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• 1 #16a72c 2010-10-08T22:48:48-07:00 The Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary 126 split 2011-05-11T14:21:47-07:00
  In April, 1946,  the remaining Peace Mission members celebrated The Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary of Father and Mother Divine with seven banquet services held at various properties in the Philadelphia area.  
  Mother Divine arrived at each banquet by limousine and wearing a formal gown, as she had always done at her anniversary banquets with her husband since their marriage in 1946.  She greeted the invited guests of Father Divine and then took her place at the head of the long table next to the place set for her "personally absent," but still spiritually present husband. 
  Guests from the city's private and public sectors joined followers and co-workers in re-enacting a "divine"celibate marriage that, to the believers, was a union of races, nations and most importantly a union of Heaven and Earth. For the hundreds of elderly believers still in the Movement, the marriage was not only between God and his "spotless virgin bride," but between God and themselves, his own church. Peace mission believers, male and female, continue to wear a wedding ring in recognition of this 1946 bond.
  The Bible Institute, part 1

  The Bible Institute, part 2

  The Divine Tracy, part 1

  The Divine Tracy, part 2

  The Circle Mission Church

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• 1 2010-11-01T21:30:52-07:00 Mother Divine 27 plain 2016-09-11T23:58:33-07:00
  
  In 1940, Edna Rose Ritchings left her home and her family's flower shop business in Vancouver, Canada to join the Peace Mission Movement. She broke ties with her parents and traveled to Philadelphia to live communally and interracially at the Circle Mission Church. There she became Father Divine's secretary and was given the name "Sweet Angel". One day in the office, Sweet Angel proposed to Father Divine by saying, "I want to marry you because I know you are God." 
  
  
  
  In 1946, Father Divine married Sweet Angel in Washington, DC and she became the second Mother Divine.
  
  Since Father Divine's physical passing in 1965,Mother Divine has presided over the Peace Mission, and the Movement has developed a matriarchal quality, with Mother Divine maintaining her husband's moral and religious standards as she looks after the spiritual and temporal needs of their "children" or followers. 
  Though the membership of about 100 is elderly and dwindling, Mother Divine maintains the Peace Mission standards for living and believing from her estate in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia. Abundance of material wealth signifies "Heaven on Earth." Still, she has changed certain aspects of the lives of followers. For example, Mother Divine transformed elements of their principle ritual, the Holy Communion Banquet Service, when she introduced in the late 1970s concepts from vegetarianism and macrobiotics transforming food preparation, food ingredients, and even eating habits of the followers. A focus on the health of the aging body.