The fifth and final session of the joint marriage preparation course featured the life testimony of Nicolas and Antoinette Abboud, who spoke about their marriage, raising their four children and their commitment to the Church.
This was the fifth and final session of the joint marriage preparation course of the Greek Melkite Catholic Diocese of Sidon and Deir El-Qamar and the Maronite Diocese of Sidon, organized by Metanoia Listening Center in cooperation with the Family Committee of the Maronite Diocese of Sidon. It was held on Tuesday 12 May, from 7:30 to 9:30 pm, on Zoom, and featured a long life testimony by Nicolas and Antoinette Abboud, delegates of the Greek Melkite Catholic Diocese of Sidon and Deir El-Qamar to the Episcopal Committee for Family and Life. They are a couple on the Family Committee of the Melkite Diocese of Sidon and are committed members of the Equipes Notre-Dame family teams. Antoinette is a family counselor and mediator at Metanoia Listening Center.
The Abbouds spoke about their own life: how they met, their marriage, the first years of marriage and their challenges, how they handled conflicts, their relationship with their parents, and raising their four children. They also told how they joined the Equipes Notre-Dame (END) movement and the diocesan Family Committee, how much these commitments shaped their married life and helped them mature on their journey, and they encouraged the engaged couples to commit themselves too, so as to help them grow.
The couple then answered the engaged couples' questions. Father Joseph Abi Aoun, superior of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Hill in Deir El-Qamar and head of the Family Committee of the Maronite Diocese of Sidon, addressed heartfelt words to the participants and wished them a happy life with the Lord at its center. The session ended with prayer.
"Christian spouses are cooperators of grace and witnesses of faith for each other, for their children and for the rest of the family" (Amoris Laetitia 322).
With these words the joint marriage preparation course of the two dioceses of Sidon came to a close, wishing the engaged couples a happy married life as witnesses of faith and cooperators of grace.
