Pre-Cana

[tmore35]

Hello Folks,

My husband and I have facilitated the Pre-Cana program in our parish for the past five years. We are always looking for ways to improve the program and appreciate feedback as to what is effective and what is not.

Are there any couples among the members who have recently participated in a Pre-Cana program?

Engaged couples–did you find the program to be informative?

Married couples–do you find that the Pre-Cana experience to be helpful or infulential in your marriage as you cope with the pratical issues of day to day married life?

What program does your parish use, if any? Unitas? Decision to Love? etc.

What particular aspects of the marital relationship was emphasized? Were there any issues that were not addressed that you think should have been?

Any comments or suggestions will be apreciated.

Pax et Bonum!

 

[Debbie]

My husband and I will be celebrating 13 years this Tuesday.

Our pre-Cana instruction/activities were:

1. Engaged Encounter - a little too warm and fuzzy for us, but okay
2. FOCCUS - exactly what we needed!
3. A workshop for when there has been a previous marriage (me) - big waste of time since it was geared toward blending families (children) and I had none.

Even though we got a lot of good counseling from our priest (great priest) with our FOCCUS results, we still encountered many problems. I’m not sure if the FOCCUS really helped other than sometimes something would come up and we’d remember it was a problem area in the tests.

I wish I could remember who posted it here, but including the “Contraception: Why Not?” tape/CD in a pre-Cana packet would be wonderful. For the person who posted the message, they popped it in the tape player “just to get it out of the way” on their way home from meeting with the priest. The got home in 10 minutes and sat in the car for another 30 listening to the tape. It totally changed their minds on contracepting! I’m trying to get this to be included in my parish’s pre-Cana packets as well.

What an important job you have – God’s blessings!

Debbie

 

[thechrismyster]

went to pre-cana this past spring …i expected it to be just something to get through in order to get married, just like picking flowers, a mere forgettable formality.
we used Unitas, and lo and behold, we enjoyed it, scored straight matches on our FOCUS test (didn’t miss a single one, and we even went through the section of mixed faiths - shes lutheran and i’m catholic) found it to be extremely beneficial and insightful and - much to my bewilderment, the info for NFP is in the mail to us because, much to my AMAZEMENT, the presentation on NFP got my gal actually excited to try it once we get married. wonders will never cease.