Retrouvaille can work miracles in troubled marriages

 
   Mike Diedling has read about miracles in the Bible, but it’s the real-life miracles he and his wife Judi witness every year as the local coordinating couple for Retrouvaille, a Catholic-based program for marriages in serious turmoil, that give meaning to their decision to spend the last 20 years helping save marriages.
 
   “I’ve told people it’s as close as I’ll ever come to seeing a miracle, because you see them on the weekend and after the weekend,” said Diedling, a parishioner of St. Luke the Evangelist Church in Slidell whose own Retrouvaille weekend in 1993 saved his marriage. “You might see a couple initially and think they don’t have much of a chance, and then, three weeks later, they’re front and center and they can’t get enough.”

‘Rediscovery’ can happen

    Retrouvaille – French for “rediscovery” – offers couples with serious marriage problems a chance on a weekend to revive their communication. The next weekend for the Archdiocese of New Orleans will be July 5-7 at Lumen Christi Retreat Center in Schriever, La., near Houma-Thibodaux. The weekend starts at 8 p.m. on Friday and concludes on Sunday at 4 p.m.

    The format allows couples to discuss various aspects of their marriage privately. Three presenting couples deliver talks about their own marital struggles, and a priest is there to discuss his own vocation and also to celebrate Mass, hear confessions and provide a listening ear. The program also includes six followup sessions and the availability of an ongoing CORE (Continuing Our Retrouvaille Experience) group.

    “The uniqueness is that everybody you’re going to hear from on the weekend has been through the program and has been-there, done-that,” Diedling said. “It’s not a pious approach in the sense of, ‘This is how you do it.’ It’s more like, ‘This is what happened to us.’ You can relate better to that.

    “The weekend is a focus on the two people, not the group. The focus is to get them to talk to each other. It’s not a problem-solving weekend; it’s a communication weekend. The problem-solving can come later.”

    Couples can register or find out more information about Retrouvaille by calling the archdiocesan Family Life Apostolate at 861-6243 or by going to www.retrouvaille.org. Non-Catholics are welcome to participate.

    “The toughest part is picking up the phone and making the call,” Diedling said. “People usually ask, ‘Does this really apply to me? Is this really going to help me? How much am I going to be exposed to everybody else in the group?’”

    Much of the weekend centers on private discussion between the spouses, Diedling said. There is a $150 registration fee and a free-will donation at the end of the weekend, but Diedling said no couple ever is turned away for inability to pay.
 
   Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at pfinney@clarionherald.org.