Each Marriage Week has a theme. The purpose of this theme is to provide a focus for couples to be able to join in.
Our aim is for couples to regularly invest in their relationship and to keep caring for it. The theme for 2023 is Marriage… one flesh, given and received.
During this week of the celebration of marriage we call to mind all those who have influenced us – our husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, grandparents and Godparents – and hold them in prayer giving thanks for their lives.
In a complex world where the reality is that not all marriages last, on-going support is essential. Pope Francis in his Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, asks for greater effort on the part of the whole Christian community in welcoming and preparing those who ask to be married in Church. By saying ‘I do’ the couple begin a journey that calls for great courage, generosity and commitment. They need the welcome, and practical, relational and spiritual support of the community not only at the start, but throughout the seasons of married life, to help them live out their calling to a life-long, loving and fruitful commitment.
Married life is a process of growth, in which each spouse is God’s means of helping the other to mature… Fostering growth means helping a person to shape his or her own identity. Love is thus a kind of craftsmanship… At every new stage, they can keep ‘forming’ one another. Love makes each wait for the other with the patience of a craftsman, a patience which comes from God.
Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia, 221
