BY Demetria Banda
The Worldwide Marriage Encounter (WWME) organized a Deeper Weekend for encountered couples and priests from the South, Central and North with the aim of deepening their relationship with one another as couples.
The deeper weekend run from the 12th to 14th November 2021 at Our lady of Africa Centre in Malawi and was facilitated by Bishop Montfort Sitima of Mangochi Diocese with Joe and Florence Das.
According to Mr and Mrs Alex and Endrina Maxwell the chair couple, Deeper weekend is a weekend away from home where you renew your relationship and offer couples a way of loving communication and gives them an opportunity to look deeply into their relationship with one another, with God and with the Church and the world at large.
“When you are encountered there are other processes to support in strengthening your relationship. As a couple, the deeper weekend of Marriage Encounter is an opportunity for some precious quality time to focus on our relationship against daily distractions. This experience offers us the opportunity to refresh, enrich and deepen our relationship; to bring the love, joy and sparkle back into our lives,” said Mr and Mrs Maxwell
They further said Marriage is a vocation and at times a challenging one.
“If you are not consciously working to keep it alive then it will lose its spark and disenchantment can set in. All of this is also true for Priests and Religious. We are all called to be in a relationship with our spouse or community and if we don’t nourish those relationships then they will start to weaken,” they added
In their remarks Mr. and Mrs.Chifundo and Wezzie Tenthani said the deeper weekend has helped their family a lot and that it will help them improve in many areas.
“Our Deeper Weekend was very nice and enlightening that it will enable us improve in many areas as we relate to our spouses, fellow couples, the Church and the community in general. We were reminded of the need to do things together as a couple; be it prayer, parenting, finances and others so that our affection for each other as a couple should grow and through it the love spreads to others around us. We found many areas which we took for granted that have a negative impact on our spouses and we reflected on how we can do them better knowing that we signed a covenant to love the day we said I do in the presence of the Priest, “said Mr. and Mrs. Tenthani.They continued that the deeper weekend also gave a chance to the priests to reflect on the way they interact with the church and its members.
All the couples together with the priests who attended the weekend were all smiles and appreciated for having attended the weekend. Marriage Encounter was brought to Malawi in 1985 by Late Bishop Mathias Chimole of Lilongwe and it is found in all regions of Malawi with over 850 encountered couples, Priests and Sisters.