World Marriage Day (WMD) introduced by Worldwide Marriage Encounter (WWME) since 1981 is being celebrated for the 6th time in Dominica, on Sunday 14th, February.
Until now, WMD has always been celebrated as one national event but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it will be observed on a church community level this year.
The Bishop of Roseau, His Lordship Gabriel Malzaire, endorsed the move and his WMD message will be read at all churches across the diocese. The celebration is meant to “honor husband[male] and wife[female] as the foundation of the family – the basic unit of society. It salutes the beauty of their faithfulness, sacrifice, and joy in daily married life” (WWME, 2021).
Since WMD this year has fallen on Valentine’s Day, couples and their families are encouraged to wear red and white to church . The Catholic Marriage Encounter and Engaged Encounter communities is Dominica, along with the Diocesan Family Life Commission are all collaborating to ensure a successful celebration.
Other activities to mark WMD include a Post your Wedding Photo Challenge. Couples may post their photos on any social media platform, state their names and the number of years they have been married and use hashtag #christianmarriagestrong.
Additionally, on the evening of WMD, couples are invited to a Virtual Valentine’s Love Story Night. One couple from the north, Roy & Judy Larocque and one from the south Tim & Julie Durand and will go down memory lane to tell their falling in love story while a regional WWME couple from Trinidad & Tobago will tell their growing and staying in love story.
Dominican couples and families and priests and pastors are encouraged to celebrate and promote Christian marriage with the WWME community across the world.
I hope the speakers of the Churches in question, will remember to refer to Ephesians 5: verses 22- 33, entitled from the New King James version:
“Marriage—Christ and the Church” Here is some juicy verses below:
22 “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
24 “Just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything”
25 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her”
28 “So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself”
And if Ephesians 5: 22-33 is not spoken at the “Celebration of Marriage” wherever, I cannot imagine the title for that speech
Now, to the married couples I say to all of you: “Happy Marriage”, that is if your marriage is the bond of Love.
Otherwise, it is one that is heading to the words: “I don’t love you anymore” followed by the breakup; for Love was not the cord of that marriage
I love this world marriage daythan this valantines day. Knowing the history with st valantine being killed. Let’s not carry this thing in our children’s generation..let’s consider this instead world marriage day. I am loving this.