Catholics begin again via program designed to heal loss and grief

Although they will most likely be a small group, the program that they will participate in -- Beginning Experience -- has helped thousands of Catholics cope with loss for nearly 30 years.

Beginning Experience is designed to help individuals and families work through the feelings that are the natural result of separation, divorce or the death of a spouse.

Moving on

He became involved with the program more than four years ago when he experienced his own weekend. Since then, he has become a team leader. The weekend, he said, provides a "safe place" for people to "express one's feelings without fear."

He said that most people that attend a BE weekend find it to be a life-changing experience that sets them on the road to a new beginning.

Beginning Beginning

In order to understand the healing techniques of Marriage Encounter, a new program at the time for married couples that followed a weekend retreat format, Sister Josephine asked a divorced friend to accompany her on a weekend. During the weekend, the friend began to look at the breakup of her marriage, and was able to come to terms with the grief and suffering resulting from the end of her marriage.

Sister Josephine then began to make plans for a similar weekend for other divorced people in the Fort Worth area; within a year, Beginning Experience was well underway.

Healing effort

The weekend "provides the person with an opportunity to work through the process of grief that engulfs them during and after a separation, divorce or the death of a spouse," he explained. "One of the things we talk about over the weekend is suffering. We gently guide the participants through the pain they are feeling."

Outreach to youth is an integral part of the ministry, which offers weekends for young adults and children as well as support groups for different ages. Those programs, which are an adaptation of the adult weekend, deal with such issues as grief in the loss of a parent, guilt, fear, feelings and changes in the child's life.

Working it out

Some of the issues addressed during the weekend are encountering self; ending guilt; trusting self, others and God; and reaching out to each other.

Mr. Romeo feels that the program is most effective for those who have been out of a marriage for about a year, or "however long it takes for the individual to accept the fact that one part of their life is over and they are now ready for a new beginning."

The widowed, he added, are ready for the Beginning Experience when they can acknowledge that they have to face life without a spouse and are willing to move forward out of their grief.

Safe harbor

"We call ourselves 'wounded healers.' Since we have all been through a divorce or death of a spouse, we understand firsthand what people are going through."

(For additional information on the Beginning Experience, access www.beginningexperience.org. For details on the Beginning Experience weekend, contact Mr. Romeo at 399-2251.)

(10-25-01) [[In-content Ad]]