"The key issue that I find most important and I think should be shared with others concerns divorce. MPC emphasizes the fundamentals of a healthy marriage and encourages couples to work out their differences in constructive ways which in the long term will not only help prevent divorce but to strengthen and build the bond between husband and wife for a great marriage"
“I’m actually a non-Catholic and I didn’t know much about the Catholic faith prior to attending MPC other than through the weekly Sunday mass. MPC has enriched me with a much deeper insight and the goodness of the faith. I’m actually quite touched by how the religion encourages and teaches married couples to maintain strong and healthy marriages and really sticking to each other through good times and bad. It’s really not an easy thing to do so especially now in a society where divorce rates are rocket high and marriage seems so fragile."
“I would like to share with you what struck me most about MPC having gone through the course. This is related to the common saying ‘give a man to fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’ – we can see MPC as a one-off course where we get to discuss different topics as they affect our lives at the present, i.e. MPC feeds us for a day, our lives together as enriched at the present moment. We can also see MPC as a course that has taught us how to communicate with each other, such that we will always be able to discuss difficult topics at different times in our lives. If we do this, our marriage will be enriched for a lifetime.”
“Having been with Jon for over 7 years now, I did not think that there would be things about him that I was not already aware of or that there may be issues that we never touched upon or talked about but I think MPC debunked that belief of mine. I actually went into MPC thinking that it would be a good platform for us to be aware of and to learn about the trial and tribulations of marriage and being married rather than it being a process of learning new things about Jon, about myself through Jon and about us as a couple. To illustrate what I mean, one thing that struck me deeply was the sharing on what it means to be faithful in marriage. Jesus said ‘I have come to give life and to give it more abundantly.’ To be faithful in marriage is more than a series of DON’Ts and DOs. It means to be LIFE-GIVING. To bring my spouse to his full potential.”
Dear Presenting Couple,
Thank you for being such great facilitators in the MPC journey,
you both did more than just going through the couple paks, in
fact, we were heard and valued even for the slightest issues in
our relationship. You have created an great atmosphere of
openness and faith.
This MPC started 7 weeks before our wedding and this is actually
the busiest period with rushing all the preparation. That half
day of weekend actually mean a lot to us but now we know that it
is all worth it. Honestly speaking, We expected some
professionals lecturing or counselling us in MPC, we were quite
shocked to see couples sharing with us at the front of the stage
about their personal experience and we actually could hardly
laugh at their jokes. We both left expecting to drag ourselves
through these 6 weeks course. Not forgetting there were homework
assigned each week.
The first group sharing seems weird as we were all strangers but
the emphasis of keeping the sharing within the group and having
you both as example to share deeply about your relationship had
helped us to open up. The couple pak is a great tool to
understand ourselves, our partner and our relationship. It
provides us a channel to share, to address issues, to manage
expectation and to set goals in our relationship. We are kind of
“forced” to be transparent with one another, “forced” to face up
with our issues and “forced” to resolve them together. I began
to understand what this whole thing is about, it is our
relationship and our marriage so we seriously don’t need experts
to tell us what are the right things to do or give us the
winning formula. We are guided to work out our very own “winning
formula” for our very own relationship and marriage.
This MPC doesn’t do miracle to any of our relationship but it
sets the foundation in our marriage. Having emphasize to put God
in the center of marriage really help us to benchmark what is
right & wrong and have faith to believe that we could love &
forgive each other despite of our imperfections. The road ahead
is still long, challenging and uncertain, we need to constantly
apply what we had learnt during MPC.
We thank God for bringing us together!
We thank God for knowing all the lovely couples through the
MPC!
We thank God for marriages!”
“Dear Presenting Couple,
We appreciate very much for your patience in instilling the
necessary mindset to maintain a successful marriage.
We also found our attitude on attending MPC sessions has
gradually change from the feeling of obligation towards keen, as
what was expected by Michael in the first MPC session.
Throughout the MPC sessions, we gained quite a lot from the
sharing, such as the importance of understanding and respecting
our life partner. From the sessions, not everything is new to
us. For instance, we knew that there is a way to communicate by
love letter but just we never realize that how important that
this tool can be used to maintain a good relationship.
We truly respect you for your strong faith in Catholic and
Jesus. With your faith, you make us understand better of what is
a blessed Catholic marriage and the values of a Catholic
marriage & Sacrament etc. From this understanding, we are more
convince to live in a catholic family, like raising our child as
a Catholic, encourage our child to be more involved in church
activities when he/she grows up.
Thanks again for your guidance throughout the whole journey of
MPC.
Thanks other couples as well for the sharing and accompany
during the six week sessions.
Wish you all a blessed marriage.
Thank you.”
To Presenting Couple,
All good things will come to an end, just when we feel that the
weekly session has just beginning to be part of our life. The 6
weeks marriage preparation course is swiftly coming to an
end.
We knew that we have to attend the MPC in order for us to hold a
church wedding in Vietnam. Katherine’s mother is a devoted
catholic and her only wish for both of us is to see our marriage
being witness under the faith of Catholic Church. We oblige to
it.
The course started and weeks passed, we started to sing praises
to God.
We had thank God for sending us such wonderful presenters to
guide us through the 6 weeks program. Catherine and Mike, you
have uphold your responsibilities to educate us in your best
efforts gracefully.
Although all of us barely knew each other or I will say our
friendship only started for 6 weeks. You have shared so much of
yourselves truthfully. It is indeed valuable to us. Your
hospitalities towards us in your home and ensuring we are in
best comfort, always ensuring there are enough drinks to go
around and your generosity of sufficient food during our tea
break. We truly appreciate.
This lead us to the question in couple pak 3, “when do we feel
we are closest to God?”, your unselfishness, compassion and love
toward us make us feel that we are always with God and in the
arm of his love.
You have demonstrated to us that the real facts of life and
marriage in happiness, sorrows and frustrations. You have made
us realized in depth and understand the importance of seeking a
balance in life and seeking differences with an open heart.
The MPC constitutes of substance of Catholicism which are least
religious as what we expected. The interpretations of the
teachings serve us as guides into ethical values in our life.
To all ECs, it’s great to know and went along with all of you
guys through the MPC course. It’s just a very short time in life
but we did have a wonderful time together, sharing, praying and
learning. All the best to us, may God be with you and please
keep in touch.
We will like to express our appreciation to the couple who have
delivered their prayers and encouragement for us. Thank you
all.
Lastly, from the bottom of our heart, to Catherine and Mike, our
teacher, our friends, thank you very much.
Dear Presenting Couple,
We felt very meaningful, enjoyable and fruitful to attend MPC,
to our surprise, it was much different from our imagination
about MPC.
Before we started MPC, we felt that it is a ‘must’ to us to
attend as required by our church. But as the weeks went by, we
felt that we are so blessed to have this chance to attend and
know more about MPC.
At first we thought that it will be conducted in the formal
lecture course, which only listen without any participation (one
way communication). But during the sessions, we are not only
sharing our feelings among couples, we are also learning from
our parenting couple (two way communications). It helps us know
more about our personality and real thinking. It is very useful
for our future planning for our marriage. And it serves the
purpose of MPC, which encourage us to focus more on our
MARRIAGE, but not our WEDDING.
Besides, we would like to take this opportunity to say thank you
to both of you. We sincerely appreciate for your willingness to
spend extra time for our separate session as we were not able to
attend the group session due to the funeral of our beloved aunt
in Malaysia.
We will definitely encourage our wed-to-be friends to attend MPC
because this is the only time that the couple will know more
about themselves before wedding.
God bless!”