Instructors Interview: How Did You Meet?

By Carmen and Rudy

Funny, sincere, easygoing…this is how my friends describe me. And, what does Rudy say? Loving, pretty, spontaneous, caring, and the list goes and goes! Well, “Papi” (this is my special way to call him) doesn’t see my flaws!

Rudy has always been more difficult to share what he thinks or feels. Well, not until he knows you well and when this happens you will just find he is a sensitive, caring, funny, protective, golden-hearted man! My list can also goes on and on!

Let’s go back to the late 80s…It was time to organize our first School Reunion ever. Santa Angela is still a well known school in a small neighborhood in Lima, the capital city of our beautiful Peru. He happened to be the representative member of his class and so was I. We soon found each other delightful and enjoyable to be with.

We became very close friends even before thinking that God had brought us together for a specific mission: help people build strong Christ-centered marriage. Of course, we didn’t know that back then! We were just good friends doing what good friends do: laugh, chat for hours, and have fun!

It was New Year’s Eve 1988. Let me just say that in Peru, New Year’s Eve is a huge celebration. Most families and friends gather together before midnight, have a scrumptious dinner, firecrackers, nice decorations like yellow flowers for good luck, whistles, hats, and of course loud music! Salsa, merengue (latino rhytms) can be heard in every house as well as people cheering (we are so loud!) and simply having fun until dawn!

Well, it was almost 5:00 a.m. when “Papi” told about his feelings for me. He is so respectful and earnest that after I said I love him too, he organized a dinner with his mom and step dad to let them know about our brand-new dating relationship.

Those years we still lived in our beautiful Lima, Peru. I was working as an Elementary teacher while he was still finishing his studies of Electronics and working at a local gym as a Karate Sensei (coach) (Oh yeah! He is a black belt!) when we found ourselves deeply in love for each other! He was so romantic! I still remember getting out of work and finding my favorite piece of candy attached at the windshield wiper of my car with a little love note!

J Rudy would put into action his artist skills and draw nice pictures of Garfield, cartoon we both enjoyed watching, that I still keep.

We had some ups-and-downs but who has not? When we found ourselves ready for a commitment, we planned our Engagement Dinner. Oh yeah! It’s not like here in America! There are no kneeling and private times! Rudy came to my parents’ house with his mom and step dad to talk to my mom and dad about us getting married. After living 10 years in the USA, this sounds funny to us but back then, it made total sense since we wanted to honor and follow our customs and this was one of those!

We got married on December 17, 1993. There was no moving in together, no need to live together before marrying to prove our love was sincere and forever. At church, my dad walked me down the aisle, and what a surprise! My 4^th grade students were perfectly aligned to the sides of the aisle holding flower bouquets and smiling at me. 

Since then, we have shared our lives entirely thanking God for bringing us together. Almost 19 years after, we do still enjoy spending time together, dancing, watching movies, traveling, and looking at each other’s eyes while saying every day, even more than once, “Te amo, mi amor” (I love you honey) and praying to continue living a happy marriage and aging together until the very last day of our lives.

Next Child Post-Abortion Trauma

By Mattie

This is only my personal testimony, not the proof of any study.

I am, as most of you already know, the oldest daughter of Christian an Christine. They have asked me to write this as a follow up to their testimony.

When I was about eight years old, my mother decided to take me to see a psychologist, due to several issues I was experiencing.

The main issues were a tremendous fear of separation from my parents, to the point where it would make me physically sick (throwing up, fevers and chill, etc...). EVERY time my parents left, no matter the amount of time.

Another issue was my fierce temper; I just couldn't get along with my mother. We were constantly fighting. Of all our clashes, though, homework time was a nightmare (so much so that my sister became an A+ student in order to avoid having to do homework with my Mom) any kind of request from my mother would put me into a terrible rage.

Mattie, 8 years old

We ended up having only one visit with the psychologist and here's how it went:

First, Mom and I went in, the psychologist asked Mom what the issues were, etc...

Then the psychologist made me play a few games, draw a few things, and finally called Mom back in, actually asking me to wait in the waiting room.

