TAHA Newsletter Spring 2014
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Transcript of TAHA Newsletter Spring 2014
Lauren Alexander, who besides being Julie’s right
hand in the Alexander home, is also our Direc-
tor of Communications. She has been very busy
learning all about social media and keeping our
Facebook friends and Twitter followers up to
date with our activities and latest news. She was
recently invited to give a talk to young girls on
the importance of taking care of themselves and
the dignity they have as beloved daughters of
God. The response she received was over-
whelming, so much so that many of the girls
who heard her testimony are asking her to men-
tor them.
Our Director of Operations, Graciela, runs the
office behind the scenes but also finds time to
share her passion for the Truth wherever there
is a need. She was invited to give a talk on the
importance of Virtues in the Family to the par-
ents of Confirmation students at St. John the
Evangelist, as well as a talk about Marriage and
Love to both parents and Confirmandis at Our
Lady of Guadalupe in Helotes, TX. Graciela has
also given various talks to the Comunidad de
Matrimonios at Holy Trinity Catholic Church,
and we're happy to announce that they will soon
be the first official Covenant of Love Spanish
partner parish.
All of this would be impossible without the
blessing of our amazing team of volunteers who
are willing to share their time and friendship
with us. Thank you, to all of you!
Growth takes time, trust, and a willingness
to follow the Lord no matter where He
takes you. At The Alexander House we are
constantly amazed at the things God does
when we strive to do His will. For almost
15 years, the ministry Julie and Greg founded
in appreciation to God for having saved
them from what seemed a sure divorce has
been slowly but steadily growing. We know
there's still much to do and that we must
never become too comfortable, thinking our
work is finished. However, we have some
very good news to share with you.
Thanks to a very generous anonymous do-
nor at our benefit dinner in November 2013,
we were able to bring a full time Director of
Covenant of Love onboard --Steve Pokorny,
who has been a blessing to the Alexander
House family. Among Steve's many responsi-
bilities, he has the duty of acting as a liaison
between our partner parishes and the home
office. His position is vital to ensuring our
partners receive the care and attention they
deserve by addressing any questions or con-
cerns they may have. This is especially valu-
able for those new partners who are unfa-
miliar with how to implement Covenant of
Love successfully in their parish. His creative
attentiveness also provides the opportunity
for other projects to be developed and of-
fered to parishes and individual couples,
allowing The Alexander House to further its
mission of building a culture of marriage.
We're happy to report we now have 5 cou-
ples trained as Marriage Disicples and are
working very hard at walking with those
couples who come to us in need of strength-
ening and rebuilding their relationships. It's
been a long and slow process, but we're
working diligently to streamline it so many
more couples who are willing to serve the
Lord by serving others will have the training
and tools they need to proclaim the beauty,
goodness, and truth of God’s plan for Mar-
riage.
For a long time we have been aware of the
need to not only have good faithful Catholic
therapists to whom to refer our clients in
case of need, but also someone who can take
care of them at the home office. We are very
grateful to have Angel Estrada volunteering
with us as our in-house counselor. He brings
with him many years of experience, a vast
amount of knowledge, a passion for the Faith,
and a true sense of compassion for all those
whose lives he touches.
Not all work is limited to the office; our team
has also been keeping busy, giving talks wher-
ever there is a need to hear the Good News
about Marriage and Family. In the past
months, Greg and Julie have visited more than
25 parishes all around the country: Kentucky
in January, Michigan in February, with Texas in
between, and finally a long tour in California
in March. At this pace who knows when
they'll be home!
Steve has shared his passion for Love and Life
giving talks at different events throughout the
Archdiocese of San Antonio. At the March for
Life in Del Rio, he was the keynote speaker, in
February he was invited to give a Confirma-
tion retreat at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in
Selma, and returned again in March to talk to
the middle school students about the beauty
of the vocation of Marriage. At the University
of the Incarnate Word he challenged students
to learn “How to Have an Awesome Love
Life.”
TAHA KEEPS GROWING… THANKS TO YOU!
Love ConnectionsLove Connections From our House to your Home
“ Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a
branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it
remains on the vine, so neither can you unless
you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the
branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him
will bear much fruit, because without me you
can do nothing.” (John 15:1-5)
SPRING 2014
Once again we headed out on the Great Marriage Challenge and as it has been an all previous tours the way to the West Coast was not with-out opposition; winding our way up the steep hills of the grey and jagged edged mountains of Devils Canyon proved to be no easy task. When we finally made it to the “other side” of the mountain the descent brought on another challenge as we experienced our first blow-out while heading for Murrieta, CA. This actually gave us some time for reflection as we waited for road-side assistance to arrive. After an hour or so of waiting a white truck pulled up like a knight in shin-ing armor and a kind gentleman proceeded to fix our flat. To our amazement this angel in disguise had only one tire on his truck and it hap-pened to be the exact size we needed. Coincidence? I think not!
