Catholic Weddings

FOCCUS Inventory - How long does it take?

So my FI and I are meeting with my priest to take the FOCCUS inventory tomorrow afternoon (3:30pm). His friend's mother passed away yesterday :( and he would like to attend her wake (4-8 pm). Unfortunately, we cannot reschedule our meeting with the priest for logistical reasons.

I'm curious how long it took you all to complete the FOCCUS? I've heard a half hour up to two hours.  We obviously aren't intending to rush through it so that he can make the wake but he would like to be able to tell his friend today about what time he will be there, if possible. Thanks in advance.

Re: FOCCUS Inventory - How long does it take?

  • Tami87Tami87 member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its Name Dropper First Comment
    I think the whole first meeting with our priest where he got basic info about us and had us take the FOCCUS test lasted about an hour. FI and I were both graduate students at the time, and Father made a joke about us being professional test takers and good at filling in bubbles. So maybe we were a little speedy. But I can't imagine it taking more than an hour and a half, unless your priest has a bunch of other things planned for the meeting.
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  • Did you already TAKE the FOCCUS and you're just going over it now?  When I took it, H and I had to send our responses off to be scored, and then we went over it with our sponsor couple.

    Taking it took about 45 minutes for each of us to really thoroughly consider all the questions, and then after we had sealed up our responses, we actually went through each item and talked about what we picked.

    The day we went over our scores, I think we were there for about 2 hours, because even though our responses were pretty much all the same, we ended up just really enjoying the conversations our couple had for us.

    So I don't know... I think thirty minutes is cutting it awfully close...
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  • egm900egm900 member
    First Comment
    It only took me 20 minutes to take it, but I read fast.  Our priest specifically told us not to spend a lot of time on each question, he wanted our gut reaction since the questions are written to invite different understandings of the meaning.  FI took 35 minutes or so.  We also had to give basic information and answer a short list of questions about getting married in the Catholic church, probably took us 45 minutes to an hour total for the first meeting.

    I would let the priest know when you begin that you have a wake that you need to attend, and you don't want to rush, but you thought he should know.  Our priest always asked us if we had somewhere to be so he knew how much time he was dealing with, but I think that's going to depend on the priest. 

    When we reviewed the test, it took 3 sessions of an hour and a half to two hours, but we had to discuss everything that we didn't agree on, agreed but not the model answer, and the majority of the questions designated as important (the ones with the star by it).
  • RunDogRunDog member
    First Comment
    In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/cultural-wedding-boards_catholic-weddings_foccus-inventory-how-long-does-it-take?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Cultural Wedding BoardsForum:615Discussion:fd281cab-01b3-49d5-ae7c-915ddebfb590Post:355ab317-c2fd-42b0-91c8-fadf9bebb6eb">FOCCUS Inventory - How long does it take?</a>:
    [QUOTE]So my FI and I are meeting with my priest to take the FOCCUS inventory tomorrow afternoon (3:30pm). His friend's mother passed away yesterday :( and he would like to attend her wake (4-8 pm). Unfortunately, we cannot reschedule our meeting with the priest for logistical reasons. I'm curious how long it took you all to complete the FOCCUS? I've heard a half hour up to two hours.  We obviously aren't intending to rush through it so that he can make the wake but he would like to be able to tell his friend today about what time he will be there, if possible. Thanks in advance.
    Posted by cookenstein[/QUOTE]

    It took me about an hour to complete mine. Our priest let us take it home as long as we didn't talk to each other about the questions. We later mailed them back to him. Maybe ask your priest if your fiance can take the questions home to answer?
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  • We'll need 2 dispensations, so our meetings are longer.

    The first meeting with the Priest was just under an hour. At that meeting, he arranged to have us take the FOCCUS inventory online at our leisure.

    Doing the FOCCUS took us each around 45 min. We didn't have to do it in 1 sitting.

    We haven't had any more meetings with the Roman Catholic side of things.
  • Thanks for all of your responses! I like the idea of asking to take it home. But if we can't, I think we'll allow at least an hour (just to be safe).
  • We went and did just the foccus and it took us about an hour, but that's all we did.  We didn't meet for anything else.
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  • We did it during the last part of our first marriage prep class. I did it in about 15-20 minutes, FI did his in about 20-25. Our priest also told us not to spend too much time on each answer. Read and whichever gut answer you have is the one you go with. You get a more honest answer that way, since we react first and think later. It makes sense because when our priest got the answers and we had our FOCCUS follow up meeting with him, we had a lot of the same answers and he was impressed. He said that for a couple our age (27 and 28) and time we've been together (2 years), we showed great growth and maturity. Our conversation with the priest was about an hour and a half, but we really like chatting with him so we took our time with it. He also went over every question we didn't agree on to find out why.

    Don't worry about whether or not all of your answers match. Go with what you know is the honest answer and leave it at that. You will hash it all out when it's scored. We also noticed that the reason for a lot of our disagreements in the test was the way we interpreted the question. That seems to be a running problem from what I've heard from other couples. So just be aware that you may read it one way, and your FI another.
  • It took me about 30 minutes, but the priest actually had us take ours home (on the honor system to fill i out without consulting with each other). Going over it takes much longer. We've went over it the past two meetings and still have more to talk about! 
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  • We actually did ours online.  We were the first couple from our church to do it that way.  I didn't request it, it's just a new thing they are doing.  Maybe you can ask if it can be done that way for you?
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  • Shoot, I just looked at the dates of the posts.  Looks like my suggestion is a little late.

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