On Saturday, January 14, 2023, in the shadow of the Fidelitatis Shrine in Otwock, Świder/Poland, the first “Methodological Workshop for Leaders of Couples Groups” took place in the auditorium of the Provincial House of the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary.

Three main subject areas

The meeting was attended by 17 couples from the dioceses of Warsaw, Warsaw-Prague, Bydgoszcz, Grudziądz and Toruń. The meeting was divided into three major subject blocks.

The first block, which took up the whole morning, was given by an expert, Agnieszka Rogalska, a graduate in Marriage and Family Studies. She is a professor at the Faculty of Family Sciences (Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw) and works, among other things, at the Family Support Foundation. In her presentation, Ms. Rogalska gave us a solid foundation for designing events for families.

The joy of learning

We were able to learn in detail how to organize an ideal meeting, how to run it, how to involve the participants and how to communicate well. We received a lot of practical advice and an insight into the joy that can come from holding such a meeting. The joy offsets the hard work of preparation and the stress of organizing these meetings.

After lunch, Sister M. Edyta Frankowska gave a lecture. She spoke about the prerequisites, ideas, and methods of the three-year training course for couples who share leadership tasks in the Schoenstatt family work. Then Sister M. Olga Szwałek gave us an overview of the objectives and topics covered in each of the years of formation.

At the end of the day, the date of the next workshop was set. The participants from the dioceses of Warsaw and Warsaw-Prague, took the initiative and will give a lecture to the families on a topic of their choice.