I’m thrilled to be sharing an upcoming event with all of you!
This year, the Diocese of Lincoln’s Office of Family Life and Evangelization began hosting a monthly “Date Night” for married and engaged couples. It’s a chance for us to get a night out on the town, eat some complimentary hors d’oeuvres, hear a great speaker, and meet others who are fighting the good fight.
This Friday, July 24th, our friends, Mary and Joe Mulka, are the guest speakers presenting at Date Night. Philip and I met Mary and Joe through our parish when we signed up for GodTeens. I think I died when I realized their names are MARY AND JOSEPH. Never again would I forget! Could they be any more adorable? They are a wonderful, faith-filled couple, and I hope you can come to hear their message.
Mary and Joe
The Mulka Family
This Friday’s Date Night topic is family prayer, and Mary and Joe will be talking about their own experience. It will be an opportunity for couples to hear how a real family is weaving prayer into the craziness of daily life. As Mary told me, their talk, “is based on our testimony and how we came to realize that prayer and communication is essential in marriage and then flows into our family life. It is more based on personal experience then theological information.”
I am so grateful to Mary and Joe for stepping out of their comfort zone to reach out and share a little glimpse into what trying to live out the faith looks like in their house. How cool that the Diocese is providing us an opportunity to get to be in the same room as so many like-minded couples who face the same day-to-day struggles and are persevering together!
Catholic author Matthew Kelly likes to call the Catholic laity (non-clergy) a “sleeping giant.” There are far more members of the Church that are not priests or religious brothers and sisters, and most of us are floundering in our call to live as intentional disciples of Jesus. As the sleeping giant, most of us don’t realize the power God is giving us to transform our culture through the gift of our vocation to marriage. All of us (not just the clergy and religious!) are called to sainthood.
Kudos to the Diocese of Lincoln’s Office of Family Life and Evangelization for creating this monthly Date Night to awaken the sleeping giant. Not only will we walk away with some practical advice and tools, but we’ll be reaffirmed knowing that we’re not alone. We’ll be encouraged to better live out our vocation of marriage in our unique, irreplaceable roles as husbands and fathers, wives and mothers.
