Marriage Preparation: Pre-Cana

Our Pre-Cana program has four parts:

(1) A 45mins, in-person orientation meeting.

(2) On-line work (about three hours per week over five weeks) in which you review videos and text online and complete homework assignments. As part of the online work, you and your future spouse will complete an inventory of questions called FOCCUS, which helps to identify topics for you to discuss with the guidance of a certified FOCCUS facilitator.

3) A full-day Pre-Cana Retreat, where you will hear and discuss presentations by married couples. There will also be a Q&A session.

4) After the retreat day, each couple will have 1-2 hours of facilitated meetings with a FOCCUS facilitator to review the results of the FOCCUS inventory. These meetings are completed after the retreat day and are scheduled between the couple and their assigned FOCCUS facilitator.

Your registration is not complete until you pay an offering of $350 per couple, which helps cover the cost of the retreat and FOCCUS session.

Please request 6 months prior to your wedding  all of your Sacramental documents from your churches of Baptism.

Ask the Churches to  send the originals showing the church seal to the following address:

St. Agatha - St. James

The Newman Center

111 S. 38th Street - third floor

Philadelphia, PA 19104

Attention: Marcela Figueroa

Please send the following documents to mfigueroa@saintsaj.org. 

• Your complete names

• Residence address

• Dates of birth

• Places of birth

• Fathers' names

• Mothers' names - including maiden names

• Address of parents

• Cell phones and email addresses of parents

• Names of Best Man/men

• Names of Maids of Honor / Matrons of Honor including maiden names

• Please scan your Pre Cana Certificate of completion and send to me at this email address when you have finished the class. 

• FOCCUS INVENTORY, with the name of the priest's name and date of when it was done

• When all documentation is received, we will arrange a meeting for both of you with the Priest to complete the required Pre-Nuptial Interviews. These are in person and you must have two witnesses ready to get a phone call at the time of your interviews. 

• If one of you is baptized, but NOT CATHOLIC, a dispensation form has to be filled out and sent out to the diocese of Philadelphia for authorization.

• If you are already married legally, we need copy of your wedding license that is issued by the state where you got married. 

• PLEASE LET US KNOW IF YOU ARE NOT GETTING MARRIED IN THE UNITED STATES. THIS IS A MORE TIME CONSUMING PROCESS THAT REQUIRES MORE TIME AND AUTHORIZATIONS BEFORE YOU CAN GET MARRIED. 

Regarding your music, you must get in touch with Mary Breithaupt, our music coordinator who will be working with you regarding all proper documentation for the songs you choose, and ensure that all the proper copyrights for the music are in place before anything is printed in the program. 

If you are bringing flower decorations to the church, and you want to leave them in the altar is ok: but flowers in pews, or  decorations must be removed after your ceremony and programs must be collected & taken back or thrown away.  We do not allow inside or outside any type of celebration items (rice, flower petals, confetti, etc)