God allowed us to experience this season of Lent in a practical way as our Great Marriage Challenge took us to the (arch)dioceses of San Fran-cisco and Oakland, San Jose and Santa Rosa. Ed Hopfner, the Director of Marriage and Family Life Office for the Archdiocese of San Francisco and Mimi Streett, the Director of Marriage and Family Life Office for the Diocese of Oakland, filled our calendars with Marriage on Fire pres-entations and Enjoy Your Marriage workshops which resulted in getting us in front of more than 1,000 people. For us this meant praying for these couples, offering up our sacrifice and penance for them and trusting God to provide for our needs during this time.
Our California mission began with a presentation at St Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, CA where there were several priests and 75 seminarians in attendance. Not only was their re-sponse to the beauty of Marriage amazing, we later discovered many of them became the most avid pro-moters for our subsequent talks as
couples came up and attributed their being there to the invitations of these priests and seminarians. The next 15 days and 17 presentations were filled with hun-gry souls and hurting hearts of couples who were in need of help and hope for their marriages. Everywhere we went we received an overwhelming response, which made very evident there are many couples who have been yearning for not just the information but for a practical way to live out their sacrament of mar-riage. As always, God turned water into wine and there were many healings and miracles.
Talk after talk individuals and couples flooded our inbox with stories of hope and love that had been rekindled. Some cou-ples shared the devastation they were experiencing and how they were hanging on by their last thread. After a talk one couple in particular, exclaimed, “We have our divorce papers signed and we came here tonight as a last ditch effort”. Julie invited them to the upcoming Enjoy Your Marriage workshop and chided, “Come spend the day with us on Saturday and bring your divorce papers with you so we can set them on fire”. After the workshop, we are overjoyed to report, the couple made the decision to continue to work on their marriage. One participant emailed thanking us for the wonderful marriage workshop on Saturday saying “I seriously could have continued all evening listening to you. You have such a special gift. When we got home I had the biggest smile on my face and my husband asked me: "What are you so happy about?" and I responded: "What do you mean? There is HOPE." At times I have been feeling hopeless and wanted to give up. This weekend at least gave me hope. I know there is a lot of work ahead of us and I hope that once the excitement dies down a little we will still be able to continue on the right path and not a path of destruc-tion.”
Distance was the common thread in most of the couples but the daylong workshops seemed to resurrect their love for one an-other as they embraced and prayed to God for an intention or a thanksgiving in their marriage. We are always amazed to witness the many miracles right before our very eyes.
Because no one can out-do God in gener-osity we were blessed by having the pleasure to meet with Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. He is the Chairman for the Subcommittee for the promotion and Defense of Marriage for the USCCB, and has been doing an amazing job in explaining the need for strong marriages. In our conversation we shared the reality that the best defense for marriage is to get people who said “I Do” to live it well and to be an attractive sign of God’s love to others. He truly is a Shepherd looking out for the flock that God has entrusted to him.
With all the blessings God has showered on us we can honestly say that the high-light of the tour was being able to meet face-to-face with the couples that have been hosting Date Night at their parishes, who through their willingness to serve other couples they have made a differ-ence for marriage; we heard several testi-monies that because of the Parish part-nering with Covenant of Love and having Date Night a number of people did not leave the Catholic Church, there is no doubt the Truth really sets us free. Several Parishes have the desire to become Cove-nant of Love partners and the requests are already coming in for our return to assist the Diocese in spreading God’s plan for marriage.
The tour was very fruitful, to say the least, from the meeting with Ignatius Press with plans to collaborate in a project for mar-riage in the near future to the couples who turned their hearts over to God and allowed Him to be the center of their marriage once again, or for many, for the first time. As always, our mission was to feed the hungry and lead them to the understanding that God is the Creator of marriage and when we live it by His de-sign we can experience the joy He in-tended.
In this Easter Season we look forward with great anticipation for the resurrection of marriage.
Alleluia!! He is Risen!!
Greg and Julie Alexander
THROUGH THE DESERT FOR MARRIAGE
2
suddenly felt called to improve the
state of marriage in the world with-
out doctorates or credentials. And
yet, we have Greg and Julie.
We are inviting you to jump
aboard the ridiculous train with us.
For we have learned that God
calls simple, ordinary people to do
His work, and to share in His plan.
