Marriage Preparation Courses of the Commission for Family are conducted in English and Hindi alternatively every month (except in March & June) in Delhi order to help the couples planning to get marry. The programme aims at helping the couples discern the choice of partners, provide them with a deeper understanding of Christian marriage and basic skills to cope with the challenges in married life. At the end of the three days programme a certificate of attendance is given which is mandatory for getting married in the Archdiocese of Delhi.

In the dioceses of Jalandhar, Jammu-Srinagar and Shimla-Chandigarh Marriage Preparation Courses are announced perodicaly to be held at the diocesan pastoral centers and deanery centers

Some Frequently Asked Questions

Our Family Enrichment Workshops are resource programmes which support families who may be at risk because of social, psychological or financial stress. The Family Enrichment Workshops aim at strengthening their ability to deal with the issues affecting family life.

We currently offer three marriage and family enrichment programmes: CANA REVISIT, CHRISTIAN PARENTING and FIRST STEPS COURSE. Our experienced resource persons assist parish groups in conducting these workshops at their places, in Hindi and English.

Cana Revisit

There is a need to continually strengthen the bond of marriage, and to deepen the couple's intimate relationship and friendship through effective communication and the sincere gift of self. The CANA REVISIT workshop helps couples with the knowledge and tools to achieve greater marital happiness and unity. The module consists of Theology of Marriage, Theology of the Body, Communication Skills and Conflict Management, supported by the sharing of a couple in the Archdiocese of Delhi.

Similar marriage enrichment programmes are conducted in the other regional dioceses.

Christian Parenting

This workshop focuses on educating parents on four major recognised parenting styles: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and disengaged. Each one carries different characteristics and brings about different reactions in the children who are raised with them.

We intend to develop more modules to help the parent education process in order to enrich families. Parishes and groups may contact the Director of the Family Apostolate or the Coordinators for booking workshops and assistance.

First Steps Program

A practical program for couples to prepair them spritualy, medicaly, emotionally for there forthcoming child is conducted in Archdiocese Of Delhi by expertes. This programme includes pre-natal and post-natal care of the babies and mothers.This programme needs prior registration and open to all, including couples from other dioceses. with very young children — from newborn to 3 years old — helping parents develop the basic good habits of orderliness, good sleeping and eating habits, hygiene and virtues in their children. It provides technical information on early childhood education.

Trained counsellors are available at Yusuf Sadan, New Delhi and Counselling Room, Bishop's House, Sector 19A, Chandigarh-160019, offering compassionate pastoral support for families and individuals facing difficulty in married and family life. Sessions are by appointment only and are held in confidence.

Are you looking for a way to increase the love and romance in your marriage? Do you need time just for the two of you to restore communication, renew commitment and rekindle romance … to fall in love all over again? A Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend Experience may be the answer!

Instead of simply listening to lectures about how to improve your marriage, you will actually learn a practical communication technique and have an opportunity to rediscover your hopes and dreams for your marriage.

Worldwide Marriage Encounter is a Movement which aims to give couples who are engaged, married, or in long-standing relationships and commitment the opportunity to enrich and refresh their relationships. It also seeks to give priests and religious the chance to reflect on their vocation and enhance their relationship with their parish and community.

The story of Worldwide Marriage Encounter began in 1952 when a young priest in Spain, Father Gabriel Calvo, began developing a series of conferences for married couples, whose focus was on the development of an open and honest relationship within marriage and learning to live out a sacramental relationship in the service of others. Each presentation ended with a question designed to encourage the couple to look at the concepts presented in terms of their own relationship. For approximately 10 years, the "marriage teams of Pope Pius XII," as the presentations were called, travelled throughout Spain with this series of conferences for married couples.

Worldwide Marriage Encounter is considered the first marriage enrichment programme offered to married couples. Through living the concepts of the foundational experience, their sacraments come alive. Couples are empowered to become evangelisers by witnessing to God's love. Priests and religious are called into greater communion with their people; they are not alone in carrying out the mission of the Church. The community that emerges is a real experience of the Church.

For Clarification or Registration

The Yuvak Yuvati Parichay Samaroh is a programme to introduce young Christian men and women seeking suitable marriage partners. The programme is held twice a year — normally at Yusuf Sadan, S.H. Cathedral Campus, New Delhi on the last Sunday of April and the first Sunday of November each year. The candidates are introduced directly along with their relatives. Partcipents come from the northen region of India

The Parish Family Cell (PFC) is a coordinating body of the representative families of a parish for the needs of the families, through families and by representative families, to build up the domestic church as envisaged by the Church documents. The CCBI Pastoral plan envisage the creation and promotion of PFCs in order to help lay people and religious reach out to other families for pastoral accompaniment.

1. Aims of PFCs

• Supporting clergy in family pastoral care
• Empowering parish leadership
• Building and encouraging community
• Providing couples with support in parish communities
• Making families happy, holy and healthy

2. Role of the PFCs

• To provide Family Catechesis
• To build Christ-centred homes that pray
• To recognize the equality and human dignity of all, especially the woman and girl child
• To prepare Natural Family Planning instructors in each Sector/Area of the parish
• To make spousal couples aware of social evils
• To conscientize the families about anti-family / anti-life tendencies
• To counsel and support families in crisis
• To help create a sense of belongingness to one's own family
• To make the parish a family of families

3. Mission Statement

To build stable Christ-centred happy families which will strengthen spousal relationships and promote effective Christian parenting.

4. Vision

• Make the family aware of its role and mission (Educational)
• Development of a healthy family life (Preventive)
• Reaching out to families in distress (Therapeutic)