The Family Encounter Group in the parish supports and challenges Catholic families to grow in holiness, grow in truth, and grow together so that they can become fully alive in Christ. Through the spiritual resources that are offered through the members of this movement families are led to an encounter with Jesus enabling them to live the truths of the Catholic Faith. This Apostolate provides the opportunity to every parish family particularly to every married couple to celebrate their anniversary in the Church during the monthly Anniversary Masses held at St. Mary’s Church. Couples are blessed and they are given a special souvenir with a blessing as a remembrance of their marriage on that day. For families in crisis marriage counselling and guidance is also provided by the parish resource couples to resolve difficult moments in family life. There are occasions where prayer assistance and accompaniment are provided to couples, special family enrichment programs are organized at the parish level to renew commitment in marriage.
Every Sunday during the Daham Pasala time, parent couples whose children are following Daham Pasala are gathered to the Church where a Church document on Marriage and family life is read and discussed with the Parish Priest, this spiritual input was consistently given once every month before the outbreak of the pandemic. Another valuable mission carried out by this apostolate is helping couples to rectify their marriages in the Church, by directing them to Pre-Cana seminars they are helped to go through the documentation process and then to get their marriage registered in the Roman Catholic Church. This also leads to making them a Family Book from the parish and assisting them to get their Children Baptized with a proper catechesis. Most of these rectifications will be led to the extent where the non-Catholic party will be willingly enrolled in the RCIA program. In such cases they will be accompanied until their marriage is fully sacramentalized.
Every Christian family is sent out into the world as modern-day apostles. While it is easy to pass off the mission of evangelization to priests and religious within the Catholic Church, in reality every family is given an apostolic mission by God. In fact, in many ways the family is one of the most important institutions in proclaiming the Gospel, even it if isn’t in an official manner. This is all detailed in the Second Vatican Council document Apostolicam Actuositatem. In it, marriage and the family are held up as the most basic cell of society. Since the Creator of all things has established conjugal society as the beginning and basis of human society and, by His grace, has made it a great mystery in Christ and the Church (cf. Eph. 5:32), the apostolate of married persons and families is of unique importance for the Church and civil society. The Church recognizes marriage and the family as an “apostolate,” an institution that is entrusted with the task of evangelization. The goal is to energize families who can go and in turn awaken other families who are lukewarm in their faith and witnessing. In this way every family will become a team of evangelizers in the furtherance of Christ’s mission.
Coordinators: Mrs. Shiyara (0779976246, 0753778760), Mr. Damascene (0722803309), Mr. Nayana (0701315598, 0779022486)
