Church Speaks Up For True Love During National Marriage Week

Christians up and down the country are joining in with National Marriage Week (7 - 14 February) and the Catholic Church has launched two major initiatives to mark the occasion.

Love and Marriage: are we bovvered? is a project from the National Board of Catholic Women inviting Catholic women to share with the NBCW their experience of married life.

"We are keen to identify what contributes to sustaining marriage as a life-long commitment," says Rosemary Keenan, Convenor of the NBCW Marriage and Family Life Committee.

The Catholic charity Marriage Care, meanwhile, is holding celebrations nationwide to mark the 60th anniversary of its foundation.

Marriage Care Chief Executive Terry Prendergast says: "Marriage Care has been providing relationship support for 60 years, years in which marriage has been in a state of constant evolution, not necessarily for the better.

"We believe that sustaining something as important as the decision to marry is vital - for the couple, their children and their wider community."

In light of the National Marriage Week, Bishop John Hine, chair of the Catholic Bishops' Committee for Marriage and Family Life Sustaining, said that marriage requires gentleness and sensitivity.

"Speak up with love and sensitivity, listen gently to each other's experience of joy, loss, hope and loneliness and reach out to the hurting," he said.

"The world in which we live needs, as never before, our Christian witness to the truth about marriage."

Ideas and resources for celebrating National Marriage Week including dos and don'ts for a loving and healthy marriage are available to download from the Home is a Holy Place website www.homeisaholyplace.org.uk

"Love and Marriage" is a project of the NBCW Marriage and Family Life Committee. brief contributions (300 words per topic) on issues including transitions and crises, expectation vs reality, survival strategies and sources of support; work/life balance; money, family life; sex can be submitted online at www.loveandmarriage.org.uk

For more information about National Marriage Week go to www.nmw.org.uk

Diocesan and parish events to celebrate Marriage Week include:

St Anne's Cathedral, Leeds. Sunday 11th February. 11.00 am Celebrant: Rev Peter Rosser, Episcopal Vicar for Christian Life.

St David's Cathedral, Cardiff. Tuesday 13th February. 7.00 pm Celebrant: Most Rev Peter Smith, Archbishop of Cardiff. Theme: 'Celebrating Home as a Holy Place'.

St Francis' Catholic Church, Morley. Thursday 15th February 7.00 pm (Diocese of Leeds)

St Mary's Cathedral, Newcastle Upon Tyne. Saturday 17th February 1.30pm. Celebrant: Rt Rev Kevin Dunn, Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle

St John's Catholic Cathedral, Portsmouth. Saturday 17th February 12.15pm