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  • "Take time out to turn your marriage into a great marriage"
    "Take time out to turn your marriage into a great marriage"

Turn Your Marriage into a Great Marriage

Loving 4 Life is a Catholic Marriage Enrichment apostolate, dedicated to strengthening spousal love through one-day and weekend retreats.

 

Whether you've recently married... married for several years... or enjoying the golden years...

...your marriage will be strengthened.

 
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“Willed by God in the very action of creation, marriage and family are interiorly ordained to fulfilment in Christ and have need of His graces in order to be healed from the wounds of sin and restored to their “beginning,” that is, to full understanding and the full realisation of God’s plan” ordained to fulfilment in Christ and have need of His graces in order to be healed from the wounds of sin and restored to their “beginning,” that is, to full understanding and the full realisation of God’s plan”

 (St John Paul II Familiaris Consortio)

Image : "BRADI BARTH © www.bradi-barth.org"
 

Testimonials

"[The weekend] has given us renewed energy, understanding and commitment to our marriage. It has helped us to shift our marriage focus to faith." 

"[The weekend] has shed new light and further meaning to our marriage as a sacrament." 

“It has helped me to understand my husband so much better, and express my anxieties in a non-threatening way. I feel so much more love for him than prior to the weekend. I feel connected to him emotionally which I had not done before” 

"Inspired us to communicate more. Helped us to be open to each other. Helped us to rediscover the spiritual quality of our marriage and sexual intimacy." 

It has been It has given me a deeper understanding of my wife’s needs and desires. It provided an opportunity for reflection including forgiveness. and emotional connection. Prompted me to change actions with wife and kids. Has enabled us to express to each other our love and blessings.”

"Introduced us to a new way of thinking and approach to our marriage [with an] understanding that we need God and prayer in our marriage." 

"Greatly benefitted us. Faith in God and our spiritual life were greatly encouraged and the true meaning of sex presented."

Overview

There is no group sharing!

Topics include the gift of sexuality, formation in the family, trust & control, affirmation, forgiveness & healing, spiritual aspects of sexual intimacy, and marriage as a sacrament

Loving 4 Life Coordinator 


Jane Deegan is the Loving 4 Life Coordinator, and one of the Presenters together with her husband Jonathan. She takes care of all aspects of the planning and running of events. She also helped in the re-writing ofsome of the programme to make it a better fit for the UK.  She qualified as a solicitor but gave up her career to be a full-time mum and housewife. She has since studied for an MA in Catholic Pastoral and Educational Studies and an MSc in Psychology. She currently works for the Diocese of Shrewsbury asthe Director of Catechesis and Promoton of the Vocation of Marriage


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Marriage as a Sacrament

 


"Each marriage is a kind of ‘salvation history’, which from fragile beginnings – thanks to God’s gift and a creative and generous response on our part – grows over time into something precious and enduring." Pope Francis

The Team

Retreats

Testimonials

Contact Us

Resources

 

The History of Loving 4 Life


Originally known as ‘Celebrate Love’, Loving4Life came from Australia in 2006 to UK shores via Francine and Byron Pirola. The Pirolas were invited to the UK by Edmund Adamus, the then director of Marriage and Family Life for the Westminster Diocese. Francine and Byron had taken the seminar to Australia from the USA where they were introduced to it by Ron and Cathy Feher. The seminar course is known in the USA as ‘Living in Love’ (http://livinginlove.org/). In 2013 the Australians rebranded the name to ‘SmartLoving’ (https://smartloving.org/) and here in the UK we followed their lead.

During the first ten years that the seminar has been active in the UK, various changes were made to its content to make it a better fit for the UK, in the same way that Francine and Bryon made changes for their Australian audience. On the 10th anniversary of the UK run seminars, with the changes complete, the UK team decided to re-name the UK version to ‘Loving 4 Life’.

 

Our Logo Explained


Traditionally, purple is the liturgical colour of Lent and Passiontide and in Advent the colour for the anticipation of the Coming of Christ both at the end of time, in the Parousia, and of His birth at Christmas. Gold is for a King as the gift of the wise men and the foretelling of Christ’s glory and His Resurrection. Every marriage is a particular telling of the story of the Gospel; the birth, the life, death and the resurrection of Christ; the cross of Christ becomes real for every couple, but equally so does the Resurrection. Hence, the golden thread as it were underpinning the “Loving4Life” logo.

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The “4” in the logo is deliberately depicted in the shape of the Cross and coloured in gold to remind us that no sin in marriage is greater than God’s grace of healing love and forgiveness.

The strapline “Human Love in the Divine Plan” is the title for the body of teaching in marital love and human sexuality by the great ‘pope of the family’ St. John Paul II, known as the catechesis in human love or the “Theology of the body”. It is the rich and profound insights of this recent teaching [1979-84] that informs, underpins and embellishes all the programmes of activities and talks over the weekend.

 

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