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Annual Mass will affirm ‘beauty’ of marriage
By J.D. Long-García, The Catholic Sun
January 17, 2008
Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted will join married couples throughout the Phoenix Diocese to honor the sacrament of marriage with a 10 a.m. Mass Feb. 9 at Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral.
The annual Mass and luncheon, sponsored by the Marriage and Respect Life Office, the Knights of Columbus and Marriage Encounter, will extol the virtues of the sacrament.
“All married couples should consider coming,” said Mike Phelan, director of the Marriage and Respect Life Office.
He said couples celebrating 25, 40 and 50 or more years of matrimony would be recognized at the event, which Phelan calls “a yearly pilgrimage for marriage.”
“You have to be reminded about the beauty and the importance of marriage and you have to be encouraged in it,” he said.
Dionne and Mike McCartney, who’ve been married for 11 years, have attended the last four Celebrating Marriage events.
“There are tons of books, magazines, radio and televisions shows that emphasize the negative parts of marriage,” Dionne said. “We try to get the positive side as often as possible.”
She said the annual event helps her and her husband learn more of the Church’s teachings on marriage.
“Couples who want to improve their marriage should come,” she said. “That’s pretty much everyone, because there’s no arrival point.”
Dionne said she was particularly looking forward to this year’s speaker, Katrina Zeno, coordinator of the John Paul II Resource Center and an expert in the late pontiff’s Theology of the Body.
Zeno will address the mystery of marriage.
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