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It's a 24/7 proposition, filled with questions: Who gets to hold the television remote? How is the checkbook balanced? How do we share joys, and suffer tribulations and sorrow? How do we pray together?

From the mundane to the profound, marriage is a sacrament in the Church's eyes, a covenant among a man, a woman and God, not an easily-broken contract. 

According to Catholic teaching, marriage is a permanent commitment in which a couple pledges their lives to each other and are open to children.

Preparing couples for that vision of marriage - often at odds with the wider culture - is a major task entrusted to the Albany diocesan office of Evangelization, Catechesis and Family Life.

According to Mary Fay, associate director of marriage ministry for the OECFL, the Diocese prepares 550 couples each year in programs offered in Albany, Hudson Falls and Glens Falls. Through the presence of a teaching married couple, the day-long sessions tackle perennial issues such as communications, finances and sexuality, as well as Catholic understanding about stewardship, openness to children and permanent commitment.

It is an opportunity, said Mrs. Fay, for couples to take time away from the onslaught of wedding preparations and talk about deeper issues that will last far beyond that special day.

Deep foundation 
"The hope is that they form a 'couple consensus' - that together they make decisions," she explained. "They become their own family on their wedding day. They need to do what's best for the both of them."

Forging that couple consciousness and an understanding of Catholic marriage cannot happen in a full-day session, noted couples who make presentations at the diocesan pre-Cana events (named for the wedding feast at Cana where Jesus turned water into wine, the first miracle story in John's Gospel). But it does provide a forum to address concerns.

Among those concerns is communication, noted Joe Masucci and his wife, Tracey Penk-Masucci, who live in Troy and are members of Holy Spirit Church in East Greenbush, where she works as a youth minister.

"The communication piece is a broad stripe you can paint through everything," said Mrs. Penk-Masucci. The impact of communication, or its lack, is felt on issues such as finances, sex, and spirituality.

The couple, married for 15 years, bring issues about their own marriage into the presentation they offer for engaged couples. But they emphasize that their own approach is not necessarily going to work in all cases.

For much of their marriage, Mr. Masucci was employed in a variety of jobs, putting in more than 70 hours a week. Mrs. Penk-Masucci stayed home with their four children, home-schooling them.

"It was very much like Ozzie and Harriet," said Joe, noting the traditional arrangement. But now that Tracey has begun work at Holy Spirit Church, they have had to communicate among themselves about adjustments. That example of the variety of work arrangements in marriage they bring to the pre-Cana discussions.

"The communication piece allows couples to be different and still successful," Mr. Masucci said.

Faith is another concern that couples bring to the meetings. The Masuccis apply the lessons they have learned from their own experience, and offer them to the engaged couples. He was raised a Catholic, she a non-church-going Protestant; when they married, she converted. 

As happens in many couples, their level of religious intensity varies. She became immersed in Catholicism, eventually earning a degree in the diocesan Formation for Ministry program. Husbands and wives, said Mr. Masucci, bring their own religious sensibilities to their marriages.

Mike and Amy Richardson, married six years, are members of Immaculate Conception Church in Glenville. As pre-Cana couple presenters, they realize that the one-day presentation provides a beginning, not an end, to discussions that can last a lifetime.

"A lot of the couples are concerned about finances, communication and in-laws. 

They are looking for quick fixes that we can't provide," said Mr. Richardson.

What they can offer, he said, are tips on communication skills and a witness to what Catholic marriage can be. They also talk candidly about the successes of their own marriage - they have learned, for example, to communicate better about finances - and where they have fallen short.

On those days when he doesn't listen carefully to what concerns his wife, said Mr. Richardson, "I am giving the message that Amy is not important to me." 

Communication is a day-to-day practice, he emphasized.

Tough news
While much of what they talk about can be part of any marriage, there is a particular slant to a Catholic perspective on wedlock that at times can be startling among many young couples who find some concepts to be outmoded or controversial. At the meetings, the engaged couples are presented with the Church's forbidding artificial means of birth control, and are introduced to Natural Family Planning, a Church-sanctioned method.

They also hear about the higher divorce rates among couples who cohabitate before marriage, a common practice. Mrs. Richardson points out the "halo effect" of pre-marital live-in arrangements, when one or both partners may not be willing to expose their full personalities, with problem areas emerging only after the wedding date.

The reaction to such discussion is a mixed bag. "You get the full perspective of attitudes," said Mr. Richardson. "It can be a hard sell," admitted Mrs. Richardson.

Still, couples who talk at pre-Cana conferences comment that the work draws them together. "There's a lot of prayer that goes into it," said Mr. Richardson, who noted that when dealing with issues affecting marriage, he and his wife are forced to become more conscious of each other.

"We are putting some effort into it. It's definitely good for our relationship," he said.[[In-content Ad]]

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