australia, with most experiencing a strengthening of their relationship, Joy said.

“One couple said, ‘It was like our marriage was asleep, and the WWME weekend woke us up’,” she recalled. “Another couple who had been married 25 years told each other, ‘I love you’ for the first time at the end of the weekend.”

For those interested in getting involved with WWME, there are representative couples in most Australian states and territories. In dioceses where the movement is not present, Joy encouraged laity or clergy to invite WWME to the parish or diocese where possible.

“Someone from a community can actually approach WWME… and if there is a need there, once we're aware of it, then we can work with them,” she said.

For more information about Worldwide Marriage Encounter, visit www.wwme.org.au. For parish-based enquiries, email wwmenational@gmail.com.

Image: (L-R) Charlie Saba, Joy Saba, Fr Carl Telford SM (Supplied)

Words: Matthew Biddle