Couples wrote love letters to each other, received a plant symbolizing their relationship, and offered both at the altar during the Divine Liturgy presided over by Bishops Elie Haddad and Maroun Ammar at the Basilica of Our Lady of Mantara.
Before the Divine Liturgy there was a new experience: each person sat alone and wrote a love letter to their spouse, expressing their love and speaking about their relationship. Then each couple sat in a place set aside for them, spent some private time together, exchanged their love letters and received a plant. The plant symbolizes their relationship and their love: just as a plant needs attention, watering, pruning and care, so does their relationship – they must look after it, water it with words of love, apology and appreciation, remove whatever harms it, and take care of it. The couples offered this plant, together with the love letter they had written, and placed them before the altar in the church. At the end of the Liturgy, the bishops and priests blessed the plants and gave them back to the couples as the fruit of the day.
The day was crowned with the Divine Liturgy at the Basilica of Our Lady of Mantara, presided over by His Excellency Bishop Elie Bechara Haddad, Archbishop of the Melkite Diocese of Sidon, and His Excellency Bishop Maroun Ammar, Bishop of the Maronite Diocese of Sidon, with Father Joseph Abi Aoun, head of the Family Committee of the Maronite Diocese of Sidon, and Father George Nemr. Couples among the participants served the Mass: they offered the intentions and petitions, presented the gifts, an icon of the Holy Family, the flag of Lebanon and a green plant, and prayed for all families. The "Abouna Bechara Family" choir sang at the Liturgy, together with singers from the parish of Our Lady of the Hill in Deir El-Qamar.
