. hello. and on behalf of the archdiocese of san francisco welcome to joseic. here's an observation that's not data but an antidote from a layman. when i browse through the self- help section of a bookstore i see the preponderance of books offer to help you not with your start up business or finance or even your self-esteem but are offering help with the marriage. second in number is the books offering to help you with your parenting. and if that's so it's not surprising. marriage and family the couple vowing their love and fidelity. the home, which is the cradle of human life and some would say the basis of social life

and civilized life, do we have an institution more basic and more important than marriage? do we have any task more difficult or demanding than imagine and do we have any deeper place of joy and love or any arena of life in which we, i, am more exposed to another person or better known to another person. i with my many defects and let's hope with a few virtues to offer as well. the catholic church calls marriage a sacrament of mystery, a vocation and sacred obligation. guest is director of the office of marriage and family life for the archdiocese. so stay with us as we talk with him about the catholic church's teaching on what marriage is and how best to approach it, and god willing, how to succeed at it. [ cell phone rings ]

>> yeah, i'm watching it too. i see them every day. >> the curtains, they're always drawn in this place. >> i know. >> that guy, it seems like he's in charge of them. i don't know, i don't feel very good about this. >> we have to report this. >> yes, absolutely.

. hello, and on behalf of the archdiocese welcome to mosaic. our guest is ed hopner the director of the office of marriage and family life at the archdiocese of san francisco. very important office. and you have been with the archdiocese of san francisco in this position for. >> 6 years. >> and prior to that i think. >> five years diocese of oakland doing similar work. >> marriage, family life a lot

comes under that. and let me cans you, you've couple of masters degrees. tell me. >> i have a master's degree in biohe chemistry and used toteach that at high school and community college in seattle and master degree in theology and studied with the dough minimum cans. >> it's interesting to talk yoto you. you've deep theological understanding of things. marriage is our topic and that's your profession. marriage resource and marriage help. you explain to me that it is based on the catholic theology or and the row policy or mixed together of what marriage is. help us understand that. >> sure, so to kind of put it in a nutshell we start with god, right. and what do we know about god? god is. >> okay be i am going guess. >> love. and not just got is loving but literally he is love. that's his inner nature. we also know from christian revelation god is one but god is three persons at the same

time. there's no other religion that understands that. so i grew with up with that as a catholic schoolboy and knew that and could pass the test and it didn't mean anything. when i started doing this workings i realized it was pointed out to me that if god is love, god has to be more than one person. >> there's relationship. >> yeah. how many people do you have to have love. >> at least 2 i would say. >> two. so imagine god giving himself the father to the son to all eternity and how dynamic that would be and the son giving himself back to the father how dynamic that would be. and when you are around people that are love, how you can almost feel it. imagine god in love with go. and we understand that to be the third person the holy trinity. so god has to be three people. logically speaking if he is love. we start with at that. and we have this icon i he doesn't know if you can see it. >> we have one slide which we hope we can bring up a russian icon. >> briefly.

this is considered to be a representation of the icon andre bublea. you can see three personss but if you see closely you see the same face and that's how the artist shows -- we could do a lecture on the thing. but they are positioned ondeference the hands pointed down and that's how they show the love between the three. >> this is the trinity. >> this is a represents the holy trinity. >> but the visitors home fed and gave him the good news. >> yes. >> so here is the naked icon by itself. >> that's the trinity. >> we can see the second shot of the tripity. this icon altered somewhat. >> so we have god who is love and trinity of persons. and then we read in the very beginning of the bible shall god makes man or human person in his own image. what does that mean we are made for. >> it has to be love. >> we are made to love and be love. that's the most fundamental thing you can say about any person. god is a union of persons but god is a spirit.

we are spirit in matter. so how is god going to make a flesh and blood analog of the human persons we read the very beginning of the bible, and so god created man in the image of god and created him. >> man and woman. >> and woman. male and female he created them. so in the trinity we have difference, we have unity and life giving love that comes out of that. in the human persons we have difference and unity and the two can become one flesh and life giving love comes out of that. this union of man and woman isinhe tend to be a icon of the trinity. the slide we looked at christian marriage is intend to point us towards evan. it's like a preview of coming -- heaven. it's a like a preview of what's coming. it's a preview of what life is going to be like if you live it right. >> my wife mentioned on a few occasions. but, there's your base nighs theology. it's grand and beautiful. >> and we have the fall. we have sin.

