Encounters

Original Marriage Encounter (O.M.E.)

For Couples Married for over 3 years

Marriage is the heart of the family. All areas of married life – rearing children, caring for elderly relatives etc – are based on a harmonious relationship between husband and wife. Therefore, it is essential for spouses to review the state of their marriage once in a while, as well as to renew their relationship regularly through honest, deep sharing.

Topics:

– Reconciliation with one another and with their children

– Encounter with Self

– Confidence

– Dialogue

– Unity

– Faith

Original Marriage Encounter provides a unique opportunity for couples to renew their marriage through honest, open communication. Participants are invited to listen to talks by team couples, who share how they have faced different situations in their married life. Presentations are followed by periods of quiet reflection and couple sharing about handout questions. The two-day programme also includes Holy Mass and prayers led by a Catholic priest. Started and conducted within the Catholic Church, the programme is open to everyone who wants to sincerely encounter self, others and God.

Marriage Encounter, created by Fr Gabriel Calvo, has spread in numerous variations in many countries of the world. The most widely known version of the programme is Worldwide Marriage Encounter, associated with the name of Chuck Gallagher SJ.

In some countries, however, the Original Marriage Encounter is also available. In El Salvador, Hungary, Japan, Slovakia, Venezuela, etc. many years’ experience has shown that the Original Marriage Encounter, along with other programmes by Fr Gabriel Calvo, is an extremely effective means not only of strengthening marriages but also of evangelization among Christians and non-Christians as well.

“God created man and woman to give meaning, life and love to the universe. He created marriage “to His image and likeness”, and God is not a circle. He is the spiraling foundation of Life and Love. The quest for happiness in marriage demands that you expand your vision and perspective beyond your marital relationships. You are challenged by today’s society to stop being a selfish and isolated married couple. And you are called by the Creator to depart from your conjugal and family love, and go towards the universal love. You, as a married couple, have been born to become a loving spiral of love!”

– Gabriel Calvo

Marriage Re-Encounter (R.E.)

For reconciliation with children while deepening the M.E. experience. For those couples who wish to deepen their “Marriage Encounter” experience to include reconciliation with their children.

Marriage Retorno (M.R.)

For the experienced ME couple, this is a program that emphasizes an encounter with God by “the encounter with self.”

Engaged Encounter (E.E.)

As the basis of a strong and happy marriage, it is vital for young people to have adequate self-knowledge as well as mutual confidence and honest communication with their partner.

The FIRES Engaged Encounter program offers young couples a unique opportunity to review, rethink, deepen and re-evaluate their relationship. Its main aim is to help participants avoid marriage problems arising from ignorance of oneself and one’s partner. The program also helps engaged couples realize the conditions required for a life of love, joy, and growth together according to the Plan of God, the Creator of marriage and family.

Topics include:

– Encounter with self

– Knowing and understanding one another

– Values

– Difficulties in marriage

– Openness

– The meaning and real purpose of marriage

– Faith

– Relationship with God

Engaged Encounter participants are invited to listen to talks by young married team couples, who honestly share how they have faced different situations in their relationship and married life. Presentations are followed by periods of quiet reflection and couple sharing about handout questions. The two-day program also includes Holy Mass and prayers led by a Catholic priest.

The program is not only for couples who have already decided to marry, but also for couples who want to determine with more assurance whether they would indeed want to marry one another, as well as for couples who are already married but for a period of less than 3 years. Started and conducted within the Catholic Church, the program is open to non-Catholic or non-Christian couples as well.

Sons and Daughters Encounter (SADE)

For an encounter with self regarding important aspects of one’s life.

As a child in the family, this is an opportunity to meet oneself. It is a program to help renew the encounter and relationship between sons and daughters and parents. Unmarried young people over the age of 13 (including junior high school students) are eligible. There is a ‘Teenagers’ SADE,  and a ‘Youth SADE’, which can be held jointly. The Youth SADE is generally for young people but as in the case of Japan you can be 40 years old or more. 

SADE was first held by Fr. Calvo in Japan in Ota, Gunma Prefecture in 1977.

