A Pastoral Guide for Priests
Dear Father,
You became a priest to serve God's people in their deepest needs. You answer crisis calls in the middle of the night. You sit with families in hospital waiting rooms. You witness both profound suffering and profound grace.
Rediscovery Retrouvaille marriage ministry invites you into one of the most sacred spaces in pastoral care: the healing of broken marriages.
This isn't just another program. It's a profound expression of your priestly mission to heal the brokenhearted, bind up wounds, and be Christ's presence to couples who have lost hope.
Why Your Presence Matters
You Represent Christ's Healing Love
When a couple in crisis sees a priest standing before them—not to judge, but to offer hope—they encounter something powerful. You embody the Church's commitment to their marriage. Your presence says: "The Church hasn't given up on you. God hasn't given up on you. Your marriage matters."
Many couples arrive at Rediscovery Retrouvaille weekends feeling abandoned—by each other, by their community, sometimes even by God. Your presence as a priest is sacramental. You represent Christ who came not for the healthy but for the sick, not for the righteous but for sinners.
You Witness Miracles
Father, you will see resurrections.
Marriages that seemed dead will come back to life. Couples who arrived barely speaking will leave holding hands. Spouses who had given up will rediscover hope. Love that felt extinguished will be rekindled.
This is Paschal Mystery made visible. Death and resurrection. Brokenness and healing. Despair and hope. You will witness what you preach every Easter—that God makes all things new.
You Learn What Your People Are Really Facing
The retreat gives you a window into the real struggles of married couples in your pews. You'll understand:
- The depth of loneliness in disconnected marriages
- How communication breaks down over years
- The devastation of betrayal and broken trust
- The weight couples carry in silence
- What real healing looks like
This makes you a better pastor. You'll preach about marriage differently. You'll counsel engaged couples with greater wisdom. You'll recognize signs of marital distress earlier. You'll know where to send couples who need help.
You're Part of a Team That Works
Rediscovery Retrouvaille is peer ministry—couples helping couples, supported by priestly presence and teaching. You work alongside three presenting couples who've survived marital crisis and share their stories and teach the communication process.
Your role includes:
- Delivering structured presentations on spiritual aspects of marriage
- Sharing from your priestly journey and spiritual wisdom
- Celebrating Mass and leading prayer
- Offering the Sacrament of Reconciliation
- Being a listening, compassionate presence
- Representing the Church's care for marriages
The presenting couples share their marriage stories and teach practical skills. You bring the spiritual framework, theological depth, and sacramental presence.
The Spiritual Fruits of This Ministry
It Deepens Your Own Prayer Life
Witnessing suffering marriages and their healing will drive you to prayer. You'll intercede for these couples with new urgency. You'll experience powerlessness that draws you deeper into reliance on God. Many priests report that serving in Rediscovery Retrouvaille has enriched their understanding of covenant love, sacrifice, and God's faithfulness. Watching marriages resurrect deepens your faith.
It Renews Your Priesthood
This ministry reconnects you with why you were ordained: to bring Christ's healing to wounded hearts. In an age when priests are stretched thin and administrative duties can feel overwhelming, Rediscovery Retrouvaille offers something profoundly pastoral and deeply human. You're not just managing a program—you're shepherding souls through crisis to healing.
Priests consistently report that the retreat weekends are among the most spiritually rewarding experiences of their ministry.
Your Talks Make a Difference
You'll deliver structured presentations that address the spiritual dimensions of marriage—topics like covenant love, forgiveness, sacramental grace, and God's faithfulness in crisis. These talks provide a framework that helps couples see their marriage struggles through the lens of faith.
You add your personal journey to these talks. Your experiences in priesthood—witnessing God's faithfulness, learning to forgive, understanding sacrifice, growing in love for God's people—connect with couples in profound ways. Your celibate witness to covenant love offers unique insights that married couples need to hear.
These presentations aren't burdensome—they're structured and provided for you, allowing you to personalize them with your own spiritual journey and pastoral wisdom.
It Builds Meaningful Relationships
You'll develop deep bonds with the presenting couples who serve alongside you. These marriages—once in crisis, now healed—become witnesses to God's power. They'll inspire you. They'll teach you. They'll become some of your most committed parishioners.
You're also connecting with priests in other parishes who share this ministry. You're not alone. There's a network of priests who understand this work and support each other in it.
It Multiplies Your Ministry
Every marriage you help save has a ripple effect:
- Children grow up in intact, loving families
- Those children are more likely to practice their faith
- Healed couples often become leaders in parish life
- They invite other struggling couples to find help
- They witness to God's redemptive power in their communities
One weekend can impact generations. The couple you help this weekend may raise children who remain in the Church, who choose sacramental marriage themselves, who serve their parishes faithfully.
Common Questions Priests Ask
"What's the time commitment?"
Most retreats run Friday evening through Sunday afternoon (about 2.5 days). Preparation involves meeting with the presenting team beforehand to review your talks and coordinate the weekend. Many priests serve 2-4 weekends per year.
"What if I'm not comfortable giving talks?"
The talks are structured and provided for you. You're not starting from scratch. The outlines, key points, and theological content are already developed. You simply add your personal touch—stories from your priestly journey, insights from your prayer life, wisdom from pastoral experience. Many priests find this easier than homily preparation because the framework is already there.
"Will this drain me emotionally?"
It's emotionally rich, not draining. Yes, you'll encounter pain. But you'll also witness healing, hope, and grace. Most priests leave the retreat feeling energized and grateful, not depleted.
"What if a couple doesn't make it?"
Not every couple reconciles. But every couple who attends receives tools, hope, and the witness that healing is possible. You plant seeds; God brings the growth. Trust the process and God's timing.
The Pastoral Rewards
You Witness the Gospel Lived
You will see marriages that seemed beyond hope experience healing. You will watch couples move from despair to hope, from silence to communication, from brokenness to the beginning of restoration.
This isn't just teaching about resurrection—this is watching resurrection happen before your eyes.
The Gift You Give the Church
Every marriage you help save strengthens the Church. Marriage is the domestic church—the primary place where children learn faith, where covenant love is lived, where the Gospel is made tangible.
When you serve in Rediscovery Retrouvaille, you're:
- Protecting the sacrament of marriage
- Preventing spiritual casualties (divorce often leads families away from the Church)
- Building up the Body of Christ
- Witnessing to God's power to heal what seems broken beyond repair
How to Get Involved
Start with One Weekend
Commit to one weekend and see how it impacts you. Most priests who serve once become regular participants because the experience is so meaningful.
A Personal Invitation
Father, the couples in your pews right now are suffering in silence. Marriages are dying while everyone smiles on Sunday morning. They need hope. They need help. They need to know the Church cares.
Rediscovery Retrouvaille is the Church's response—a proven, effective, hope-filled ministry that saves marriages, strengthens families, and witnesses to God's redemptive power.
Your presence makes all the difference. When couples in crisis see a priest standing with them, sharing spiritual wisdom from his own journey of faithfulness, they encounter the Church's love in the most tangible way.
This isn't easy ministry. You'll encounter real pain. But you'll also witness real resurrection. You'll see the Gospel lived. You'll participate in miracles.
This is what you were ordained for: to bring Christ's healing to broken hearts, to bind up wounds, to proclaim hope to the despairing.
The couples are waiting. The need is urgent. The harvest is plentiful.
Will you serve?
For More Information
Rediscovery Retrouvaille
www.MarriageLifeline.org
866-470-2243
And Father, you are the Church's face, the Church's heart, the Church's hands in this sacred ministry.
Come, witness resurrection. Come, bring healing. Come, be Christ to couples who desperately need hope. You won't regret it.
What to Expect at a Rediscovery Retrouvaille Weekend
The Format is Structured and Proven:
Friday Evening through Sunday Afternoon:
- Couples arrive Friday evening (often anxious, sometimes reluctant)
- Three presenting couples share their stories of crisis and healing
- You deliver spiritual presentations using provided materials enhanced with your personal insights
- Each presentation is followed by private couple dialogue time
- You celebrate Mass, lead prayer, and are available for Reconciliation
- Meals and breaks allow informal connection
- Sunday concludes with hope, renewed commitment, and information about follow-up support
Your presentations are structured and provided. You're given outlines and key points, which you personalize with your own priestly journey, spiritual insights, and pastoral experiences. You're not creating talks from scratch—you're adding your unique voice to proven material.
The Atmosphere is Confidential and Safe
- No group sharing of personal struggles (couples work privately)
- Complete confidentiality is maintained
- Non-judgmental environment
- Focus on hope and practical tools, not blame
- Sacrament of Reconciliation is available but never pressured
Couples feel safe. Many have never told anyone how bad their marriage is. The confidential, compassionate atmosphere allows them to be honest for the first time.
You'll See the Whole Spectrum
Some couples arrive in deep crisis—considering divorce, dealing with infidelity, barely speaking. Others are disconnected but not in immediate danger. Some have been suffering for years; others are in acute crisis.
All can be helped. The Rediscovery Retrouvaille process works across the spectrum because it teaches fundamental communication skills and offers hope through peer witness and spiritual guidance.