Diocese presents a Marriage Enrichment Retreat

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Andrew and Terri Lyke will present 'The 12 Keys to a Sacramental Marriage' in the Diocese of Salt Lake City on Feb. 1. Courtesy photo

SALT LAKE CITY — A retreat to help married couples looking to strengthen their union will be offered Feb. 1 at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church.

Andrew and Terri Lyke will present "The 12 Keys to a Sacramental Marriage." The Lykes, who have been married 37 years, have offered Christian marriage preparation, education and enrichment since 1982.

"We look back and see clearly how the wisdom of others has helped in shaping us. We have benefitted from many who opened their lives to us to witness their love through good, bad, fun, tragic, suffering," said Andrew Lyke.

The Lykes have served thousands of married couples through their programs. They have nationally presented keynote addresses, workshops, retreats and seminars on Marriage and Family issues to church, community and business audiences.

"If you look at what’s going on with the institution of marriage in our society, clearly it is broken," said Andrew Lyke. "Our premises are that it is broken because we expect the wrong things that we were married for."

The Lykes, in their presentations, reflect the fact that "the love that we give is about the commitment that we made to each other. No matter what, we are not leaving because we made a commitment to one another," he said.

When people make the decision of getting married in that early stage of infatuation, "people can’t see that the focus is just on the couple, and there is nothing wrong with that. … [But] What it takes to make the promise is different than what it takes to keep the promise," he said. "Allow God to shine through your marriage."

The accountability of a marriage – that it is not a private matter but rather a communal one, also is a topic in the presentation.

"If we treat marriage as a private entity, then no wonder marriages fail; our accountability is not to each other, it is to God and to the people of God," Lyke said.

The couple are national trainers of curricula used in the Healthy Marriage Initiative and Exploring Relationships and Marriage with Fragile Families.

They are also founders of Arusi Network, Inc., a not-for-profit organization that educates African Americans on the skills and benefits of Christian marriage.

Together they served as advisors to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Marriage and Family.

Andrew Lyke is the coordinator of Marriage Ministry for the Archdiocese of Chicago and was the principle author of "In the Spirit of Cana," the Marriage Ministry guidelines for the Archdiocese of Chicago. Previously, he served as a campus minister at his alma mater, DePaul University. He also has served as a board member for the Catholic Network of Volunteer Services, and is a former Secretary of the National Advisory Council of the USCCB.

In 1995 the Lykes were the recipients of the Augustus Tolton Archdiocesan Award and also were presented with the 2005 Bishop Quarter Award for the Archdiocese of Chicago.

The diocesan Marriage Enrichment with Andrew and Terri Lyke will be Feb. 1, 1 – 10 p.m. at Saints Peter & Paul Catholic Church in Salt Lake City. Registration starts at noon. Cost is $35 per couple, including dinner. Cost for the dinner itself, which runs 6 – 10 p.m., is $25 per couple.

To register, visit https://www.dioslc.org/events/registration/step1?event=1774 or call Veola Burchett, Diocese of Salt Lake City Director of the Family & Pro-life Office, 801-328-8641, ext. 324.