Witness to Love: How to Help the Next Generation Build Marriages That Survive and Thrive

by Mary Rose Verret, Ryan Verret

Overview

Extraordinary marriages don't just happen. They flow from grace-filled, faithful, and fruitful covenants of love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781618906984
Publisher:	TAN Books
Publication date:	08/01/2015
Pages:	210
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Ryan and Mary-Rose Verret are the founders of Witness to Love, a not for profit marriage preparation renewal ministry.  The Witness to Love ministry has developed an innovative mentorship program which fosters dynamic marriage discipleship.  Witness to Love provides couples with a way to connect to their church and offers couples authentic accompaniment before and after the wedding day.  Learn more at www.witnesstolove.org.  

Table of Contents

Foreword ix

Introduction: If Love Is Not Revealed to Them 1

1 A State of Disunion: The Divorce Effect 9

2 Do You Have What It Takes? 23

3 Who Has Time for Mentoring? 37

4 The Mentorless Generation's Need for Solidarity 43

5 Saying "I Do" Each Day: The Heart of Our Marriage 63

6 Inside a Mentor Couple's Heart: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Marriage 75

7 Mentoring the "Unmarried" 89

8 After "I Do": Continuing the Mentorship 115

9 True Tales of Happily Ever After 133

10 The Shared Fruits of the Mentor Model 143

11 A Special Vocation: Saving Troubled Marriages 151

12 Marriage: A Glimpse of Heaven 163

A Note to Clergy 173

Notes 175

Bibliography 183

Resources 187

Acknowledgments 191

About the Authors 195

Editorial Reviews

There is a gaping hole at the heart of marriage and family today. Mary Rose and Ryan Verret offer not just a soothing and healing balm, but a transformational one. This book is the practical strategy parishes have been looking and waiting for. Use it well, best with some time in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

—Kathryn Jean Lopez, Editor-at-Large, National Review Online

Warning!  Reading this book will prick your conscience! The Verret’s do an excellent job convincing readers that once they get involved doing marriage preparation, their own marriages will be transformed.  Marriage mentors are needed today more than ever.  Nobody likes to hear the staggering percentages of failed marriages.  You can make a difference.  You can help save marriages.  If you don’t believe me, read Witness to Love.  
 
—Father John Paul Mary Zeller, MFVA, Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word, Irondale, Alabama

The current crises in marriages and families will not be solved by programs or policies. I believe we will only find lasting peace and growth within our “domestic churches” when we learn to emulate the love of Christ for his Church. The beautiful resource "Witness to Love" by Ryan and Mary-Rose Verret takes a huge step forward in personalizing marriage mentorship for young couples. This book has the power to touch not only young marriages, but also those of the mentor couples who willingly open themselves to God's grace working in and through them. I am grateful to the Verrets for providing a much needed framework for a critically important area in today's Church.

—Lisa M. Hendely, Founder of CatholicMom.com and author of The Grace of Yes (Ave Maria Press 2014)

In this ground-breaking book, Ryan and Mary-Rose Verret share hard-won insights drawn from years of personal experience ministering to engaged and newly-married couples. Many young couples today are children of divorce who have a deep-seated fear that their own relationships will end up in disaster. They may decide to cohabit or postpone marriage. Yet they long for faith-filled couples who will walk with them side-by-side, mentoring them along the path of a truly transformative Christian marriage. This book is for those who, though their own marriage is not perfect, are willing to consider how intentional mentoring can be a source of light and comfort to couples considering marriage or just starting out. The “mentorless generation” does not need more social media examples of perfectly fake lives; they need signs and witnesses of hope, practical support, and a real community of committed Christian couples. This book will help you get started as a mentor couple, as a couple who is willing to share as Saint Peter tells us, the reason for our hope.
 -Art and Laraine Bennett, authors of The Temperament God Gave You (Sophia Institute Press 2005), The Temperament God Gave Your Spouse (Sophia Institute Press 2008) The Temperament God Gave Your Kids (Our Sunday Visitor 2012), A Year of Grace (Our Sunday Visitor 2014), and The Emotions God Gave You (Word Among Us Press 2011).

"Witness to Love presents a simple and successful model for bringing engaged couples into genuine friendship with married couples whose lives show forth the grace of the Sacrament of Matrimony. Kudos to Ryan and Mary-Rose Verret for helping the Church truly be Church."  

—Dawn Eden  Author, My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints and The Thrill of the Chaste (Catholic Edition)

From the Publisher