The psychologist discussed with Mom her past, and my past, and Mom told her that she had had an abortion three years before getting pregnant with me.

“That’s it!” the psychologist said. “She knows about it! Subconsciously she knows about it! You have to tell her, and tell her now!” Then she called me back in, and Mom painfully explained to me what had happen, not getting into details because the psychologist was still in the room.

Feeling confused, as though the task was not finished, Mom took me to the park afterwards, and actually talked to me about it in more detail and greater intimacy. We also prayed about it.

We sat in front of this fountain to talk

Since then, I stopped panicking each time my parents had to leave and our relationship has evolved tremendously. If my husband was not my best friend, I would say that my mother is. We share many things together from scrapbooking to working side by side in our family owned business!

It has also kept me from making the same mistake. I avoided promiscuity and anything that could put me in a situation where I would be at risk.

And this was in 1986! In Socialist France! They know, the psychologists, the doctors, they know the damage abortion creates! But the money is more essential to them. So please do yourself and your children a favor. If you have had an abortion, share it with them, let them know! It will truly heal your family! It will be hard, yes, but SO worth it!

Mom and I

Struggling to the Surface

Christian
It’s very hard to revisit these times, very painful.
Not only for the loss and the pain of losing this baby, but also for the pain I had inflicted on Christine. I should have been her protector and I did nothing. I was desensitized completely. Pregnancy was an abstract concept to me; it didn’t seem real! Pregnancy was dissociated from baby.
Now, when I see ultrasounds of babies at every stage of life, pictures, and movies of the baby’s development, I can’t understand how we could have done what we did. It’s beyond imagination, beyond comprehension! A baby in the womb is so real, so alive.

Père J.M. Desbois

Christine
God in his Providence put a very holy priest on my path, Father Jean-Marie Desbois, a friend of my Mom’s family. I cannot remember exactly when, after the abortion, I met with him and confessed, but I think it was pretty soon. I didn’t feel the effect of this Confession right away, and I kept on living in sin. I kept this terrible event locked inside and would push the lid of the box shut each time it would attempt to open.

Only after our wedding in 1977 did the healing really begin. What is this grace we receive on our wedding day? Christ gives us a tremendous gift at that moment: He offers us the capacity to love each other as He loved the Church. He makes us capable of sacrificial, self-giving, selfless love; He offers us Agapè.

July 2nd, 1977

I was broken by my sin, hurting deeply, unable to truly love and give myself. Christian was deeply wounded too. Christ had to heal us first in order to allow us to become able to love fully.

The healing happened in steps--and is still going on!

After the first step of Reconciliation, today I can see the second step in the powerful testimony of a friend.
It was the end of 1981, and we lived in Aix en Provence. My Mom had asked me to pray for my brother’s endangered marriage. We didn’t go to church much, but I had decided to stop at the cathedral on my way back from ballet classes. But then time was short and I was about to change my mind, when I saw one of the ladies in my ballet class enter the cathedral. I thought, ‘if she’s going, I’m going.’ I went in behind her and asked her if it was where she came to mass. She told me she wasn’t Catholic but liked to stop here to pray. She then told me the story of her conversion! I was deeply touched and envious! Her story triggered a strong desire in me: I also wanted to have an encounter with Christ.

Aix en Provence, Cathedral Holy Savior

I made up my mind to go to a prayer group in Marseille. My sister had been praying with them when she lived there. It was a huge decision for me because I had learned to drive in Nebraska, and driving conditions around Marseille were vastly different! I hired a baby sitter for our two daughters, as Christian was on a business trip, and I left. I was scared, but I made it! I wasn’t good at parallel parking and the only parking spots there were parallel. I was about to give up and go home when this huge, American style car left, giving me ample space to practice my parking skills! I had no idea what a charismatic prayer group was. I joined the group and started praying with everybody. At one point, the leader invited those who wanted to kneel in the center to be prayed upon. I hadn’t come all this way for nothing, so I volunteered. I knelt and everyone started praying over me. The leader said this sentence (I thought it came from the Bible): “Come, my child, come and throw yourself into my ocean of love.” To me it was God the Father addressing me! I felt a great peace and a great joy come upon me. I felt I had been forgiven, I felt loved as never before! It was February 2^nd, 1982, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. 