He asks us to detach ourselves
from what is safe, comfortable,
worldly, budgetable, and to be
willing to have RADICAL faith that
we are being called to something
beyond our knowledge and ca-
pabilities.
It all started when we were plan-
ning the first benefit dinner and we
felt called to help out...because
we believe in MARRIAGE; but God
had a different idea for us. As we
left the committee meeting, a
number entered my head. A
shocking, frightening number since
we were just starting our business.
But, it wouldn’t leave me. I started
heating up, burning to say this
If you really think about it, God is all
about proving that the ridiculous is
possible when you trust Him; for it is
ridiculous to think that a young
teenage girl could be visited by an
angel, conceive a child immacu-
lately, and the child become the
Savior of the world. And yet, we
have Mary.
It is ridiculous to think that a Polish
actor could become one of the
greatest popes and saints of all
time, and almost single-handedly
demolish communism in Europe.
And yet, we have Blessed Pope
John Paul II.
It is ridiculous to think that a Poor
Clare nun could go from selling fish-
ing tackle to creating an interna-
tional television network. And yet,
we have Mother Angelica.
It is ridiculous to think that two suc-
cessful people in the corporate
world, married to their careers more
than each other, could tell their
children that they are divorcing,
find God, give up their incomes,
become homeless and sleep on
friends’ couches; all because they
number out loud,
but also afraid to
do so. It was a
RIDICULOUS thing
to consider. I
turned to Rob, whom I was sure
would bring me back to reality and
let us think of something more ap-
propriate that we could give to the
mission. But the Holy Spirit must
have been speaking to him, too,
because he said YES.
Rob went further than yes. He knew
that if we slept on it, we’d come to
our senses and wouldn’t go
through with it. So, that night – at
11pm, surely waking up the other
person on the phone – we commit-
ted. And then we felt peace.
It was right after saying yes and
making that call that we felt some-
thing else. God told us He cannot
be outdone in generosity, and we
would be paid back many times
over. We have...
So please join us in do THE RIDICU-
LOUS...HELP GOD save a marriage
by your financial support!
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
BEING WILLING TO DO THE RIDICULOUS!
3 THE TRUE MEANING OF STEWARSDSHIP: PARTNERS FOR MARRIAGE ROB AND CAMILLE
There is nothing that makes us happier than to share His Good News with you.
Hi Greg and Julie, I wanted to take a few moments to tell you how thankful we are for
your ministry. We are a part of our monthly COL team at St Joseph Honey Creek and
this past October were on the team for our parish couples retreat. We came to your
Enjoy Your Marriage workshop on Aug 31 in San Antonio to help give us some ideas for
the forgiveness presentation we were to give in October at the couples retreat. Well,
God had bigger plans for us! We got so much out of every aspect of the day. Every sin-
gle activity spoke to us and we completed them to the fullest. One of the things that
really came through for us was that we had been using contraception for 10 years,
since our daughter was born. I had always wanted more kids but my husband did not
and I, alone, was never able to convince him to change his mind. During your talk about
this and then the many activities that followed my husband's heart was changed so
drastically he wanted me to go off contraception and begin trying to conceive. Well, I
am happy to tell you that due to God's work through your wonderful ministry we are 10
weeks pregnant! And to top it off, we have been blessed with not one but 2 babies to
love!
Thank you both so very much for your dedication to your ministry. It is truly transform-
ing marriages!
“In order for God to do the miraculous, you must be willing to do the ridiculous.” MOTHER ANGELICA
MADE FOR EACH OTHER Join Greg and Julie every Wednesday from 11 to 12 CT
on the Guadalupe Radio Network as they discuss:
Love, Relationships and Marriage
We would love to have you as our guest
so give us a call:
(877) 211-3853 or send your questions/comments/
suggestions to: [email protected]
EASTER 2014
What can you do to RESURRECT
your Marriage ?
1. Build each other up.
2. Be specially attentive to each other’s
needs.
3. Pray together daily.
4. Be thankful for the small things you
do for each other.
5. Make time to go out on a weekly
date.
GIRLS NIGHT OUT: MAY 30 w/ SALLY ROBB @ OUR LADY OF GRACE
COUPLES NIGHT OUT: SEPTEMBER 5 w/ FR. KEN GERACI (FATHERS OF MERCY)
BENEFIT DINNER: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6 w/ MATT BIRK
IF YOU ARE IN
SAN ANTONIO
OR WANT TO
JOIN US…Save
the date!
