History 4:“Love and Truth”: a training ground for inexperienced hearts
If love is a journey marked by well-defined stages, where the awareness of the true meaning of giving oneself totally to the other gradually grows, the movement “Love and Truth” certainly is a real help in bringing this maturation to its conclusion, especially in the delicate transition from engagement to the sacrament of marriage.
Founded in 1980, within the Emmanuel Community, as an offshoot devoted to the care of the family in all its dimensions, “Love and Truth” is based primarily on prayer, forgiveness and adoration of the Eucharist, moments of preparation for the conviviality and testimony that bind together thousands of couples, explains Emmanuel who, together with his wife Bénédicte, is the global president of the movement since 2009: «It is intended above all to share a life, a story, and not a set of ideas. Every true education happens through examples. We all need concrete models with human faces. These are personal testimonies of couples, who share our lives, with our poverty. The testimonials allow showing consistency between the theory and our personal lives».
The showpiece of the movement, which has been largely acclaimed in recent years, is the course of marriage preparation proposed in Europe (France, Belgium and Germany) and in Africa, where it is attended each year by over a thousand engaged couples. Their average age is high —approximately thirty years of age—, and most of them have long since begun their life as a couple, living together and having children. Some, moreover, have significantly moved away from the Church and share the widespread prejudices towards her; many are non-practicing and have incomplete or even insufficient catechetical notions. «In these cases — Bénédicte recalls — the first task of marriage preparation is precisely to make people aware of what the Church can give them. We must indeed say that engaged couples often come to marriage preparation because it’s a step that they feel is ‘mandatory’». For each of these types of faith — from complete absence to the proven strength — hence, among the many possibilities offered by Love and Truth, there is an ad-hoc premarital course that has the task of giving a teaching that, while its content is universal, has a form suited to the particular needs of the participants.
The meetings consist of precise moments: reception and encounter, prayer, the teaching given by a couple assisted by a priest, witnessing and sharing of the couple’s everyday life. Finally, the results at the end of the course are not slow in coming, as one of the many positive comments expressed by the participants, in many cases initially unconvinced, reminds us: «Since I’m not a believer, this preparation has allowed me to discover the beauty and greatness of Catholic marriage and has given me a real desire to commit myself…and not just to please my future wife!».
Information Card Category: Marriage preparation Realm of experience: Emmanuel Community. Love and Truth Country: France Contact (Emmanuel Community - Péniche Mont Thabor): BP 104-92203 Neuilly-sur-Seine (France) Tel. +33 1 47459630 Fax +33 1 47459631 Website: www.emmanuel.info Contact (Amour et Vérité): 91, boulevard Auguste Blanqui 75013 - Paris (France) Tel +33 01 58 10 74 12 Website: www.amouretverite.org