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The Catholic Church honors long-married couples, and one woman launches a program she hopes will prevent divorce.
By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 10, 2001
ST. PETERSBURG -- For the past 10 years, in the month of long-stemmed roses, heart-shaped balloons and mushy cards, the Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg has been paying tribute to long-married couples.
Sunday, the diocese will honor 523 couples at the Cathedral of St. Jude during a Jubilee Mass to celebrate World Marriage Day. Among the gathering will be 42 couples who have been married for 25 years. Amazingly, the majority of those attending the early afternoon service, to be celebrated by Bishop Robert N. Lynch, will be couples marking half a century or more of marriage.
Eileen Tipps, who is not Catholic and is twice-divorced, has launched a program she hopes will ensure such marital longevity. Mrs. Tipps is the founder of Wedding Warranty III, a biblically based educational program. She believes God laid out instructions for the perfect marriage in the Bible, addressing subjects from sex to money to the in-laws. He also prescribes the proper roles for husbands and wives.
"The wife's responsibility is the heart that makes the home, the helper," said Mrs. Tipps, 55.
"And the husband's role and responsibility is to be the leader and the loving husband. . . . Everything is backed up with Scripture."
Faith has been an important factor in the enduring marriages of at least two of the couples who will attend Sunday's Jubilee Mass at St. Jude's.
As well, said Raymond Beloin, 90, who married his wife Jeannette, 89, on Nov. 9, 1931, "We loved each other."
Added his wife, "It's just that we get along well."
The Beloins, who have been members of St. Jude's since 1969 and have two children, nine grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren, will have the distinction of being the longest married couple at Sunday's gathering.
William and Margaret Rowan from Sun City Center are celebrating their 64th anniversary this year.
For Sunday's service, said Mrs. Rowan, "My husband picked out a mauve two-piece dress, a sheath with a jacket. . . . He's a very good shopper. The first thing he picked out, I liked."
The two were married in 1937 at St. Nicholas Church in Evanston, Ill.
"We were married in the afternoon, and I wore a blue suit and I had a little bouquet of gardenias, which I love. Actually, in those days we couldn't afford a big wedding, so it was very small," Mrs. Rowan, 81, reminisced this week.
Mrs. Tipps, who was brought up in the Methodist and Presbyterian churches, said her parents set an excellent example for married life. They were married for 571/2 years and brought her up in a religious home, she said. But her religious upbringing provided little guidance for her own marriages, Mrs. Tipps said.
"When I got married at the age of 17, the church didn't prepare me for being married," she said.
Most of what she has learned since, Mrs. Tipps said, has come from a set of videotapes she first saw at Central Christian Church, which she attends. After seeing the videos, which provided "life-changing" lessons for marriage, Mrs. Tipps decided to launch her Wedding Warranty III program in 1999.
"The III is what's most important. It puts the warranty into the wedding -- God, he and she. It's a war against divorce," the former school cafeteria manager said fervently.
As part of her program, Mrs. Tipps shows the videos, produced by Walk Thru the Bible Ministries of Atlanta, at her home or gives them to people to watch at their convenience. She has spent her own money to buy the tapes, but now is working with Walk Thru the Bible Ministries to spread the program in St. Petersburg and eventually across the nation.
She said that she is committed to the program.
"I've seen the effects of divorce on my children. I lost one of my sons. He committed suicide," she said, her voice breaking.
"He was divorced, and it was fairly recent. I can't blame my daughter-in-law at all. She was living with a man on cocaine. I tried to tell my daughter-in-law and my son, you've got to watch the tapes. But I couldn't help my own family."
This week, as she talked about driving to St. Petersburg for Sunday's service, Mrs. Rowan gave several reasons for the longevity of her marriage to her childhood sweetheart.
"I think it's because, for one thing, we enjoy the same activities," she said. "And what I didn't enjoy, I learned to enjoy, and he did the same."
Their faith also is important to them, Mrs. Rowan said.
"He's always been very devout, and so have I," she said.
"I think we took our vows very seriously. . . . We would never have considered divorce."
To couples contemplating marriage, she advises, "I would say, take your marriage vows seriously and please, don't go to bed angry with each other."
And concerning dealing with the inevitable difficulties, she added, "I would suggest, don't give up."
Sunday's Mass will be a fitting tribute to marriages like the Rowans' and Beloins', said Deacon Joe Grote, director of the diocesan office of Family Life Ministries and coordinator of the celebration.
"It is such a testimonial to have so many people on that Sunday that come to renew their vows. It's just a testimonial to the sacrament of marriage, that it is forever, 'til death do us part," said Grote, who has been married to his wife, Kathleen, for 35 years.
The Mass is being sponsored by Worldwide Marriage Encounter, a program that encourages married couples to become reacquainted during weekend-long sessions.
This weekend's celebration, which Grote has been planning since December and which will be attended by couples from as far away as Hernando, Pasco and Citrus counties, is especially timely given today's high divorce rates and lack of commitment, Grote said.
"It's just great on the day itself to see all those couples, especially when they renew their vows and they turn to each other ... with tears in their eyes."