Married couples are invited to celebrate Mass for the Marriage Encounter

Friday, Jan. 23, 2015

SALT LAKE CITY — Married couples in Utah are being invited to participate in the annual Mass for the Marriage Encounter in Spanish.

The Mass is organized by Carmen and Martin Hernandez, who are representatives of Marriage Encounter Section 14, which includes southern California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Hawaii and Utah.

According to the Marriage Encounter statement, its mission is to proclaim the values of the marriage and the sacred order in the Church and in the World.

 “In order to do that in our apostolate we promote and organize this Mass with all the community,” said Carmen Hernandez. The World Marriage Encounter celebrates Masses on the second Sunday of the month; in Utah, that Mass will be Feb. 8.

The Mass will be celebrated in Saint Therese of the Child Jesus Parish; the celebrant will be Father Marco Tulio López, pastor of Saint Andrew Parish.

For married couples, attending the Mass together can be a symbol of the unity of their marriage as well as making the family a focal point of their lives.

“We want the families, as the core of society,  to renew themselves. At the Mass, married couples revive the day that they made their commitment in front of God, they revive their love for each other and for their families,” said Hernandez.

At the Mass, the symbols of the marriage will be presented.

“We renew the vows and symbolically we value each one of the married couples,” said Hernandez.

She and her husband had been preparing for this Mass by reading and analyzing the book On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family and the Church in the Twenty- First Century.

“Father Marco is going to start gathering with the couples to talk in depth about the book, and he will also base part of his preaching on it,” said Hernandez. “The Mass will also help us to discern the importance of the families and of marriage between a man and a woman.”

 

WHAT: Marriage Encounter Mass (Spanish)

WHEN: Sunday, Feb. 8, 2 p.m.

WHERE: Saint Therese of the Child Jesus Catholic Church, 624 Lennox St., Midvale