Love Connections is the official newsletter of THE ALEXANDER HOUSE APOSTOLATE (TAHA) a 501(c)(3) organization
Printing provided by Smith Print of San Antonio (www.smithprint.net)
From devastation to hope...Lauren’s story
As every other little girl in the world, I imagined having the
perfect fairy tale life I read about in books and watched in
movies. I thought my life was that way, after all I did have par-
ents who loved each other more than anything, who were
very supportive of me and my brother, we had everything we
could ask for, and our perfect family showed up happily to
church together every Sunday. I thought that the love and
bond between our family was a bond that could never be bro-
ken.
But the devastating fact is that my life was far from perfect…I
can still remember, with a knot in my stomach, the day my
parents told me they did not love each other anymore and
wanted to get a divorce. I felt alone, scared, hopeless, worth-
less, and wondered if maybe it was my fault or if there was
anything I could do to fix our family. But I could not; only God
could do that. Chris and I clung to each other because the
adults in our life were letting us down.
The reality is that our culture has taught us to be so con-
sumed with our SELVES that we fail to realize our everyday
choices have a deep and lasting effect on our children. Because
our families are supposed to be “schools of love and life” it is
there that we learn and understand the love and mercy of
God by what our parents teach us through their relationship.
When we see our parents giving up on each other we have no
choice, but to wonder who we are, where we come from, and
what our identity is. The confusion in my parents love for each
other left a confusion of love in my life and kept me searching
for years, until I unexpectedly hit rock bottom. No, children
are NOT doing fine when their parents are not. Today, I can
joyfully say that through God’s mercy, my parents transformed
their marriage and through their journey have helped me un-
derstand God’s love and mercy in my life.
I am asking you, on behalf of the
many children that are going
through the pain and hopeless-
ness that Chris and I went
through to, please join The Alex-
ander House in helping couples
discover the beauty, goodness
and truth of God’s plan for mar-
riage by giving hope to marriage
for our future.
To partner with us CLICK HERE.
Remember us in your will!
SAN FRANCISCO — In a city with a
reputation for homosexual activism,
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore
Cordileone, one of the architects of
California’s Proposition 8, considers
supporting couples in the sacrament
of matrimony a higher priority than
repealing same-sex “marriage”
laws.
Proposition 8, a much publicized
ballot proposition and state consti-
tutional amendment passed in 2008
that recognized marriage as only
between a man and a woman, was
overturned last year following a
U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Along with defending the principle
that children deserve both a mother
and a father, there is the need to
rebuild and restore a marriage cul-
ture by educating archdiocesan
Catholics about the sanctity of mar-
riage and its natural connection to
family, according to Archbishop
Cordileone, who was installed in the
San Francisco Archdiocese in 2012.
“The Church, and the Archdiocese
of San Francisco in particular, seeks
to fulfill the need of supporting and
strengthening couples in marriage
and family by teaching and forming
them in their faith through retreats,
seminars and ongoing programs
which provide information and for-
mation for engaged and married
couples,” the archbishop told the
Register.
Archbishop Cordileone, together
with his fellow U.S. bishops, urges
Catholics in San Francisco and
throughout the country to pray and
sacrifice for the rebuilding of soci-
ety, especially in the matters of
marriage and protecting life and
religious liberty.
Top priorities for the archdiocese’s
first marriage and family life direc-
tor hired in 10 years are strength-
ening and standardizing its diverse
marriage-preparation programs in
English and Spanish, further devel-
oping natural family planning (NFP)
education and training and intro-
ducing marriage-enrichment oppor-
tunities, such as a parish couples
program that has been successful in
the nearby Oakland, Calif., Diocese.
Among other goals are ministering
to those with same-sex attraction
and those who are separated and
divorced.
Culture of Support
As part of efforts to promote God’s
plan for marriage by establishing
more parish-based programs, crea-
tors of a nationally recognized mar-
riage support and enrichment min-
istry called Covenant of Love
(COL) will give talks and retreats in
San Francisco and other Bay Area
parishes.
“Many parishes lack ongoing mar-
riage-enrichment programs, which
nurture a culture of support for
married couples,” according to
Archbishop Cordileone. “We want to
help men and women deepen their
understanding of their own mar-
riages — and look forward to ac-
tively assisting all married couples
in this growth here in the Archdio-
cese of San Francisco.”
Last year, a task force — formed
two years ago to consider ways to
strengthen marriage in the archdio-
cese — recommended filling the
marriage and family life director
position, which had been vacant
because of budget constraints. (The
archbishop is currently considering
the task force’s other recommenda-
tions.)
