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Hey there!
We’re Raphy & Sara Feolino,
founders of Holy Couples.
We're joyfully married, blessed with 2 children (and one on the way! Pray for us!) and we love our Catholic faith, are big foodies, and love jammin’ to our favorite worship music.
Since 2020, we’ve been fortunate to mentor Catholic Couples around the world to create virtuous & vitalized relationships.
But the truth is… our relationship journey wasn’t perfect.
2016
I (Raphy) broke off my relationship with my ex-fiancee. It was a very worldly type of relationship, seeking pleasure where it was all about seeking pleasure. I didn’t quite know how to have a “healthy relationship” which led to heated arguments, miscommunication, and a life of sin, and a broken engagement.
Sara also struggled with her past dating relationships. As a child of divorced parents, raised by her mother most of her life, she missed out on the chance to model a healthy relationship in the home. This led to dating men who were very passive and lacked leadership, which made her the pursuer in the relationship.
After much frustration and struggles, she ended all of those relationships - still hoping for true love.
After ending my previous engagement, I experienced a radical “re-version” back to my Catholic faith that helped me to know Christ on a deeper level, experience healing, and be open to being loved again.
2017
While wrapping up a meeting with my volunteers for a ministry I was running at the time, Sara & I met right outside of Starbucks. Her mom was one of my fantastic volunteers, and she would always talk up her daughter to me. Here was the thing: I was discerning to become a priest. So initially, I wasn’t really interested in another serious relationship.
But we decided to become friends, since we found commonalities between each other. We built a good part of our friendship long-distance as she was finishing up school. Until one day, she called me one day and mentioned that she’d be graduating and moving back to Hawaii (where I was living at the time).
I was conflicted with where God was calling me to because I started to have feelings for her. After careful consideration and discernment, I decided to take a leap of faith and ask Sara to become my girlfriend. She smiled and accepted! We entered our courtship in 2017 and were excited to discern His will for our lives.
2018
After being super intentional about our courtship, we found the clarity to say “yes” to God’s will and go deeper in our relationship by getting engaged! Having been through failed in the past, we were eager to learn everything we needed to know about having a healthy & holy marriage.
We attended a 3-day pre-Cana marriage preparation retreat. It was a great experience to learn more about one another, but we also left feeling like it wasn’t enough. It talked a lot about the theology of marriage (which we understood), but left out the practical “how-to” when it comes to relationships.
So, we started our growth journey together. We started reading books, attended seminars, found mentors, developed our spiritual life together… which taught us a better way to live out our relationship.
We had a discussion about this dream of starting a business helping couples enrich their relationship and prepare for their wedding day.
At the time, we laughed at that idea and thought it wouldn’t work… but God had different plans.
Fast forward to December 22, 2018, we were happily married in St. Elizabeth Church in Aiea, Hawaii. The day that changed our lives forever.
2020-2022
Fast-forward a few years into our marriage, I was in a difficult place in my professional career, serving in the military. I was experiencing a lot of stress and anxiety, which was affecting our marriage overall.
One night in bed, I turned to Sara and said:
“I don’t think I want to re-enlist and do this for 20+ years… Remember that idea we talked about when we were engaged, to start a business and help other couples on their journey?”
For about 2 hours in bed, we started dreaming and envisioning the mission of Journey to Marriage.
We heard many frustrations from Catholics not having adequate resources to learn the practical “how-tos” for improving their relationships, especially before entering marriage.
So, we decided to take personal responsibility to create a solution, which lead to leaving my military service and going “all-in” with this God-given movement.
From 2020-2022, we hosted the two impactful events (Catholic Engaged Summit & Catholic Courtship Summit), where we brought together over 60+ Catholic speakers and experts to serve 5000+ attendees worldwide.
We launched our first podcast, Journey to Marriage, which now has reached listeners from over 15+ countries and over 150K downloads.
After seeing the need for coaching, we launched our programs, Holy Couples Coaching & Holy Couples Academy 1.0, and have personally mentored 30+ couples to discern & prepare for the vocation of marriage while creating vitalized relationships.
We launched multiple workshops collaborating with other amazing Catholic experts helping attendees develop mastery in their relationship skill sets.
We even started accompanying Catholic Singles to navigate their dating stages more confidently, by including them in Holy Couples Academy 1.0.
God has blessed this ministry abundantly… but He didn’t want to stop there.
January 28, 2023…
During a Holy Hour in the afternoon, the Lord prompted me…
“This is the end of Journey to Marriage.”
When I heard this, I was immediately anxious & a bit fearful. I felt a bit discouraged because I thought this was what He wanted us to do a little longer…
But once I quieted my mind, I had a surge of a NEW vision and direction for our ministry.
I immediately ran out to the kitchen to tell Sara about where I felt the Lord was calling us into. And she smiled!
This was the initial moment that we decided to re-brand from “Journey to Marriage” into Holy Couples, which would align us into this new mission:
To help Catholic Couples create virtuous & vitalized relationships, so that we can build His Kingdom together.
And that brings us to where we are now! And we are excited for you to be part of this exciting journey with us!
What We Believe
1. Keeping Christ as the priority of our relationship, not our partner, is the source of experiencing true joy, intimacy, and fulfillment.
2. Mastering the essential skills will help couples build the confidence to navigate any season of their relationship together.
3. Being in a community of Catholic Couples creates accountability, authentic friendships, & helps us to know that we don’t have to struggle on this journey of sanctification alone.
You Were Made For Love & Greatness… Period!
You might feel like you can’t create a joy-filled safe, & intimate relationship because of being in past toxic relationships or being a child of divorce.
Don’t fall into the lies and deception of the evil one because your past experiences do not have to dictate the amazing plans God has in store for you.
The key is to follow Christ & find the right mentors you can model who have lived out exemplary virtue in their relationship.
Trusting in God & finding the right mentorship has transformed our relationship for the better.
If we can do this, we believe you can too!
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” - Genesis 2:18
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