Pope Francis has urged for the establishment of a marriage catechumenate in parishes and dioceses as a way to build thriving catholic marriages families and communities and to nurture outreach and evangelisation. As a way of assisting parishes to embrace such a ministry, I would encourage clergy to consider encouraging a couple from your parish to take on training in the SmartLoving marriage course.
The Marriage Kit by SmartLoving is an online marriage enrichment course. It can be run as a group experience or in an Online Accompanied format with couples doing the course work privately and then joining online gatherings to go through discussion questions with other participants. This leader formation program will familiarise couples with the Marriage Kit course in the hopes that they would be open to running the course at a later date for their community.
The Online Accompanied format offers couples privacy through the immersive online learning platform as well as the benefit of community support in the online gatherings. At the parish level, it enables parish communities to provide quality marriage enrichment with ease to couples in the parish, school, and wider community.
Online Gatherings: Wednesdays @7:30 pm | April 27, May 11, May 25, Jun 8, Jun 22
(Can’t make Wednesdays? If there is sufficient demand, we’ll schedule another series of Online Gatherings. Let us know when you enroll.)
For more information or an expression of interest/conversation with prospective mentor couples, please contact [email protected]
Brought to you by the Marriage Resource Centre, SmartLoving provides resources to support couples throughout their commitment life-cycle. The SmartLoving series is recognised internationally as one of the most comprehensive range of materials for Catholic marriage formation.
Grounded in the Theology of the Body, SmartLoving honours the unique strengths of men and women called to love and to be loved. Masterfully created with multimedia and digital technologies, the courses and publications optimise engagement with participants for a comprehensive and powerful experience. SmartLoving draws from a wealth of research, theology, creativity and practical experience to provide a compelling and focused approach to building marriages and families that thrive in faith and in love.
Founded on the principal of ‘Centrally Enabled – Locally Delivered’ SmartLoving’s leader resources equip local communities to provide quality formation experiences without onerous training or financial outlay. Comprehensive leader materials provide step-by-step guides to establish a marriage catechumenate or host a group experience.
Cofounders Francine & Byron Pirola, have over three decades of experience in marriage and family ministry and are supported by a team of volunteer couples and employed creatives. Residing in Australia, they have five adult children and two grandchildren.
Disclaimer
This is not a diocesan event and is not sponsored or administered by the Catholic Diocese of Wollongong. While the diocese endeavours to only associate with events that it understands to be appropriate for the people of God in the diocese, promotion by the diocese of a non-diocesan event should not necessarily be considered as an endorsement of the event.
Service Agreement
Definitions
Account means the account held at your financial institution from which we are authorised to arrange for funds to be debited.
Agreement means this Direct Debit Request Service Agreement between you and us, including the direct debit request.
Business day means a day other than a Saturday or a Sunday or a listed public holiday.
Debit day means the day that payment is due.
Debit payment means a particular transaction where a debit is made, according to your direct debit request.
Direct debit request means the Direct Debit Request between us and you.
Us and we and our means the Catholic Development Fund.
You means the customer(s) who signed the direct debit request. Your financial institution is the financial institution where you hold the account that you have authorised us to arrange to debit.
Debiting your account
By submitting a direct debit request, you have authorised us to arrange for funds to be debited from your account according to the agreement we have with you.
We will only arrange for funds to be debited from your account:
As authorised in the direct debit request; if the debit day falls on a day that is not a business day, we may direct your financial institution to debit your account on the following or previous business day. If you are unsure about which day your account has or will be debited, please check with your financial
Changes by you
If you wish to stop or defer a debit payment you must write to us at least 5 business days before the next debit day.
This notice should be given to us in the first instance.
Your obligations
It is your responsibility to ensure that there are sufficient clear funds available in your account to allow a debit payment to be made.
If there are insufficient clear funds available in your account to meet a debit payment:
you or your account may be charged a fee and/or interest by your financial institution;
you or your account may be charged a fee to reimburse us for charges we have incurred for the failed transaction;
you must arrange for the payment to be made by another method
Please check your account statement to verify that the amounts debited from your account are correct.
Dispute
If you believe that there has been an error in debiting your account you should call us on 1800 047 703 and confirm the details in writing with us as soon as possible so that we can resolve your query quickly.
Accounts
You should check:
with your financial institution whether direct debiting is available from your accounts offered by financial
your account details which you have provided to us are correct by checking them against a recent account statement; and
with your financial institution before completing the direct debit request if you have any queries about how to complete the direct debit
Warning: if the account number you have quoted is incorrect, you may be charged a fee to reimburse our costs in correcting any deductions from:
an account you do not have authority to operate; or
an account you do not
Confidentiality
We will keep any information (including your account details) in your direct debit request confidential.
We will make reasonable efforts to keep any such information that we have about you secure and to ensure that any of our employees or agents who have access to information about you, do not make any unauthorised use, modification, reproduction or disclosure of that information.
However, we may use your contact details to provide information about the fund. Should you wish this not to be the case, please advise the fund in writing.
Our diocesan logo is theologically rich and very succinct. As a hand, it depicts our mission as a diocese and as individuals within the diocese, of bearing (bringing, carrying) Christ’s love to one another and to the world around us. In this, we are the hand of Jesus Christ, and we are offering ourselves to him so that he might work through us.
We can be the bearers of his love only as a response to his call and in the strength of his grace. We are reminded of this in two ways—through the symbol of the dove (the Holy Spirit) also present in the logo, and by the incorporation of the cross that segments the logo. The presence of the cross is a reminder that bearing the love of Christ will inevitably cost us if we live it authentically. However, in the way that the Cross is the portent of redemption and life—an echo of the tree of life in the book of Genesis—so becoming bearers of the love of Christ will also bring us to life.
The four fingers of the hand also represent the four regions of our diocese. The first is bluerepresenting the beautiful water of the Shoalhaven. The second is a blue and green combination representing the waters and escarpment of the Illawarra. The third is greendepicting the hills and plains of the Macarthur. The fourth is dark green illustrating the forests of the Southern Highlands.
Pope Francis has urged for the establishment of a marriage catechumenate in parishes and dioceses as a way to build thriving catholic marriages families and communities and to nurture outreach and evangelisation. As a way of assisting parishes to embrace such a ministry, I would encourage clergy to consider encouraging a couple from your parish to take on training in the SmartLoving marriage course.
