Congratulations on your engagement !

Pre-Cana is a day-long experience where you as a couple can concentrate on each other, free of the tensions, pressures and interruptions of the world. It is a quiet day specifically designed to give you an opportunity to dialogue honestly and intensively about your future lives together…your strengths and weaknesses, your desires, ambitions, goals, your attitudes about money, sex, children, family, and your role in the Church and society.

WHAT HAPPENS?

Through a series of topics discussed by a team of married couples, you are invited to dialogue privately with each other on all aspects of married life - always from the viewpoint of your own relationship – that remain between just you two. Personal reflection and couple dialogue are an important part of the day, with common meals and Saturday Mass.

TO REGISTER:

Please fill in the information on this registration page:

https://www.osvhub.com/stmarychardon/forms/precana2025

Blessings to you and your fiance as you prepare for marriage! Our clergy, staff, and parish community pledge our assistance to you in every way as you prepare to lay down your lives for one another in marriage. We invite you to review the resources on this page, especially our Wedding Policy linked in the documents tab, to better understand what the Diocese of Cleveland and St. Mary Parish require for marriage in the Catholic Church. A Wedding Liturgy Planning Form is also linked in the documents tab to assist you as you plan the wedding liturgy.

Couples should contact the Parish Office at least six months before the proposed date of the wedding.   Attendance is required at a Pre-Cana Day or Engaged Encounter Weekend.  

The next Pre-Cana Day will be held at St. Mary's Parish on March 29, 2025.

Sacred Scripture begins with the creation and union of man and woman and ends with "the wedding feast of the Lamb" (Rev 19:7, 9). Scripture often refers to marriage, its origin and purpose, the meaning God gave to it, and its renewal in the covenant made by Jesus with his Church.  Man and woman were created for each other.

By their marriage, the couple witnesses Christ's spousal love for the Church. One of the Nuptial Blessings in the liturgical celebration of marriage refers to this in saying, "Father, you have made the union of man and wife so holy a mystery that it symbolizes the marriage of Christ and his Church." 

The Sacrament of Marriage is a covenant, which is more than a contract. Covenant always expresses a relationship between persons. The marriage covenant refers to the relationship between the husband and wife, a permanent union of persons capable of knowing and loving each other and God. The celebration of marriage is also a liturgical act, appropriately held in a public liturgy at church. Catholics are urged to celebrate their marriage within the Eucharistic Liturgy.