The St. Philip Institute
Three to get Married
After 9 months of online events, the Family Life Office has returned to hosting live in-person Three to Get Married retreats. Following the necessary Covid-19 protocols, we hosted one Three to Get Married and one Son Tres Los Que Se Casan retreat at the Wellspring Fransalian Center for Spirituality in January 2021. These were the first live retreats since March 2020. Since then, we have hosted one English retreat at the St. Edward’s Education and Ministry Center in Athens and one Spanish retreat at the Shopka Center at St. Anthony’s in Longview. We have also held one online Spanish retreat.
While the online retreats allowed us to continue offering marriage formation even in the midst of Covid-lockdowns, it has been a great joy to return to the in-person events where couples can connect with people from other parishes, and participate in the most important aspects of the retreat: namely, adoration, confession, and the Holy Mass.
To date, 65 engaged couples have attended this retreat in 2021 and have primarily come from all over the Diocese of Tyler. One couple flew in from California to attend the retreat because they wanted to “participate in the marriage formation program for Bishop Strickland’s diocese”. While only 87 couples were able to attend the retreat in 2020, we anticipate that at least 175 couples will attend this retreat by the end of 2021.
We currently have live retreats scheduled from June-November 2021 in both English and Spanish. To learn more about the Three to Get Married/Son Tres Los Que Se Casan Retreats, please visit https://stphilipinstitute.org/three-to-get-married/ or contact the Director of Family Life, Deanna Johnston, at djohnston@stphilipinstitute.org Ext 120.
For more information about the St. Philip Institute, read Bishop Strickland’s document
The Constitution on Teaching