and so relationships are not always as beautiful as they should be. men and women have difficulty with each other sometimes. you may have experienced that. i have. and so jesus came to give us a church and ve us the sacraments to help us overcome the difficulties. sacrament is the best definition is a share of god's inner life. god's life is god is. >> he is love. >> love. the. >> the relationship of love. >> so this grace and sacraments gibbs us the ability to love others if the way we couldn't onour own. super natural ability to love. 6 sacraments administered by the church and the 7th is administered by the couple. >> that's interesting i doesn't know if i am pausing you but i read up on this lately as well. the couple ministers the sacrament could one another. they are the agents of this sacrament. >> yes. >> not a priest. >> not the church. >> what does the priest do. >> the priest is a witness so this is an official witness of

the sacrament but the minister of the sacrament, the giving of one self to the other. the consent to receive the gift and giving of that gift between the couple, that's done by the couple. every act of love the couple does is in a sense the sacrament. but most particularly when they come together as husband and wife, that's a renewal of the sacrament or wedding vows. most don't realize that. >> all right, you are saying sexual life in marriage is the renewing of the vows. >> yes. >> of complete gifts of one self to the others not greatest love in all human history is jesus. he gives himself to us freely, holy, and to the end, faithfully and fruitfully. and in your wedding day, you vow to love your spouse as jesus loved. i come here freely i. give myself he fully until death and life giving love. i am open to new life out of that. >> that's wonderful. we will take a pause now and we will talk about that some more and dig deeper. please rejoin us when we talk

about marriage, the sacrament thereoff.

. hello, welcome back. we are talking with ed hopner director of the office of marriage and family life. a ministry of the archdiocese of san francisco. and ed, you described the kind of grand utterly significant wonderfully fruitful, but let's say difficult way of life of vocation that we want undertake and we want it so badly and envy those whose marriage is so good. you are one of the main projects of your office is marriage preparation. so, i mean, what you described is something that has to be kind of taught and people trained for it in a way. do you have a boot camp or how

do you tell me how to get married and what to do. what's the preparation? >> so a love things we do is to do that to gee the couples ready requirements they need to do. and one is focus i was premarriage inventory. >> inventory newts couple come in and respond to 150 statements, things like, i am worried about my fiancee's pets. or my fiancee and i talked about taking pony from our families. all kinds of things. and then, they do that separately and come to us and go oaf that with them to try to prevent a lot of surprises you know. get as many surprises ahead of time as we can. that's one of the things we do. >> let's get the administrative thing you your office offers resources and personnel and experts. but this happens, this couple's pret prep happens at local. >> parish level. some parishes are not set up to do that and he work with some. and we have classes on

marriage. and they are called marriage preparation and the church is getting away from that it's formation. because preparation ends. formation is ongoing right so quickly. my dad is a physician. he would lose his license if hedoesn't catch up. my mom is a nurse. so married couples need to do ongoing formation and we have tried to offer that in the archdiocese more and more. we have preparation, but also formation. >> so that's a new idea and great. to me i did marriage preparation. i am not sure there was formation there after. we were sort of on our own. >> it's relatively recent concept for the church. diocese are doing that but i not that common. so we have the marriage and family life annual conference. we do women's retreats. we do man's retreats. i brought the culture project in. >> yeah. tell us about that. >> it's a group of young missionaries 22 to 25, somewhere in that age and we

will have a team of 5 or 6 of them for basically the school year. and they make a one year commitment and go around doing talks on human dignity, what -- how to support it and what offends it on social media. how to use it in way. >> they are addressing youth. >> yes. primarily and young adults and talks to the sexual integrity and they live this out. so, they are great peer role role models. young people see them electric out -- they are professional and personal, they are very positive in the presentations. but they can see the young people lev out lives of virtue joyfully. this is part of the early part of the preparation before kids plan to get ready as you think about gee, if i get into a relationship, how i do want that relationship to be. is it of giving or relationship of taking. that's what we are that.

>> it occurred we call it permission of the government to license and when you say you are licensed to married but you needcontinuing education to keep up with it and be good at it. that sounds good to me. do you have it for older folks. >> it's for everybody. this-- not a lot of people take advantage of it. it's not part of the catholic mentality. >> that might be. >> a lot of the pros sanity brothers and sisters have the programs in the churchance a lot of catholics don't. >> >> finding the couples mid- course and telling you you need a one arena to communicate with each other. >> to improve your skills of choncation and any one of a numberthings. >> yeah. the neat psychological insight someone gave me about marriage is when you choose your spouse, you are choosing to help euro pair a past bad relationship. you need to repair what you

didn't have with your parent and so a you see a person who can do that for you. >> father michael sweepey has beautiful court marriage is for the healing, perfecting and exalting of the spouses. >> exalt something good. >> s that great. >> feeling perfecting and. >> healing as you said all the things we didn't get. perfecting because you have a mirror. and i think i am a generous guy. when i am in a relationship i see maybe not so. and ultimately -- >> i say it's the frightening thing. i am a reserved person. but you exposed to that other person and that person has to -- you are out there being known and that's not entirely attractive. on the one hand you see the benefits, she knows me and cares about me, but on the other it's a full time job. >> first corinthians 4 verse 28

28 he who marries has trouble in their life i tell the couples this and they look at me why are you telling me this and i say iget the phone calls and i think trouble, marriage it's right. because we are not perfect and when we have the mirror we see the imperfectss and marriage is a vehicle god uses if we allow him to to learn how to love which is difficult. >> that's good. yes. and we will take a brief break again and we will come back with a final segment with our guest ed hopner on marriage.