Selected six months ago to fill the
position was Ed Hopfner, who
headed the Oakland Diocese’s mar-
riage and family life department
under then-Bishop Cordileone. In
Oakland, Hopfner placed special
emphasis on marriage preparation
and enrichment and education pro-
grams, priorities he brings to San
Francisco.
“We need to educate people, but we
also need to strengthen marriages
— to offer resources for marriages
that are struggling or to prevent
them from struggling; to strengthen
them and help them to flourish,” he
explained.
Many dioceses have marriage-prep
programs and offer help for couples
going through marital difficulties,
but fewer offer marriage enrich-
ment that can help couples grow
and deal with problems in their
marriages before they get out of
control, Hopfner said.
“We want to have some kind of pro-
grams that people can plug into,”
said Hopfner, who hopes to see
each San Francisco parish establish
a marriage ministry.
Church in the Bay Area Works to Strengthen Marriages
and Help Hurting Couples
by SUSAN KLEMOND 03/10/2014 National Catholic Register
Have a ‘Date Night’
While in Oakland, Hopfner encour-
aged the introduction of COL, which
was created by Greg and Julie Alex-
ander of San Antonio. Now he is
working to bring it to San Francisco.
One of COL’s parish-led programs
called “Date Night” brings couples
together to focus on issues includ-
ing understanding God’s plan for
marriage, communication, forgive-
ness and healing, chastity and
prayer.
Inundated with negative media im-
ages of marriage, couples often
don’t learn the Church’s view of the
sacrament. Parishes need the tools
to provide marriage support and
enrichment, Greg Alexander said.
“Typically, with the exception of
Marriage Encounter, the Church
never offers anything else for mar-
riage enrichment; so here couples
are, trying to live this lifelong mar-
riage relationship, never having any
additional resources or tools to be
able to do that,” he said.
Scott and Julie Genung helped
found a COL program at their par-
ish, St. Michael, in Livermore, Calif.,
last year, with the goal of inspiring
couples to have God-centered mar-
riages, Scott Genung said.
Up to 20 couples, along with several
mentor couples, attend monthly
meetings that usually include a talk
or video, small-group discussion
and one-on-one time for couples.
The parish didn’t have a marriage
ministry before this, Julie Genung
said. “Just being involved in the
parish, we see the need to have a
ministry that does appeal to mar-
riage,” she said. “That’s the heart of
our faith.”
Fifteen couples — from the newly
married to those married many
years — have attended Date Night
meetings at St. Joseph Basilica in
Alameda, Calif., and the five-couple
core team that organizes the pro-
gram hopes to encourage nearby
parishes to get involved.
“The most important thing in my life
on this earth right now is my mar-
riage,” said core team member Rob
Call. “I want to give attention to
that and get support from the
Church and my community. That’s
why I was interested in this.”
In bringing them together with
other couples, God is also helping
individual couples grow closer,
added Michelle Call. If couples see
their marriages as a sacrament and
blessing from God, they will want to
invest in the great marriage God
intends for them, she said.
Help for Difficult Situations
While ministering to San Francisco
married couples, Hopfner said the
archdiocese hopes to reach out
more to the separated and di-
vorced, whom he said often feel
alienated from the Church.
In a recent talk, Pope Francis said
pastors should search for ways to
minister to divorced and separated
Catholics, “so that they do not feel
excluded from the mercy of God,
the fraternal love of other Christians
and the Church’s solicitude for their
salvation,” and help such persons
keep the “faith and raise their chil-
dren in the fullness of the Christian
experience.”
On Feb. 28, the Holy Father reiter-
ated the need to help couples who
are hurting from failed marriages:
“How beautiful love is, how beauti-
ful marriage is, how beautiful the
family is, how beautiful this journey is
— and how much love we too [must
have], how close we must be to our
brothers and sisters who in life have
had the misfortune of a failure in
love.”
Supporting the separated and di-
vorced would be easier if parishes had
programs for married couples,
Hopfner said.
Ultimately, supporting marriage is
also about caring for and nurturing
children, according to Archbishop Cor-
dileone, who stated that it’s not pos-
sible to be consistently pro-life with-
out being pro-marriage.
“The challenge is one of rebuilding
and restoring a marriage culture,
which begins — and certainly doesn’t
end — with preserving the principle
that children deserve a mother and a
father and that society should do eve-
rything it can, and offer all necessary
support, to help insure that children
get what they deserve.”
Register correspondent Susan
Klemond writes from St. Paul, Minne-
sota.
National Catholic Register (contd’)
ARCHBISHOP SALVATORE CORDILEONE OF
SAN FRANCISCO (CNA)
www.thealexanderhouse.org