An initiative of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

National Marriage Week: Friday Fast for Life, Marriage, and Religious Liberty

The U.S. bishops are promoting a pastoral strategy of prayer, penance, and fasting with the goal of rebuilding a culture of life and marriage and protecting religious liberty. One of five components of the pastoral strategy is an invitation to fast and abstain from meat on Fridays from now until November 24, 2013 (the Feast of Christ the King).

You can sign the pledge to fast on Fridays by visiting www.usccb.org/fast.

You can sign up at the same page for email reminders and a weekly intention and reflection. Or you can text “FAST” to 99000 to receive weekly text reminders.

This weeks’ intention and reflection

Intention: For a greater reverence for the gift of marriage and family in our nation and for the healing of those suffering from troubled or broken marriages, especially children. (Written by Bishop Kevin Rhoades, Fort Wayne-South Bend, Chairman of USCCB Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth)

Reflection: February 7-14 is National Marriage Week, a collaborative effort to strengthen individual marriages, reduce the divorce rate, and build a stronger culture of marriage. In an address to Latin American and Caribbean bishops in 2011, Pope Benedict XVI lauded precisely this kind of marriage-building initiative: “No effort is therefore wasted in promoting anything that can help to ensure that each family, founded on the indissoluble union between a man and a woman, accomplishes its mission of being a living cell of society, a nursery of virtues, a school of constructive and peaceful coexistence, an instrument of harmony and a privileged environment in which human life is welcomed and protected, joyfully and responsibly, from its beginning until its natural end.”

Did you know? Strong marriages and families benefit society in numerous ways. A USCCB review of research on the benefits generated from families rooted in marriage can be found here: “Marriage and the Family in the United States: Resources for Society.”

One response to “National Marriage Week: Friday Fast for Life, Marriage, and Religious Liberty”

  1. Bhavana says:

    pls prayer for me marriage my daughter and family give me peace of mind

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