Congratulations!!! We are so happy for you and look forward to helping you prepare for the Sacrament of Matrimony. It is necessary for our parishioners to contact the priests or deacon NINE TO TWELVE MONTHS prior to the anticipated time of their wedding. It is recommended that couples contact the parish priest as soon as a formal engagement is decided. The priest or deacon will meet with couples to begin marriage preparation. Before any planning is started, couples should read carefully through the Liturgical Guidelines published by the Diocese of Harrisburg and the Parish Guidelines available in the parish office.
“Authentic married love is caught up into divine love and is governed and enriched by Christ’s redeeming power and the saving activity of the Church, so that this love may lead the spouses to God with powerful effect and may aid and strengthen them in sublime office of being a father or a mother. For this reason Christian spouses have a special sacrament by which they are fortified and receive a kind of consecration in the duties and dignity of their state. By virtue of this sacrament, as spouses fulfill their conjugal and family obligation, they are penetrated with the spirit of Christ, which suffuses their whole lives with faith, hope and charity. Thus they increasingly advance the perfection of their own personalities, as well as their mutual sanctification, and hence contribute jointly to the glory of God.” – Gaudium et Spes, #48.
In the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony a Christian man and woman are joined together in a bond of exclusive committed and faithful love. As a sacrament, matrimony reflects the love of God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Marital love is so powerful and wonderful that it shares in God’s own creative power in the conception and raising of children.
“How can I ever express the happiness of a marriage joined by the Church, strengthened by an offering, sealed by a blessing, announced by angels, and ratified by the Father? . . . How wonderful the bond between two believers, now one in hope, one in desire, one in discipline, one in the same service! They are both children of one Father and servants of the same Master, undivided in spirit and flesh, truly two in one flesh. Where the flesh is one, one also is the spirit.” (Tertullian, Ad uxorem. 2)