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History
The story of Worldwide Marriage Encounter began in Spain in 1952 when a young priest, Fr Gabriel Calvo, began developing a series of conferences for married couples. Their focus was on the development of an open and honest relationship within marriage and learning to live out a sacramental relationship in the service of others. In 1962, Fr Calvo presented the conferences as a weekend retreat to 28 couples in his native Barcelona. Marriage Encounter was on its way!
In 1966, Fr Calvo and a couple addressed the International Confederation of Christian Family Movement in Caracas. The Weekend spread to Latin America and to Spanish speaking couples in the United States.
Growth in the USA
In 1967, a couple and priest presented the weekend to seven couples and a few priests at the Christian Family Movement Convention at United States. By the summer of 1968, 50 couples and 29 priests were presenting weekends in USA.
The New York area became the centre of Marriage Encounter under the leadership of Fr Charles Gallagher, SJ and a couple. There was strong emphasis on the development of a Marriage Encounter ‘community” to provide support for living the values learned through the weekend, especially for dialogue. In addition, the renewal of the Sacrament of Matrimony was a strong focus, as a means for renewing the Catholic Church. Thus developed Worldwide Marriage Encounter. As a result, Worldwide and National Marriage Encounter both exist today as two different expressions of the original weekend developed by Fr Gabriel Calvo.
Expansion out from USA
In 1971, American couples and priests travelled to Belgium and later to England and overseas expansion grew rapidly. WWME is now offered in numerous languages and dialects in 83 countries.
In addition to the Weekend, other programs have “spun off” of the Marriage Encounter Experience including Engaged Encounter, Evening for the Engaged, Choice, The Beginning Experience (for divorced and widowed) and Retrouvaille.
Expansion into Singapore
In Singapore, Marriage Encounter started when Fr Jean-Pierre Benit (a Belgian missionary who had spent many years in Taiwan) and Sr Columba (a nun from The Good Shepherd Fraternity) dreamed of bringing Marriage Encounter to Singapore. They formed a small organising committee with Sr Clare, Jim & Carmen, Stephen & Joan, and Peter & Bernadette, and established contacts with the Encounter communities in Australia, Canada and the United States.
The first Weekend has held on 6 – 8 April 1979 at the Ambassador Hotel for 25 couples and two priests. Financial assistance came from the Encounter communities of Canada and Australia. India had been given the responsibility to reach out to Singapore. Their community sent Austin & Celine who together with Peter & Evelyn (an Australian couple working in the embassy in Kuala Lumpur) and Fr Jean-Pierre made up the Weekend presenting team. India, and later the Philippines, continued to send couples to present subsequent Weekends in Singapore until local couples could take over. The next exciting milestone was in March 1980, when Singapore “reached out” to Malaysia.
A year after the first Weekend, the Encounter community launched a number of “Open and Apostolic” (O&A) programs like “Evening for the Engaged” and “Evenings for Parents”. In 1981, the Marriage Encounter House in Punggol was opened, thanks to a generous donation from the Scheut Missions. Two more programs were launched – CHOICE Weekend for young single adults and “MATRIMONY – Jesus Invites Us to Love” program for 14 – 16 year olds. In 1982 this gathering momentum launched Engaged Encounter Weekends for couples planning to marry, and the Mandarin-speaking Weekends followed soon after.
Solving individual marital problems has never been the goal of Marriage Encounter. Instead, during the Weekend, a husband and wife are given the opportunity to share the emotions that so often are kept buried inside. They are taught how to make such communication a part of everyday life. Marriage Encounter emphasises the beauty of belonging totally to one another.
Marriage Encounter, Singapore Help Expansion into Sri Lanka / China
In 2003, Marriage Encounter, Singapore and Marriage Encounter, Korea pledged to give financial aid to Marriage Encounter, Sri Lanka so that they can organise stay-in weekends. In 2005, Marriage Encounter, Singapore sent a couple and priest to Shenyang, China. The seed to spread of Marriage Encounter to other parts of China was thus planted.
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