Tools for building a Eucharistic Marriage
‘Radiate Love’ materials available in all parishes in July
By Christina Gray
In its first two years, the National Eucharistic Revival has drawn faithful Catholics into a deeper reverence for the sacramental gift of Jesus Christ, who draws us to himself through the gift of His body and blood in the Eucharist.
On Feb. 11, World Marriage Day, the California Conference of Catholic Bishops announced an initiative designed as a practical way to incarnate the grace of the revival into families and communities during the 2024-25 pastoral year.
Starting in July, the conference will begin issuing to parish communities a regular rotation of prayers, reflections and other materials under the banner of “Radiate Love.” The initiative is a marriage and family life enrichment program “modeled on the love of God for his people expressed in the Eucharist,” said Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone in a video on the CCC website.
“This theme brings to mind an image that beautifully illuminates how the natural, one-flesh union of husband and wife complements the Eucharist, where Jesus invites us to a supernatural union between our humanity and His divinity,” Archbishop Cordileone explains in the short video. Image is the perfect word, said Archbishop Cordileone, “as both sacraments are about community, which is the very image of God Himself.”
Other Catholic bishops, including Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto, Fresno Bishop Joseph V. Brennan and San Bernardino Bishop Alberto Rojas also share their thoughts on marriage and family in separate videos.
Under the banner of Radiate Love, the bishops want to help couples renew and deepen their appreciation for “God’s immeasurable gift of the sacrament of marriage, that through it they may be brought more deeply into communion with Christ,” Archbishop Cordileone said.
Greg Schutte is the director of Marriage Works, a department of Elizabeth’s New Life Center in Dayton, Ohio. After years of leading marriage enrichment programs as a licensed social worker and therapist, Schutte developed a seven-part video program on building a Eucharistic marriage. It is based on a model for change which connects seven areas for therapeutically strengthening a marriage with seven areas of deepening our relationship with Christ through the Eucharist.
This course is part of a longer program written by Schutte called “Discovering Our Deepest Desire,” a marriage enrichment program with an imprimatur from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Today, the video series is licensed by more than 16 Catholic dioceses or archdioceses in the U.S., including Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, New York, Orange and Atlanta, for use by parishes.
We asked Schutte to describe what a Eucharistic marriage is and why couples should cultivate one.
“Another way to put it is, it is sacramental marriage,” he said. “It flows from the sacrament of marriage together centralized around the sacrament of the Eucharist.”
“A Eucharistic marriage starts with us as individuals being fed by Christ in the Eucharist, then going out and feeding one another and the world around us,” he said.
He describes it to couples by asking them a startling question when they point fingers at one another for the problems in their marriage.
“If I gave you an opportunity to starve each other to death right now, would you do it?,” he will ask. Of course not, they exclaim, I love him or her.
“Well, that’s exactly what’s going on here,” he tells them. Not a physical starvation, but a spiritual and emotional starvation. “Couples don’t know how to feed each other, the way the Eucharist feeds us.”
Schutte said the U.S. divorce rate has been holding steady at about 50% for years. Catholic couples are not immune to that and are divorcing at pretty much the same rate.
He said that even if that statistic is overblown, and the percentage of failed marriages is more like 25%, “that’s 1 in 4 marriages that are failing.”
Schutte said that while it seems people in our culture are delaying or avoiding marriage, or living together instead (which he says works against the future health of the relationship), he believes it is not that they don’t believe in or want marriage.
“It’s that they don’t want to fail at marriage,” he said. “A Eucharistic marriage is a marriage centered on Christ. When it’s healthy, your marriage is a beautiful gift to you, your spouse and the people around you.”
Christina Gray is the lead writer for Catholic San Francisco magazine.
Learn more about the Catholic bishops’ Radiate Love Initiative by visiting www.sfarch.org/radiate-love.
Learn information on Building a Eucharistic Marriage by visiting Ourdeepestdesire.com.