The Life, Marriage and Family team serves parishes and its communities through initiatives that build a culture that supports marriages and families in their vocations and affirms the dignity of the human person.
We collaboratively work with parish priests, local leaders and apostolates to provide opportunities for spiritual encounter, growth and formation in the sacramental, RCIA, marriage, family, men’s and women’s spaces.
Please explore our offerings and feel free to get in touch with our team members to explore how we can support the cultivation of truth and love, dignity and beauty, evangelisation and mission within your parish communities, for the renewal of our Church.
The annual “Life, Marriage and Family Sunday”, was established in response to the World Meeting of Families held in 2018, emphasising the universal call to celebrate and support family life.
The Life, Marriage and Family Sunday event will be held again at St Mary’s Cathedral on Sunday, 20 October, starting with Mass at 10:30am.
Married couples from Sydney parishes celebrating significant wedding anniversaries – 10, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50+ years can receive a certificate from Bishop Richard Umbers at the gathering at the Cathedral Hall after Mass.
Registrations are required by the 6th of October 2024 via www.trybooking.com/CSMXS
This year, with the encouragement of Bishop Umbers, we invite Sydney parishes to also celebrate Life, Marriage and Family Sunday in their local parishes and communities on Sunday, 20th of October 2024, coinciding with the Feast Day of St John Paul II.
To assist parishes prepare for local celebrations of Life, Marriage and Family Sunday, we have included the following resources:
The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) is an ancient process of becoming Catholic, developed through the ages by the Catholic Church and inspired by Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is for adult converts, including those from other Christian backgrounds and religions.
The journey takes place in four spiritual periods: the period of enquiry (personally encountering Jesus Christ), period of the catechumenate (coming to know Him and His Church), period of purification and enlightenment (accepting Him as your personal Saviour), followed by receiving Him through the sacraments—Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist—during the Easter Vigil, and living out your new life in the final period.
Ultimately, the RCIA journey is designed to accompany you towards a deep faith, integration into a supportive parish community, and develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
“The sacraments of Christian initiation – Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist – lay the foundations of every Christian life. “The sharing in the divine nature given to men through the grace of Christ bears a certain likeness to the origin, development, and nourishing of natural life.” – CCC, 1212
The Sacraments of Initiation bring Christians into the life of the Church and into friendship with Jesus Christ. With them the gift of faith is planted and developed as we grow into physical and spiritual adulthood. Our receptions of these sacraments are not occasions which quickly recede into the past, frozen in time, but a continuing source of support and help to all who want to deepen the life of faith in their own hearts.
Being initiated into Christian life through the sacraments brings with it an invitation to share in the communion of love which unites the Holy Trinity and which gives light to the whole world through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Through Baptism, the new children of God enter into this life of love and service; through Reconciliation, they are once again renewed in grace after times when they fail to live up to their new vocation; and through the Eucharist, they are given the divine nourishment to strengthen them on their journey. Confirmation will give them the courage for the difficult witness that life in the secular city will require of them.
Resources for Sacramental Preparation can be found:
“When a husband and wife are united in marriage they no longer seem like something earthly, but rather like the image of God himself.”- St. John Chrysostom
“If Catholics would simply live the Sacrament of Matrimony for one generation, we would witness a transformation of society and have a Christian culture.” ― Scott Hahn
“We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become.”- St. Clare of Assisi
“Love should be seen as something which in a sense never ‘is’ but is always only ‘becoming,’ and what it becomes depends upon the contribution of both persons and the depth of their commitment.”- St. John Paul II
“We need a Church capable of walking at people’s side …a Church able to make sense of the ‘night’ contained in the flight of so many of our brothers and sisters …a Church that realizes that the reasons why people leave also contain reasons why they can eventually return.” – Pope Francis
“Each family finds within itself a summons that cannot be ignored, and that specifies both its dignity and its responsibility…” (Extract from St John Paul II Apostolic Exhortation, Familiaris Consortio 17).
The Family makes a significant contribution to the culture. It is “the first and vital cell of society”. In our current landscape, the family is continually influenced by the surrounding culture and faces many challenges as it seeks to preserve and promote genuine human values in the home and wider society. The Life, Marriage and Family team exists to support families, our domestic churches, with opportunities of formation and resources.
The gift of children is the greatest blessing in a marriage. Parents are the guardians of their children and have the first responsibility to educate and provide spiritual, material, emotional, and physical support to their children.
Family Resources
This Jubilee celebrates the importance of the family unit, recognising the unique roles played by children and grandparents; and also honours the elderly members of our communities, some of whom are without family members of their own.
Catholic Women’s Network (CWN) exists to support Catholic women in Sydney and beyond in living faith-filled lives and making an impact in the wider community. Inspired and shaped by this faith, the Network seeks to connect individual women to each other and existing women’s ministries.
CWN also seeks to support and enrich Catholic women by creating new opportunities, programs and initiatives.
Maximus Men’s Ministry Network exists to connect men’s groups, apostolates, leaders, supporters and clergy in faith and brotherhood throughout Sydney and beyond.
The Network promotes the good works of the many parish men’s groups and apostolates, provides opportunities for spiritual gatherings and formation, and sharing of resources.
“Fertility Awareness methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom.” Catechism of the Catholic Church 2370
Natural fertility awareness methods can be used to conceive or space children in a way that is in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church. It can also be used to diagnose and treat a variety of reproductive health issues.
As part of its commitment to leadership and formation, expressed in the mission plan Go Make Disciples, the Sydney Centre for Evangelisation in the Archdiocese of Sydney has partnered with the Theology of Body (TOB) Institute to provide more accessible opportunities for Catholics in Sydney and beyond to be trained and formed in the Theology of the Body as proclaimed by Pope St John Paul II.
Through this partnership, our hope is that Australians are introduced and re-energised with this most important and crucial ‘masterwork’ and reach men and women in every state of life with a hopeful, liberating vision of human identity that appeals to the deepest yearnings of the heart for love and union.
The ‘Theology of the Body’ illuminates the fundamental human desire for love and fulfilment as revealed in our creation as male and female.
Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney
