ESCONDIDO — Married couples are invited to include Jesus in their Valentine’s Day plans this year.
The sixth annual Diocesan Marriage Anniversary Mass will be celebrated at 11 a.m., Saturday, Feb. 14, at Resurrection Parish in Escondido. The celebrant will be Bishop Michael Pham.
The bilingual Mass will be followed by a reception with cake.
John Prust, director of the diocesan Office for Family Life and Spirituality, said that the purpose of the annual event is “to celebrate couples of all ages and stages who are in different places in the journey.”
“Everything in the Mass is focused on marriage,” he said, noting that the Mass readings are concerned with marriage, and married couples perform various roles at Mass, including lectors and offertory gift-bearers.
There is also a moment when married couples are invited to stand, based on how many years they have been married, and to be recognized.
Prust said that, when the Marriage Anniversary Mass was held at Good Shepherd Parish in Mira Mesa last year, they had a couple who had been married for more than 70 years.
“At the end, everybody is standing,” he said, “so there’s a real sense that we’re all in this together.”
Prust explained that the diocese began offering its Marriage Anniversary Mass after it was noted that, despite the importance of marriage to the Church and society, there wasn’t any large-scale diocesan event that “honors, recognizes (and) celebrates marriage or family.”
He said that he hopes this diocesan event might inspire individual parishes to celebrate their own Marriage Anniversary Masses.
“Parishes wouldn’t have to do a standalone Mass either,” he said, explaining that they could simply choose one of the Masses that will already be celebrated on World Marriage Day, which is observed on the second Sunday in February, and designate it as their parish’s Marriage Anniversary Mass.
For information on marriage enrichment, call (858) 490-8256 or email jprust@sdcatholic.org.