Marseille, Notre Dame de la Garde

The priest who was there also said that many knots were being untied within me and would continue to be untied in the coming months. This is how I started praying again. I started going back to mass every Sunday, and sometimes even during the week, or whenever possible. I started praying the Rosary daily, too, praying for Christian to experience this encounter also. I was back on track, the healing could continue!

Christian

It took much longer for me to return to God and the Church. But when I look back, it seems that I was away from the Church for a very short time; I hope that’s the way the Lord looks at this period too. Still it wasn’t easy for me to see Christine rediscovering this intimacy with the Lord. I felt kind of forgotten, neglected, jealous, maybe? The Lord was taking away the little time I had with my wife. I didn’t like it too much. But deep in my heart I knew!

I knew that that was the life we were called to. Of course, I resisted a bit, to show that I was still in control, and it’s true that I didn’t know what was going to happen, or where we were going but yes, we were called to the Real Life.

Us then, with Mathilde and Jehanne

Hitting Rock-Bottom

By Christine
For 35 years, I was absolutely unable to go back to our beginnings. I just couldn’t! I had blocked all memories because something terrible had happened that I simply didn’t want to remember.
Christian was distressed about this because we just couldn’t talk about the past. Our past.
Yes, there was a very painful event, but not all memories were bad! It took Christ’s grace all these years to heal me, little by little, and for the past 3 years, I have reconnected with our history, with our beginnings, with how we were then, and I have learned to love our story!

The pain is still there, but it’s a healed pain. I can face it, and even embrace it!

Here is what happened.

La Grande Motte

I had just turned 19 in April 1975. In June of that year, I took a job in a restaurant at La Grande Motte, a touristy place on the beach. The restaurant’s name was La Cambuse. I was housed there with another girl, la Grande Motte being too far from Montpellier (about 18 miles).

My period was late. I had seen a doctor the previous month and he had given me the pill to start taking on my next period. But this next period just wasn’t coming! I bought a pregnancy test… And it turned positive!

My first reaction was excitement! I impatiently served dinner at the restaurant and as soon as it was over, despite the late hour, I took my moppet to go back to Montpellier to share my big news with the man I loved (hey we didn’t have cell phones then!) This was extremely imprudent on my part because the road was not the most frequented one, especially at night.

Christian didn’t get as excited as I was. The look on his face wasn’t the happy one I had expected. This is where my memory starts to blur.

He made it clear that he didn’t want this baby. I was devastated. I talked to his brother’s girlfriend, Dominique, who broke the news to me that Christian had had an abortion before. Still, I didn't realize at all Christian's suffering, I was too centered on myself. I talked to more friends, especially a sweet couple who already had a baby. They talked me into keeping the baby and I loved the idea, it was all I wanted. At the same time, I couldn’t picture myself without Christian, announcing the news to my Dad. I was afraid of him, afraid of his reaction. I went to see a doctor who also encouraged me to keep the baby. I wanted it so badly! But I wasn’t brave enough. I wasn’t strong enough. Abortion had just become legal in France on January 17th, 1975 (Loi Veil). 

Simone Veil, responsible for the legalization of abortion in France

Christian and I went together to a Family Planning center where they explained about the abortion. They told us that it was nothing, just some cells as tiny as a pinhead would be removed. We were completely misinformed, misled, and unprepared to face this evil. We believed them.
Then the decision was made and Christian took me to this strange place. I remember there were girls with babies there. A nun received us, yes a nun, but from what I remember she was a Protestant nun. She took our money. It was decided I wouldn’t have any anesthesia. It was more expensive. Then Christian left and I stayed for the night. The abortion would be done the next morning.

