Together in Holiness, a conference presented by the St. John Paul II Foundation, was held in the Columbus diocese for the first time on Saturday, Oct. 4 at Gahanna St. Matthew the Apostle Church.
The St. John Paul II Foundation, headquartered in Houston, Texas, proclaims the Gospel of life and family through education and formation. Its Together in Holiness conference inspires spouses to grow in holiness and empowers parents to form their children in the Catholic faith.
The event was presented in partnership with the diocesan Office of Evangelization & Catechesis.
Married and engaged couples explored the vocation of marriage and family life during the daylong event. The conference included local and national speakers, time for prayer and discussion, the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist, and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
“There’s a lot of good marriage prep material. There’s stuff that helps couples when they’re in trouble, but there was not as much … in between to assist couples to not just survive marriage but to thrive,” explained Roland Millare, vice president of curriculum and director of clergy initiatives at the foundation.
Together in Holiness does not simply fill in the gap. The conference encourages and helps couples spend their marriage growing together in holiness.
“We’re all called to be saints. Marriage is, like Holy Orders, a sacrament in service of communion,” Millare emphasized. “The vision is for couples to realize that they can be saints in their married life, in their life as parents, grandparents.”
The event explored the supernatural aspect of marriage – that matrimony is a sacrament and couples are called to be a living sign – and offered couples practical tools for growing in holiness, developing a prayer life and raising their children.
“They realize they’re not alone. They encounter other couples that are struggling to live the same life that they are,” Millare noted. “They can hopefully develop some friendships, receive that grace and that encounter with the Lord with each other.”
The St. John Paul II Foundation also offers a Together in Holiness series for couples after the conference. Several parishes in the Columbus diocese currently offer the series for ongoing formation.
“We get continuing education, formation in our varying professions: in law, in journalism, in education, engineering, but yet, we don’t do this with respect to the faith, which we need to do more,” Millare said. “If parents are to be the primary educators, then we should have continuing education and formation.”
Each Together in Holiness conference is broken into three talks: a foundational theological talk rooted in Scripture, the early Church Fathers and lives of the saints; a practical presentation offered by a local couple; and a talk from national speakers with a sending mission.
At the Columbus conference, Renzo and Monica Ortega, authors, national speakers and hosts of the marriage podcast Two Become Family, spoke about a season in their 13-year marriage comparable to the story of Exodus in the Bible.
The couple, who are parents of five children and reside in Connecticut, met when Renzo was in second grade and Monica was in first. Having been friends for years in childhood, the two dated through high school and college before marrying.
The Ortegas said, because they grew up together and were high school sweethearts, they assumed marriage would be easy. Marriage was difficult in ways they did not imagine.
“That was alarming to us because we felt like we had done all the right things: We got married in the Church, we’ve done our marriage prep, we were not ignorant to Theology of the Body, we had a good priest who helped us through our marriage prep,” Monica recalled.
“We didn’t want to get divorced, but there was a point in our marriage that we thought we might not make it,” Renzo added. “This is after two, three years in – two, three kids in – we did not think that we’d be able to have this.”
The Ortegas reminded couples that they made a choice to prioritize their marriage and center it on Jesus Christ, His Church and the faith. Monica acknowledged it can be complicated, difficult and a daily choice.
“We, at some point in our marriage – and it happened a lot faster than we thought – we had to start making the choices to choose our marriage,” she said.
The couple learned that marriage often reveals to heal.
“God was revealing something to us about us, about our spouse that need healing, that needed to be worked on, that needed to be fixed – and our marriage, because of its permanence, because we’re not going to get divorced, it’s a permanent reminder of that road to healing,” Monica explained. “It’s a permanent reminder of more and more is going to be revealed.”
Every time they fought, thought negatively about each other or received corrective criticism, they believed something in their marriage was broken.
“I cannot tell you how many fights we had, and they were the same fight over and over and over again, and they were about all the things and nothing at the same time,” Renzo admitted.
As they struggled to love, Renzo said they learned that they must allow themselves to first be loved by Christ. They had to receive God’s love to love each other.
“Usually we try to grind our way to holiness, right? There’s the grind culture that says that if you want to get better, go be better, go do better, go do more, wake up at 5, do the things you got to do, work out – everything,” Renzo said. “That’s not how grace works.
“We have to allow the Lord, and we cooperate with the Lord, so that He loves us. First love is revealed to us. We encounter love, and then we experience it and make it our own.”
Renzo was not fulfilling his vocational call to love his wife as Christ loved and died for the Church.
He said he discovered that he was a “passive man.” He failed to take initiative and waited for Monica to tell him what to do.
Fear of making a mistake or not doing the “right thing” led him to do nothing unless directed by his wife.
“That’s built into our masculinity, to be the ones that initiate. When you are passive, there’s something in our marriage that was a little bit broken because she ended up having to say, ‘Do this; do this; do this,’ and then it was an extra thing put on her,” Renzo recalled.
“I would say things like, ‘I would die on a cross; I would take a bullet for her,’ but I didn’t clean up after myself,” he explained. “I would ‘die for her,’ but I wouldn’t die for her in the little things, and that’s where God challenged me.”