Sons and Daughters Retorno (SADR)
For an Encounter with the Lord, especially through Sacred Scripture

Family Encounter (F.E.)

For encountering one another as a family.

A two-day program for families with teenage children, also open to non-Catholics and non-Christians

Topics include:

– Reconciliation

– Confidence

– Dialogue

– Unity

– Relationship with God

Today’s families are seriously threatened by the outside pressure of materialistic society. But they may suffer even more from inner problems, especially the lack of communication, understanding and acceptance among family members.

FIRES Family Encounter was born with the faith that, despite all negative tendencies or experiences, there is a mysterious „thermonuclear energy” of love hidden in each family. This energy of love can be and is in fact “liberated” when parents and children truly encounter and honestly communicate with each other.

Family Encounter, therefore, offers families – parents and teenage children – an opportunity of encounter, reconciliation and intense and profound communication. During the program, participating families are invited to listen to talks by a team family, who share their lived experiences. Presentations are followed by periods of quiet reflection and family sharing about handout questions. The two-day program also includes Holy Mass and prayers led by a Catholic priest.

Started and conducted within the Catholic Church, Family Encounter is open to non-Catholics or non-Christians as well. It is a special and unique family experience for each member of the family

Family Communication Workshop (FCW)

A six hour program for families to help deepen their communication

Today’s families are seriously threatened by the outside pressure of materialistic society. But they may suffer even more from inner problems, especially the lack of communication, understanding and acceptance among family members.

FIRES Family Communication Workshop was born with the faith that, despite all negative tendencies or experiences, there is a mysterious “thermonuclear energy” of love hidden in each family. This energy of love can be and is in fact “liberated” when parents and children truly encounter and honestly communicate with each other.

Family Communication Workshop, therefore, offers families – parents and teenage children – an opportunity of honest communication, encounter and reconciliation through a six-hour program. Participating families are invited to listen to introductory talks by the presenting team, including a team family, followed by short periods of quiet reflection and family sharing about handout questions.

Started and conducted within the Catholic Church, Family Communication Workshop is offered to non-Catholic or non-Christian families as well. It is a special and unique one-afternoon experience for each member of the family.

As a possible follow-up of the program in their homes, participant families are offered Around the Table, a guidebook by Fr Gabriel Calvo. This booklet contains outlines for twelve family meetings. Families who want to repeat the experience of Family Communication Workshop by using Around the Table have twelve great opportunities to listen to each other, to communicate and understand each other better, to encounter and, therefore, to grow as a family.

Self-Encounter (S.E.)

For individuals in all walks of life.

“No one is an island.” It is a natural human desire and aspiration that one’s relationships within the family, at the workplace, among friends, in the Church community etc. should constantly improve, deepen, become more and more enriching.

The aim of the FIRES Self Encounter programme is to provide an opportunity for participants – individuals of any age over 20, either single, married, single mother, divorced or widowed – to review and renew their relationships with themselves, with other people and with God.

Topics include:

– Self-Knowledge

– Human Relationships

– Vocation

– Openness

– Faith

– Relationship with God

Self Encounter participants are invited to listen to talks by team persons, who honestly share their lived experiences. Presentations are followed by periods of quiet reflection and sharing about handout questions. The two-day program also includes Holy Mass and prayers led by a Catholic priest.

The program brings about deep changes in the hearts of most participants: it helps them deepen their self knowledge, encourages them to be honest in communication and sharing, helps them see the worth of positive thinking and living, makes them feel how much one needs God in his life.

Started and conducted within the Catholic Church, FIRES Self Encounter is open to non-Catholics or non-Christians as well. It is an unforgettable community experience for both believers and non-believers.

Self Retorno (S.R.)
For an encounter with the Lord, especially through Sacred Scripture

Priest Encounter (P.E.)

