Belmont Couple Celebrates 50th Anniversary
It is with great joy that I share this story with you. Unfortunately, we live in a world that has grown quite cynical to things like good manners, good values, and relationships that lasts. On October 26th of this year, I had the great joy and privilege of being at the reception of a married couple who celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary that day. That’s right! 50 years of being married, and they are still very much married and very happy. At the reception, their children paid tribute to their parents – a tribute that was a tremendous blessing to all present, and I am sure will be a blessing to you as well. In this very simple but quite powerful tribute, there is a blueprint that we can follow for successful marriages.
And so faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13: 13
Good night everyone, and thank you again for joining our family in celebrating the golden wedding anniversary of our beloved parents. We would just like to give a little background into how our parents met each other. According to what Mum and Dad told us, Dad was a member of the Legion of Mary and he used to carry out his legionary duties of going from house to house encouraging people to pray the Rosary and to attend Mass. He came upon Mum’s house with her thirteen other siblings on Pelham Street and that is where he saw her for the first time. She was kneading bake all covered with flour and I suppose he thought she was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen because he kept going back to that particular house to encourage them to “pray”. He told us that when he realized he was interested in mum he had to write a formal letter to her dad who is deceased now, asking to date and eventually marry her. In that letter he had to lay out his intentions clearly and eloquently. By the way, Mum still has that letter which would be 50 + years old now. Mum said that when she was growing up her mother always used to tell her that when God is ready he would send her the man who will marry her and she would not have to go anywhere to look for him he would come straight to her doorstep which is literally what happened. It is truly a testimony of faith. This exact date 26th October makes it 50 years since they have been married and we hope they can make another 50.
Marriage, as everyone knows who has been married, is not a bed of roses all the time. Therefore it is not to say that there were no challenges to Mum and Dad’s marriage, that there were no rough roads for them to thread, there were, indeed there were. But what we have learnt from our parents’ marriage over the years, can be summed up in 4 very simple yet profound watchwords that would prove to be the glue that held them together.
The first is commitment: their commitment to the vows and to each other kept them together through thick and thin.
The second is forgiveness: Someone once said,” to err is human but to forgive is divine.” This is true. No one is perfect, we all fall short of the glory of God but we have seen our parents forgive themselves and each other and move on from past mistakes, it is a lesson everyone needs to follow, to be humble enough to allow God to open our hearts to forgiveness.
The third is faith : faith in God and faith in each other to stay on that course to the finish line. One of the many ways their active faith in God stands out is in their daily feeding of the poor. They literally open their doors every day to feed anyone that stops by and asks for a plate of food – both regulars and strangers alike. It’s now “practically known” in Belmont that if you’re hungry, you can get a plate of food at the Ramsey’s house.
Last, but not least is love – love for God first, love for each other and love for their family. It’s a familiar sight for anyone on Pelham Street, to see our parents romantically rocking side by side every evening in their gallery, their souls joined together in prayer. How beautiful and prophetic also that the same rosary that was the means through which their love first blossomed, still serves to unite them in love 50 years later…As their kids, we can all attest to and are forever grateful for the many blessings that have come to us through their relentless prayers…
Our parent’s daily, practical living of these four watchwords – Commitment, Forgiveness, Faith and Love provided a great example over the many years of their marriage and is a priceless legacy that they have gifted to us their kids…
Mum and Dad we toast to you, we salute you as parents, as exemplars to us, if we can even be a quarter of what you have been to us in turn to our own children, we would be eternally grateful. We love you and may God bless you!
