Nelson and I are happy to finish strong this February 2025. And as I always say, it is all by God’s amazing grace.
Last February 9, 2025, Team Bitang along with 10 other power couples graduated as One Peter 128 Solid Family under the Marriage Encounter (M.E.) family. Our sincerest gratitude is first to our Lord Jesus Christ and our M.E. prayer warriors who prayed for us since day 1. I will never forget your act of love and the yearly invitations to Team Bitang, which spanned 11 years.
To our Ateneo Family thank you for mirroring Christ’s healing love and mercy to us in this Ignatian Spirituality Journey as a married couple. I am forever grateful for all of you.
Indeed, this year, Team Bitang rejoices because this is the year God appointed us to be part of the Marriage Encounter family officially after November 16, 2024, and the many blessed Sunday reunions after that.
The top 3 ripples of hope centered around this Ignatian journey are:
Top 1: Rediscovering again and again the power of love. In marriage, Nelson and I have grown so much in our love for each other in 10 Sunday reunions. I am grateful for the sound Theology provided to us and the guidance and spiritual mentoring of Fr. Marbendear Morallas, DCD.
Every Sunday during those blessed weeks was a moment of reflecting on the beauty of my Catholic faith. I cannot in detail reveal the nitty gritty of those amazing moments of personal love letter writing to my spouse daily and the heartfelt dialogue with mutual empathy after each letter-writing day. I noticed daily little changes in me.
Nelson too became more gentler. He became a better husband day by day by day. As I take a peek at our M.E. love letters, I cannot help but thank God for this miracle of marriage. Although before M.E. we were already expressing love every day, but it was more of just me. But with the Marriage Encounter platform of Dialogue with Mutual Empathy, Nelson became more expressive, which was actually a great healing surprise to me.
Top 2: This year, Nelson and I are on to our 23rd year of marriage. With marriage encounter as our guide and support system, Nelson and I gratefully remember all our joys and sorrows, ups and downs, failings and victories in faith. When I was introduced to the Marriage Encounter theme song, I couldn’t help but be touched by the depths of its lyrics. Indeed, where can I find husbands and wives gathering together, sharing their lives, seeking answers to life’s mysteries, facing together life’s miseries… So goes the first few lines of our Couple Power M.E. theme song.
Nelson lost no time right after our Feb.9 graduation to sit in our music studio and record this theme song in pure rondalla. What a beautiful melody and powerful words of love and fidelity to the mission! Singing our theme song became our “last song syndrome”, second to “I Won’t Give Up” by Jason Mraz.
Top 3: Lastly, I wish to sincerely proclaim by faith that the Top 3 would be that our Marriage
Encounter family has become for us our bearers of hope in this Jubilee of Hope declared by Pope Francis. Thank you again and again dear Lord for making a way for us when there seems to be no way. Thank you for letting a ray of hope shine through when it was a bit dreary last year in our pilgrimage of faith. This journey allowed us to appreciate in a much deeper manner the true couple’s power in the context of marriage. The building of happy, healthy, and holy families must begin with true couple power. True couple power is enabled in an atmosphere of authentic dialogue with mutual empathy.
I speak my true feelings and I am not judged in as much as Nelson gets to express his deepest fears amid pre-retirement jitters, I sincerely listen without judgment. Practicing this honest and sincere dialogue daily for 90 days was truly miraculous and amazing.
All in all, Nelson and I renew our deep love and fidelity to each other. We move together. The older we get, the more mature we become and we pledge to stick together as Team Bitang in season and out of season. Whether in post-midlife or pre-retirement, Team Bitang is not only great lovers but also great mission partners.
The Lord is allowing us to expand our mission territories this 2025 and this is all for His greater glory!
So if you are married and you are reading this, please express love every day. Do not be too complacent. Live out Ignatian values of discernment and contemplation in action day by day by day. In Marriage Encounter I have been healed. I am humbled. I was able to receive forgiveness and I too became humble and asked for forgiveness. It is no accident that YOU two are with each other forever. In good or bad. In sickness and in health.
When we had to write each other our love letter just in case one of us died ahead of the other, both of us cried. We could not finish the letter in 10 minutes. It powerfully taught us to number our days alright. It was in those blessed 10 minutes of humble sincere dialogue with my spouse that I knew the reason why God put me in Married Life.
So I say thank you Mama Lads for praying that I marry a good man in Nelson. Thank you, Lord, for blessing me with a spouse like Nelson who is a man of unquestionable integrity and fidelity and a million pounds of patience and daily care. And even in the face of persecution and trials, my Nelson has always stood up for honesty and truth.
And today as we face 23 blessed years of married love, thank you dear Lord for allowing me and Nelson to experience at this point of our journey a much kinder, deeper love and humility for our mission. Padayon ta sa misyon Team Bitang! Dalaygon ang buhing Diyos! By Frances Nina Fernandez-Bitang