I was in a room with several other girls in my “condition.” One of them was having her 4^th abortion! During the night, I remember having a terrible panic attack! It's impossible to describe the feeling of absolute terror that overwhelmed me. I screamed, woke everybody up, the doctor came to calm me. I remember he was communist. He again told me that it was nothing, just a bunch of teeny tiny cells, not a baby. My memory blacks out here again. I know they had to put me to sleep, and then all I remember is waking up sobbing and bawling, a nurse trying to quiet and console me.

Christian came back to pick me up. I don’t remember much, except that he told me we would have other children. I know I tried to forget, to live as if it hadn’t happened.

“There is no question in my mind that we are 'disturbing a life process.' The trauma may sink into the unconscious and never surface in the woman’s lifetime...
But a psychological price is paid. Something happens on the deeper levels of a woman’s consciousness when she destroys a pregnancy.” Dr. Julius Fogel, abortionist

A wall started to build up around my heart, a wall that grew with the years, strangely even more after the birth of our first daughter. This wall kept my pain buried, kept me "safe" from it.  (to be continued)

God on the Back Burner

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By Christian
I received this comment from a cohabiting future groom,
“I don't feel that my commitment in marriage will be any different from the one I made in cohabiting before marriage. From the beginning, I have given all my love to her and her only, and nothing about that is going to change.”
He was very sincere! But what about God? While there is a difference between couples who cohabitate while planning to get married and couples who cohabitate with no plan, cohabitation remains sinful.
When a couple asks for the Sacrament of Matrimony, we assume that they yearn to invite God into their relationship. If they are a cohabiting couple, we assume that they wish to bring their relationship to a higher level.
Most of the time, cohabitation involves sex and contraception, which are two grave sins, despite what the culture tells us. They are not sins because “the Church says so,” they are sins because they go against God’s natural laws and will.

Lovers by Marc Chagall

We cannot overlook the serious pastoral problem presented by the widespread practice of cohabitation, often by couples who seem unaware that it is gravely sinful, not to mention damaging to the stability of society. Pope Benedict XVI to American Bishops, March 9^th, 2012

Cohabitation puts God on the back-burner. A couple who cohabitates before marriage doesn't put God in the equation. In short, they don’t trust God to give them their spouse at just the right time.
It is like saying, "We are so in love, so committed to each other, that we cannot wait for you, God. We don’t need you." When in reality, the very source of their love IS God. He is the source of all love. So to proceed prior to His blessing is like turning our backs on Him. 

Very often, too, these couples do not trust their love either, and think it has to be tested. They want to verify that they can make it together, just as they would test a car to make sure it’s the right kind for them.

Cohabitation is a great scandal in the Church, and causes others to sin, thinking that if so many Catholics are doing it, it must be OK. “If something is evil, even if everybody is doing it, it remains evil. If something is right, even if nobody is doing it, it remains right.” St. Augustine said in his Confessions.
We were celebrating my granddaughter Alice's birthday not long ago and this image came to my mind:
Just imagine that Alice snuck around behind our backs and grabbed a big piece of the beautiful birthday cake with her fingers, just to have a taste. Then the time to celebrate her birthday comes, and all we have to present to the family gathered around her is a cake with a big ugly hole in it. Everybody is shocked. The remainder of the cake is still good, we still celebrate the birthday, but something is spoiled, something is not as good and beautiful as it should have been. It's exactly the same with cohabitation. 

Remaining chaste until after the wedding makes it the only way to do it right in order to honestly include God.
No one can consummate their vows until after their union has been blessed by God, because sex is THE sign of the covenant that authenticates the consent.

 Yes, it’s God will for us to wait until He blesses us. These are the natural laws, the order in which God would like us to choose to abide in order to follow Him and be happy.

Marc Chagall

 

TV Stars!

Hello all!

Just a quick announcement that for the second time EWTN invited Catholic Marriage Prep for a live broadcast: Life on the Rock! 
With Fr. Mark Mary and Doug Barry. 
Thursday Oct. 11th, 8:00 pm MTN Time.
(You can always double-check the time at http://www.ewtn.com/tv/live/index.asp)

Mattie and Moses Nelson, partners in Agape CatholicMarriagePrep.com will be there LIVE!
Moses and Mattie have been working for CatholicMarriagePrep.com since 2005 in one capacity or another, and have become full-time partners in 2010.
They live in Denver, CO and have 5 children, ranging from 9 years old to 4 months old.

