Worldwide Marriage Encounter and Engaged Encounter promote enrichment of marriage and family life by conducting weekends programme for couples and by providing a support community.
The weekend programs enable couples to discover God’s vision of marriage and family life thereby leading them to a clearer understanding of their relationship with each other and with God.
At the heart of both the Marriage Encounter and Engaged Encounter experience is the fostering of the concept of the Domestic Church as the basic unit of each small community and the larger Church. The objective is to renew the Church, by renewing the sacraments of Matrimony and Holy Orders.
Marriage Encounter Weekend
- The motto of the Marriage Encounter is to make a good marriage better.
- Marriage Encounter organizes weekends for married couples from time to time, some of which have been held at Dasya, Porvorim.
- The weekend is conducted by teams of Catholic couples and a priest, who share their own experience of joys and struggles in their relationships, within the context of their faith.
- Priests and religious are welcome to attend. The Marriage Encounter weekend is designed in such a way that both priests and religious can participate fully.
- The weekend is also open to spouses and couples from other faith.
- At a Marriage encounter weekend, participating couples are given time to reflect on their attitudes towards each other and their families and to reflect on their joys and their frustrations, their disappointments and hurts, their hopes and their dreams.
- The weekend experience is unique for each couple and the communication experience between each individual couple is personal and private. The techniques shared on the Marriage Encounter weekend help in improving couple relationship.
Engaged Encounter Weekend
- The Engaged Encounter weekend is a live-in marriage preparation programme. In Porvorim the weekends are held at Dasya.
- The objective of the Engaged encounter weekend is to deepen the Commitment of the engaged couple to each other and to God, and to teach them to include God in every plan in their life and in their relationship as husband and wife.
Support Community
- Marriage Encounter and Engaged Encounter hold periodic renewal meetings for couples wishing to continue as a community in growing spiritually in their couple and family life.
- There are about 10 couples in Porvorim who are actively involved in the ME and EE programmes in Goa.
TEAM PRIESTS: Fr. Reggie Britto and Fr. Leslie Francis
Contact Couples
Marriage Encounter : Aires and Lena D’Souza
Engaged Encounter : Oscar and Yvonne Mascarenhas