Is your marriage what you want it to be? Are you struggling to express your need for your spouse? Are your children suffering from lack of communication with your partner? Has your spouse left you emotionally? Have you tried to solve problems like these and found you could not do it alone? This need has given rise to the Jesuit Institute for Family Life: a staff of competently prepared and professionally skilled marriage counselors who are Catholic in religious orientation perceiving marriage as a sacrament and whose training and interest is in dealing with the above questions and areas of growth in family living.

The Jesuit Institute for Family Life provides marriage counseling. individual and couples, family counseling, and group counseling for married couples as a means to meet the need within families to value the presence of individual family members and to improve the quality of intra-family relationships. To want to value one's spouse and family members is often quite different from actually performing in a way that effectually expresses such value. We find that new skills are often needed and old obstacles to growth must be understood and worked through before effective human relating can be realized. When we do this we relate to Christ as He said, "If you give to these brothers and sisters of mine you give to Me." (Matthew 25:40)

Appointments with the staff can be arranged by phoning 650-948-4854. Institute staff members are counseling professionals whose fees are based on the financial resources of those seeking counseling.

Weekends in spirituality for family life given by the staff taking in a spirituality for emotional suffering and inter-relating...these weekends are for husbands and wives only...format, dates, expense, and other information can be obtained by phone or by mail.

Is your marriage what you want it to be? Has your spouse left you emotionally? Have you tried to solve problems like these and found you could not do it alone? This need has given rise to the Jesuit Institute for Family Life: a staff of competently prepared and professionally skilled counselors and therapist whose training and interest is in dealing with these questions and areas of growth in family living.

The Jesuit Institute for Family Life is a response, then, to a need within families to value the presence of individual members and the quality of intra-family relationships. To want to value one's spouse and family members is often quite different from actually performing, in a way that effectually expresses such value. We find that new skills are often needed and old obstacles to growth must be understood and worked through before effective human relating can be realized.

The Jesuit Institute for Family Life provides marriage counseling, individual and couples, family counseling, and group counseling for married couples as means to realizing this desired sense of value.

As a staff our experience shows that talking out one's inner feelings within the counseling process is necessary and an effective way to deal with many personal and interpersonal process of counseling to be a normal way to modern world brings to bear on contemporary family life.

Our staff is a professional team resource. We meet for case consultations providing a stimulating professional milieu and call upon other professionals in the fields of psychiatry, family law, moral and ethical questions, clinical psychology, and spirituality for frequent consultations. This provides a community of interested experts working together to serve the family as such a task warrants and demands.

The staff is made up of competent counselors and therapists who are Catholic in religious orientation perceiving marriage as a sacrament. We perceive that in relating to one another we relate to Christ as He said, "If you give to these brothers and sisters of mine you give to Me." [Matthew 25:40] In saying this He is defining and identifying prayer as every movement we make to be our true selves and every movement we make to share ourselves with one another. This means that every stride an individual makes in therapy to be themselves and share themselves is a movement toward God...a raising one's heart and mind...one's self...to God. It is our opinion, then, that this counseling process is a movement toward God and as such functions as an extension of the ascetical practice of examination of consciousness. We as staff members consider this to be the context, the underpinnings, and the ambiance of the therapeutic work we do.

We serve a wide range of age groups, races, and socio-economic and educational backgrounds reflecting the rich variety of families in the Bay Area. We serve a variety of problems arising between husband and wife and within the family, from everyday life stress to more long term relational and interpersonal difficulties. We continue to be available to serve you.

This is the story of the Jesuit Institute for Family Life. It all started in 1961, when I, Fr. Robert Fabing, was a second year novice at the Jesuit Noviceship in Los Gatos. The Master of Office came to my little cubicle and said, "next Sunday I want to go to my family house in San Francisco and have dinner. Would you like to come?" I said, "Wonderful!" So the next Sunday, the head of Novices drove the Master of Office and me from Los Gatos to San Francisco. They were sitting in front of me. I was in the backseat with my eyes closed and my head down as I usually do when I’m carsick. I knew the road very well though, so after 40 minutes when the car started to slow down, I knew we were almost to San Francisco State University. I opened my eyes and looked to the right, where there were about 10 or 12 single family homes. As I saw those homes, immediately and peacefully, Jesus Christ was sitting in the backseat of the car right next to me in His white robe and beard. He turned to me and said, "Bob", pointing His index finger out of the window at those 10 or 12 small homes. He asked me: "Do you see the pain in those living rooms, those bedrooms, those family rooms, those kitchens?" My eyes followed His arm and finger, and I turned to Him and replied, "Yes, Lord." He turned to me and said, "Would you do something about that?" I looked at Christ, and I answered, "Okay!" After that, I closed my eyes and I never told anybody. It was 1961, and I never told the Head of Novices or any of them. Now in the present day, we have 87 marriage counselors and therapists in centers all over the world, called the Jesuit Institute for Family Life International Network. It said because of me? No, not really! It is because Christ wants peace in homes and there is not much of it. That is what we are here to change. We at the Jesuit Institute for Family Life have been sent by Christ to homes to bring peace where there is no peace, love where there is no love, joy where there is no joy, and happiness where there is no happiness. That experience with Christ took less than one minute, but it inspired the creation of the Jesuit Institute for Family Life, here in Los Altos in the Diocese of San Jose and all over the world.

JESUIT INSTITUTE FOR FAMILY LIFE
JESUIT RETREAT CENTER
300 Manresa Way
Los Altos, California 94022
Tel: 650-948-4854
Fax: 650-948-0640

Routes to the Jesuit Institute for Family Life

From Highway 101:

• leave 101 at San Antonio Road - South
• turn left at Foothill expressway (San Antonio ends at Foothill)
• turn right at El Monte (first signal)
• turn right at University (first signal)
• 4/10 mile along University
• turn left on Manresa Way

From Highway 280:

• leave 280 at El Monte Ave. (same exit as Foothill College. Go east - away from the College)
• turn left at University (the third signal away from freeway)
• 4/10 mile along University
• turn left on Manresa Way