Catholic Engaged Encounter (CEE) of Birmingham had their leadership discernment retreat on Oct. 23. Eight couples from the community were able to come together on Zoom to pray, discuss the strengths and challenges facing the community and, ultimately, choose who will lead for the next two years.

CEE’s slogan is “a wedding is a day, a marriage is a lifetime.” As a volunteer-run program, CEE has offered retreats in the Diocese of Birmingham for over 40 years, usually at the Sacred Heart Retreat Center in Cullman. Two teams of married couples, as well as a priest, present talks sharing their experiences on a number of themes relating to sacramental marriage. The engaged couples are then given the opportunity to dialogue with their fiancé about those topics and explore how they intend to live them out within their marriages.

Colby and Keisha Lancelin from CEE of Atlanta facilitated and led the discernment. "We were so honored to be a part of this spirit-filled discernment process,” Colby said. “You immediately sense the care and love the couples have for each other, the community, and the ministry. We were extremely at peace knowing the new leadership had full support of the community. We are expecting great things from the Birmingham CEE community because their processes and enrichments are driven by the Holy Spirit."

During the discernment, outgoing local coordinators David and Kathleen Lavallee of St. John the Baptist in Madison were recognized for their outstanding service. Under their leadership, the Birmingham CEE community was one of the first in the nation to pivot to virtual weekends during the pandemic. Thanks to their vision and innovation, the community has continued to grow and has been able to serve engaged couples within the diocese and beyond, even from as far away as California and Massachusetts.

“Local coordinators for CEE help to lead the community in presenting meaningful marriage preparation retreats,” says David. “We are blessed to have such a strong and dedicated community, so leading this group is really a blessing to us because they are so supportive. Being the local coordinators during a pandemic has been challenging. However, we were glad that Kathleen uses Zoom for her business, and we were able to stand up a virtual retreat format very quickly based on her expertise as well as guidelines from the national CEE leadership. We are proud that our community was able to continue virtually while only missing one retreat in April 2020.”

After three hours of prayer and discussion, Jeff and Rachael Wilson of St. Joseph's in Huntsville were unanimously voted in to become the new local coordinators starting Jan. 1, 2022. They will oversee the long-anticipated return to in-person retreats at Sacred Heart as well as determine the upcoming virtual retreat schedule.

“Jeff and I are both excited and nervous to have been selected to be the local coordinators for Catholic Engaged Encounter,” says Rachael. “We look forward to the opportunity to help our community continue to serve engaged couples as they are preparing for the sacrament of marriage, and we hope and pray that we can help our community continue to build on the decades of good work that has been done by so many wonderful couples before us.”

After taking a break for the holidays, the next Catholic Engaged Encounter retreat will be in-person at Sacred Heart Retreat Center on Jan. 14-16, 2022. Registration information can be found at https://birminghamcee.org/. Schedules for future in-person and virtual retreats will be released soon.

CEE has a rich history in the Diocese of Birmingham and has long been grateful for the diocesan support of their ministry. Volunteers are always needed to serve as presenting teams, host couples, natural family planning (NFP) advocates, supply coordinators, financial and registration teams, webmasters/IT support, outreach coordinators, and other support roles. If you are interested in becoming involved with the CEE ministry, please send an email to birmingham@engagedencounter.com. Please keep the new local coordinators and the entire community in your prayers as they continue to serve the engaged couples in our diocese.