. hello, and welcome back to mosaic. seed telling us about the catholic church's teaching on marriage. it's deep and interesting and very much so. so, there's preparation that you offer to enter into the state and understanding of it and a training for it to get your license to be married, and there's formation opportunities after. what do you -- i visited your web page and you have endless resources. vair various kinds of resources and names can you highlight a

couple of them. >> sure. >> things that are important. >> we have a number of programs a couple things i might mention there are two people that write a lot about it one is gottmen. >> i think i have a his book. >> did he a lot of research at the university of washington which is where i am from a in seattle. he talks about -- they said they can predict with 92% accuracy which couples will stay together observing them for ten minutes. >> couples who come in. >> after the work with the lab they can watch a couple for 5 to 10 minutes and say this is what -- he talks about this four horsemen and the beige vit civil, defense, and stonewallingany will kill a marriage. >> i think you and i have foreseen the couple in the table in the restaurant we have been able to tell. >> sometimes. >> what's the other person you

wanted to mention. >> the other guy gary smalley a christian author doing this for years and both to ces i gav it to mygave it to my nephew when he got married two weeks ago e does marriage preparation and ongoing formation. so both john gottman and gary smalley has one one is the gottman institute and the other is the smalley institute. those are a couple resources. >> it's important because i think i am correct when i say i browse the books store and shelves and shelves of how to help your mawrnlg. someone like you could point out this is the way to go. and here are the books to go and you do that for people. >> yeah. a lot of tykes you do it the engaged couples if you like to read here's he 15 bucks it could change your life and mainly and they think marriage and they think that's worth doing it. >> the there's. >> we have a marriage encounter's worldwide movement in the archdiocese we have

english and spanish and chinese a retreat format they come in for retreat and op going optional sessions after that if they wish. couple generally like it. they find it is typically we see after 5 years of marriage after that to reach your marriage and couples struggling with the marriage, maybe think about divorce we have a similar form that is a fantastic project -- did program. it's weekend retreat where they come in and they may be sitting lying this when they come in and the one that is stayed for the weekend by the end of the weekend they are leaning on each other and they have a 75% success rate of couples staying together and those that divorce have better working relationships which is important especially if yo hadohis preparation for couples who want to be marchied mareied

in the church. >> yes. we do the focus and we encourage them to do a class in natural family planning to understand fertility. nurses i am finding don't even, it's amazing. and the marriage preparation classes offered around the archdiocese and a online program that i light. catholic marriage prep.com. and what it does is when you sign up. you and your fiancee sign up and are pared with a couple and so if you are an older couple they match you with an older couple and they. >> you are mapped with a mayor matched with a married cup.couple. >> they will do the preparation and i like it because it is personalized. >> okay. >> and also because most of the programs are one or two days and it's hard to go through a day or two and incorporate all that in to your life where as you do the on line you will do it over time. etthe married couple.

>> typiy it's online. my friend does this with his wife. they do the program live in their parish and they do it on line for other couples and other parishes. his wife says it works better online. >> i think it might well be. do they do skype. >> skype, phone calls, yeah. >> that's interesting. because we are the digital culture. we are always getting stuff through the screens. and if, as you say, this can be done over a stretch of period. if i have a two-day kind of intensive in the church basement or something, i could get a false positive reading wove prepared and know what we are doing. >> or check the box. >> if you have to carry it out and face it if i am not incorrect. there's lengthy period of recommended or required by the catholic church. >> 6 to 9 months. >> 6 to 9 month of an engagement and during that time

a structural preparation of some kind. i too have read sort of statistics here and there. i can't quote them, but io you divorce. >> they have better estimates. statistics. anything you do is go to be helpful. >> we have a couple minute left only. you wanted to show -- tell us about an event in which you honor couples who succeeded and endured. we could run a few slides and this is the wending and anniversary's bass. >> we do this every february to honor those mareied 30, 40, 50 years. we had 17 couples that married 50 years attend and two dozen over 50. >> the bishop says mass. >> yes, we have a beautiful reception and one couple was married 72 years and brought about 40 people from their

family. every february it's a cathedral and we love to invite you to attend next year.>> anyone is welcomed. i can't read their names. >> it was a hispanic couple but they are probably only 40 or 50 years. >> and a reception in the hall afterwards. >> yes. it's a nice convenient. >> and, again, i think you started with god and we are going to end with god here as you are going to mass giving thanks to god for your marriage. in the last 25 seconds what is your final message to people interested in being married well. >> prepare as much as you k and use all the resources available. talk to a older couples that have been married. talk to them. >> and -- ed's website on the arch i do sis is full of resources and perhaps.

there's men's retreats, come's retreats, and women's retreats. a variety of things to improve your marriage and social understanding of what your marriage is all about. so ed, thanks so much for joining us and good luck and thanks for joining us on this episode of mosaic. thanks very much.

. live from the cbs bay area studios this is kpix5 studios. >> now on kpix5, a fire at a chemical plant is releasing smoke. what people are breathing, plus... >> hey, hey, hey. hey. . >> a political forum in san francisco takes a bizarre turn. a protech tester tries to steal kamala harris' mike. it's 6 a.m. on this sunday thanks for joining us i am devin feelie. >> i am melissa crane. >> we will do sunday like saturday. we are starting out gray for much of the morning and by around 11, for most of us, the sky will clear except for the coast. it will stay gray at thas