By Lou Baldwin • Posted March 5, 2019

This year, 2019, is the final year of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s three-year initiative, “Remain in My Love,” to “reinvigorate Christian marriage and the Christian family,” said Father Gerald Dennis Gill, director of the archdiocesan Office for Divine Worship.

The program aims to do this by inviting people to focus on three themes: Marriage was Created by God; What is Good about Marriage and Family; and the Family as the Domestic Church.

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“Year One was focused on all the offices and agencies in the pastoral centers,” Father Gill said. “Year Two was dedicated to pastoral staffs coming together and discussing these themes.”

Both 2018 and 2017 featured “the invitation for people to reflect on their own understanding of marriage and the family, practice and procedures, things that went into strengthening marriage and the family,” he said.

Year Three “isn’t just for offices, agencies and parish staffs, it is for everyone to come together to share the good news what the church teaches about marriage and the family,” he said. “It is most important for our own personal salvation.”

Toward this end over the course of the next seven months or so three topics will be discussed in nine sessions, each at three locations in the archdiocese.

The first topic is “Marriage, Created by God for God: The Sacramentality of Marriage.” Sessions are at SS. Simon and Jude Parish, West Chester on Sunday, March 10 from 1-3:30 p.m.; at the Cathedral Chapel of SS. Peter and Paul, Philadelphia on Sunday, March 17 from 2-4:30 p.m. and at Nativity of Our Lord, Warminster on Sunday March 31 from 1-3:30 p.m.

The keynote speaker at all three sessions will be Megan Murphy, a nationally known presenter on Theology of the Body and the new evangelization.

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The second topic is “He Saw That it Was Very Good: The Goods of Marriage.” Sessions are at SS. Simon and Jude, West Chester on Sunday, June 2 from 2-4:30 p.m.; Saturday, June 15 from 1-3:30 p.m. at Nativity of Our Lord Parish, Warminster and Sunday, June 30 from 2-4:30 p.m. at Cathedral Chapel of SS. Peter and Paul, Philadelphia. Father Gill will be the keynote speaker at all three.

The third topic, “Families, Become What You Are: The Family as the Domestic Church” will be presented at the Cathedral Chapel of SS. Peter and Paul, Philadelphia on Sunday, Sept. 15 from 2- 4:30 p.m.; at Nativity of Our Lord, Warminster on Sunday, Sept. 22 from 1-3:30 p.m.; also at a date and time to be announced at SS. Simon and Jude, West Chester.

The keynote speaker at all three will be Damon Owens, the executive director of the Theology of the Body Institute.

All sessions will include a personal witness from a married couple, discussion, a question-and-answer period and local marriage and family information.

Child care will be available at all sessions.

For more information, online registration and speaker bios visit the website archphila.org/remain2019.