Monica had her struggles, too. She thought motherhood would come naturally, she said, but found it difficult and humbling. She reached a point where she wanted to escape.
She recalled feeling as though she were drowning or suffocating. Marriage was not as Monica thought it would be, so she believed she was the problem.
She had disordered her identity by putting her worth into performance and perfection. A former high school teacher, she received affirmation as a favorite teacher and from her students excelling.
Motherhood, she explained, did not come with a pat on the back or bonus on a paycheck. She worked through struggles with codependency – being a “people pleaser” – and avoiding conflict by escapism.
She reminded the audience that God brought the Israelites through the exodus in Egypt. Christ brings His people through the cross to the resurrection.
“Jesus died for you and for your marriage, for your family, so your spouse is a permanent reminder of that reality, of that Gospel message – the whole part of it,” she said.
“Our spouse is a reminder that suffering is real, and our spouse is also a reminder that unconditional love is real. The two can coexist.”
“The sacrifices, the difficulties that God brings about were beautiful,” Renzo added, “because He brings about suffering in ways that we don’t realize how He’s using it, but He made me better for when I needed to be better.”
Devonte and Alexina McKee, who are parishioners at Pickerington St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish, enjoyed dedicating time to their marriage at the conference.
“It was one of those things that you put on your calendar the same way you do vacations,” Devonte said of the conference, “because maybe down the line I’m going to need this.”
The husband and father is a school counselor at Westerville St. Paul the Apostle and his wife is a nurse. The couple have been married for seven years and have three children.
They appreciated spending a day with like-minded couples.
“You’re talking with other people, building that community with other people and being able to see other people’s struggles and know that you’re not alone,” Devonte explained. “A huge thing of being in a marriage is being able to have those resources, so it’s super nice to be able to have that today.”
The McKees were also reminded of the sacrificial nature of matrimony.
“The quote that has really continued to sit on my heart would be, ‘This is My Body given up for you,’” Alexina said, “that constant sacrificing and remembering I’m not just here in this body, but my body is truly for my spouse, and what am I doing to be that light and joy of God to my spouse?”
“Offering yourself the same way Christ has offered Himself up to us is something that really stuck out to me,” Devonte added. “To be able to do that just seems like a calling for us.”
Kevin and Kathi Lowry, parishioners at Columbus Holy Family Church, served as local speakers at the conference. Kevin is an author and chief finance officer for the diocese, and Kathi spent 30 years homeschooling their eight now-adult children.
The couple met at Franciscan University of Steubenville, although both were not Catholic. They married in 1989 and converted to Catholicism three years later.
They offered five practical tips for marriage. Kevin encouraged couples foremost to pray relentlessly followed by speaking to their spouse with honor. Spouses, they noted, can differ in how they speak.
The Lowrys explained that Kathi is not a words-of-affirmation person, while Kevin was raised by a very affirmative mother. “He arrived to me like that, thinking that I should be so effusive with such positive words to him every day of his life, and I am not,” Kathi said.
When communicating, they encouraged couples to stay present. The Lowrys read in a book that a couple who brought up past arguments was not “staying in Cleveland.”
“They were taking the argument to Cincinnati or to Columbus. They brought in all of this other junk that was from a long time ago,” Kathi said of the analogy.
“We get to say to each other, ‘Hey, you just left Columbus. You’re not allowed to do that.’ We get to stay here in today’s argument, stay present in the moment.”
They noted, thirdly, forgiveness is essential in marriage. Kevin concluded that if people truly understood the value of forgiveness, they would wait for people to wrong them simply so they could forgive.
Kathi shared a story of her last conversation with her father before he died. In tears, she told the audience that he rejected her.
A diocesan priest guided her in understanding that she could choose self-pity or forgive her father and offer that pain to God.
“That’s the power of redemptive suffering,” Kevin noted. “It’s something that we didn’t understand at all in our upbringing as non-Catholics, but it’s been very profound and hugely helpful because it’s just another way that the Lord has infused into us that we can use for our own benefit and for others.”
They advised couples to be present to their spouse, and finally, accept challenges in marriage.
Kevin explained that suffering brings joy, so individuals should desire it. He recognized the level of trust in God required to pray in thanksgiving for suffering.
“I think some of the saints are on this, in terms of how the particular cross that we’re given has been measured specifically for us and for our sanctification and salvation,” he said.
Millare presented on the Holy Eucharist and family as the domestic church. Every family, he said, has a mission to guard, reveal and communicate love.
Families are a living reflection of the Trinity. They reflect love shared between God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They share in God’s love for humanity and the Church, His bride.
To fulfill the mission of love, couples were encouraged to practice presence, sacrifice and communion.
Millare asked couples to consider if they are fully and intentionally present to their spouse. Couples considered obstacles and resolutions to giving their spouse a gift of presence.
Married love, Millare explained, foreshadows the sacrificial love of Christ the Bridegroom. Spouses are called to make a free gift of themselves.
In communion, the audience was encouraged to take steps as a couple and family to grow closer to Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
The conference concluded with a 5 p.m. Mass of Anticipation (for Sunday Mass) at St. Matthew Church celebrated by Bishop Earl Fernandes.
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