Paul and Sarah O'Brien from Denver, will be there live as well.
They took the CatholicMarriagePrep.com online course a few years ago while they were both working with FOCUS.

Paul and Sarah O'Brien live with their two daughters near Denver, Colorado. Paul is the director of information technology for Nativity of Our Lord Catholic Church and School in Broomfield, Colorado, and Sarah is a veteran events consultant for FOCUS (the Fellowship Of Catholic University Students). Married in 2009, the O'Briens are looking forward to the blessing of their third child in January.

Please pray for the success of the show and spread the word around.

Meet the Parents

By Christian

Meeting your girlfriend’s parents for the first time is always an interesting adventure. I met Christine’s Mom first.
For the Spring break 75, I drove Christine home, about 4 hours North of Montpellier. Her hometown, Le Creusot, was 45 minutes from the highway.
It allowed me to discover the beautiful country side. Rolling green hills, Charolais cows grazing (Gosh, my mouth was watering at the thought of the meat!), vineyards everywhere. I had heard about Burgundy wines of course, but I’d never had the chance to taste any.  I‘d never seen such landscapes and so much grass, so green, in my whole life either.

Then, there we were, in front of the large house; her Mom welcomed me as a family member right away.
It was a typical French home, as I’d imagined it. It was the first time in almost 5 years that I was welcomed into a French household!
We were right on time for lunch. Passing through the kitchen, I saw that Charolais steaks were on the menu. Christine must have tipped off her Mom! As a starving student, I was craving solid meat.
What I didn’t know, at the time, was that Christine’s Mom was very well known for letting things burn. So, this time, when she thought the steaks were done, she very carefully covered them, and they arrived almost boiled in my plate. Arghhhh! What a disappointment! I almost cried and couldn’t resist giving the one who would be my Mother in law her first cooking lesson. She still cooks steaks the way I taught her, good girl.
Then coffee arrived, and she had to have her second lesson!
She didn’t kick me out right away this time. A few months later, while visiting Christine in Montpellier, she told me coldly: “I am pretty happy to visit my daughter and to kick you out of her bed!” OK, got the message.

Later that summer, Christine and I were both working as waiters in a restaurant in Aigues Mortes, a very touristic medieval town. St Louis had left for his crusade from Aigues Mortes in the 12^th century! Christine’s parents were vacationing in the area and wanted to meet me. Christine took a few days off to be with them. They came at lunch time, at the height of the tourist season, when it was quite busy. I saw them coming and left my tables and customers to chat with them for a few minutes, wearing my waiter’s black pants and white shirt.
In my eyes, Christine’s Dad was the typical tourist, sandals (with socks), shorts, camera around his neck, the whole deal.

His gaze bored into me, weighing me in five seconds. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the report of his analysis on the spot.
Little did I know that he was the C.E.O of a huge factory. He had forty engineers in his engineering department, and thousands of workers. Among other things, they were manufacturing nuclear plants.
The main owner of the factory was one of the richest men in France, no less than Baron Empain, heir of the Schneider family.
Only when Christine’s Dad offered me a tour of the factory a year later did I figure out he was no ordinary tourist.

He had to train me for many years to learn a bit of Burgundy wines tasting. It was tough training. I feel sometimes I should go back to these sessions, as I truly enjoyed them.

In almost forty years, I have gotten to know them quite well. They have been Catholics their whole lives, never faltering. The house they live in now is a nice manor, always open to all. They are very generous, very devoted, and ready to help whoever knocks on their door. At some point they welcomed many Cambodian refugees who were fleeing the Pol Pot regime. Theses families were always visiting, staying. Christine’s Dad would find them jobs, they would get established in the area. Now their children call them Grandpa and Grandma and come visit with their own children. Yep I love my in-laws.