For re-evaluating one’s vocation; evangelizing through families; etc. The same format has been used for a Sisters Encounter

Topics:

– Evaluating and Renewing their Life as Priest/Religious

In addition to his role of offering up the Sacrifice of the Mass and administering the Sacraments, a priest is also called to guide the faithful and accompany sacramental marriages spiritually in our ever-changing world. In order to adequately fulfill this role he needs occasionally to take some time to reconsider his vocation in the light of the changing reality of modern day society.
The purpose of the Priest Encounter is to afford the participating priests an opportunity to rediscover their true selves in order to live out their vocation in a more fruitful way.
Priest Encounter differs from any other well-known retreats in that participants can encounter themselves with the help of team priests as well as committed Christian married couples, who share their lived experiences, honestly expressing how much they count on the service of priests in strengthening their marriage, how grateful they are to their priests etc.
Team presentations are followed by periods of quiet reflection and sharing about Bible passages and handout questions. The two-day program also includes Holy Mass and prayers led by a Catholic priest or bishop.
It is an encouragement for priests to rediscover the beauty and potentials of the gift of their vocation through reflecting and sharing their discoveries with fellow priests. This encouragement greatly contributes to personal growth as well as it confirms full commitment to Christ and to the sacrament of Holy Orders.

“Priest Encounter helps priests in their pastoral care for families,
therefore I gladly recommend it to my fellow priests.”

 – Msgr László Bíró

Bishop for the Family

Hungarian Catholic Bishops’ Conference

Eucharistic Encounter (EuE)

For deepening one’s understanding of and devotion to the Holy Eucharist

The purpose of Eucharistic Encounter is to deepen understanding and experience of God with us.

The Universe beginning = Big Bang, (In 1931 Fr. Georges Le Maitre – Belgian priest scientist). God’s “Beginning” = eternity. “In the beginning was the Word etc…….” (John 1:1-14). Yes! God is with us (“Emmanuel” in Hebrew).

For Catholics Jesus Christ the Word came to dwell among us, and still “with us” in a special way in the form of bread and wine. The “Eucharist” loosely translated, it can mean: “That for which we give good or heartfelt thanks”.

Emmanuel – God is with us

The Word of God, tradition and the Magisterium of the Church unanimously agree and proclaim that Jesus remains with us in a very special way until the end of time, in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. John Paul II re-affirmed this in his Apostolic Letter “Mane Nobiscum Domine, 16”(Stay With Us Lord) = through His Eucharist Presence that Jesus fulfills his promise to remain with us until the end of the world. Pau: (Romans 8, 31.35.37) nothing can separate us from his love.

The Apostolic Exhortation of Benedict XVI: “Sacramentum Caritatis”, prompted the formulating of the Eucharistic Encounter. It will help us all to re-discover the “Wonder of the Eucharist”.

Benedict: Two possibilities: If God exists, life has meaning; if He does not, life has no meaning. Some deny existence and yet blame. Tragedies result from sin of mankind. Contradiction to smoke and expel exhaust and blame other. My parents never blamed God nor denied His existence. They Eucharistic people – mom feeding the homeless. Knowledge limited, wisdom remarkable. That’s why I am a priest.

Open to anyone. Times for personal reflection, quiet spent in the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament, sharing experiences in small groups.

An eight step program each based upon a Scripture passage.

Step 1:“Who do you say that I am?”      (Mark 8:29)

Step 2: “I am the living bread that came down from Heaven.”      (John 6:51)

Step 3: “Take this and eat; this is my body.”          (Mt. 26:26)

Step 4: “I am with you always.”        (Mt. 28:20)

Step 5: “Do this in memory of me.”      (Luke 22-19)

Step 6: “This is the day that the Lord has made.”    (Psalm 118:24)

Step 7: “The bread that I will I give you is my flesh.”  (John 6:51)

Step 8: “Proclaim the Good News to every creature.”  (Mark 16:15)

Pre Conjugal Encounter (PCE)
For Catholic couples living together without marriage, to help them understand the need to seek God’s blessing on a Christian marriage

Evangelizing Encounter (Ev.E) (Evangelizing In, With and Through the Family)
For families to evangelize themselves, and then especially families in their own parish.

Vocation Encounter (VE)
For helping young men and women to discern to what way of life the Lord might be calling them

Fraternal Encounter (Frat. E)
For greater cooperation among various groups within a parish