By Claudia and David Arp Soon parents all over the country will be getting ready to drop their kids off at college and head home to face a new and often risky stage of marriage – the empty nest! While some couples look at this time as a second honeymoon, just like the first honeymoon, […]
Blessings of Age is a Pastoral Message on Growing Older Within the Faith Community. It is addressed to Older Persons, Caregivers. and Pastors, Pastoral Staff, and Parishioners. Following is an excerpt from the final section addressed to Pastors and Pastoral Staff. A Statement of the U.S. Catholic Bishops Because parishes differ in their particular needs […]
“Partners on the Journey” is an innovative marriage enrichment program based on the theology of marriage as sacrament, covenant and vocation. It also incorporates the scientific research of Dr. John Gottman who has studied the elements of successful marriages for over 40 years at the University of Washington. PDCC Date: September 20, 2012 Download the Flyer […]
There is a way out! It’s not by sheer willpower. It’s not by amassing more information. There are a lot of programs that offer information about pornography and recovery. But no amount of information, no matter how good it is, can accomplish huge changes in behaviors because they are habitual. Science is telling us that […]
The Catholic’s DIVORCE SURVIVAL Guide DVD Parish Program: Why I started the CDSG; How it’s different from DivorceCare; Who the experts are and why; How the parish program operates; What the Parish Kit includes; Cost to the parish and participants; How it can be used with Beginning Experience and other ministries; Who makes the best […]
Winter 2011 By Chaplain (Lieutenant Colonel) Mike Strohm and Patricia R. Johnson The Army has come to recognize that the well-being of the soldier is inexorably linked to the well-being of the soldier’s family – a far cry from the days when the joke was “If the Army wanted you to have a spouse, they […]
By John Van Epp, PhD It all began around ten years ago when Chaplain Colonel Bloomstrom from the Chief of Chaplains office approached my booth at a conference and ordered 50 of my relationship courses for chaplains to teach. Since that first encounter, I have had the incredible honor of personally training over 3,000 chaplains […]
By Kathy Beirne Aging (as we saw in the Fall 2010 NACFLM Journal) is a challenge to the elderly person and to those around them. Aron Gaudet was concerned when he couldn’t reach his elderly mother on the phone. When he finally got her, she told him that she had been greeting the troops coming […]
Mike Allen of the Journal Commission interviews Gary & Jeanne Barnes Editors Note: For this “Serving Military Families” issue, we thought it would be helpful to talk directly with a Catholic couple who has experienced the military’s affect on family life. Gary and Jeanne Barnes of Gulf Breeze, FL, have seen a broad spectrum of […]
Member, Mike Allen, interviews Jeannie Hannemann Families in trauma benefit from peer ministry, in which parishioners who’ve experienced healing lend support to those enduring similar struggles. This “wounded healer” approach, to borrow a phrase of Henri Nouwen’s, is a hallmark of Elizabeth Ministry International, whose mission is to “offer hope and healing on issues related […]