We scheduled this canonical interview earlier than most couples. It's still a good 5 months from the wedding day, even though we knew that some friends go through the interview just weeks before their ceremony, but aside from the fact that this is a requirement of MTQ to formalize the reservation, we also want to go through this now, perhaps, to make us feel that we are already being guided by the church.
We are not the typical religious couple, we don’t hear mass every Sunday, or go to confession regularly, but we do believe that there is a supreme being that guides all of us. We say a little prayer, and give thanks for both the blessings and the challenges sent our way. That being said, we were anticipating a long speech from the priest expressing his disapproval,once they find out about the qualities that we were lacking.
Traffic was really bad when we went to Mary the Queen. Our interview was scheduled at 3pm, and despite having a one hour allowance, EDSA was just horrible, and we were stuck near La Salle Greenhills 5 minutes to 3pm. It’s a good thing that the priest was kind enough to wait for us, and had us rescheduled to 4pm. We were able to break from the La Salle traffic, but not long after, we were again stuck, this time caused by Xavier. We decided to get out of the car and just walk despite the rain.
We were asked to complete a back to back questionnaire; asking about our catholic church education, where we grew up, background, and if we came to the interview on our own free will. We were left inside a small conference room, so we were joking about our answers to fight the butterflies fluttering crazily with anxiety.
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| paperwork! |
The priest joined us; LJ made me go first and stepped out of the room. I was giggly and wide eyed due to extreme nervousness while I was being interviewed. The priest kept the conversation light and asked some questions about how we met, and how long we’ve been together. He also asked about my family’s background. Prior to this interview, my fear was that we will get a very long sermon regarding not fulfilling our obligations to the church, like hearing mass every Sunday and receiving communion. He was nice enough to try to understand the situation, the sermon that I feared did not happen, and I felt better after that. What he stressed during the interview was the importance of having children, he asked us how many kids we wanted, and he seemed happy with our answers.
The most difficult question to answer? Why do you want to get married in Mary the Queen? Hala! We are non-parishioners, the church is way far from our actual homes, the only non offensive reason left is “because we like the color,” haha! We do have an answer to this, we've shared our journey in this blog entry, it’s significant to us, how everything fell into place too easily for MTQ and Oasis, and we felt that it was valid. However, it seemed too much to say in an interview. So we just answered that it was simply because of proximity.
It was a very stressful week, mostly because of the church requirements. We were even preparing ourselves to be interviewed by a super conservative priest who’s extremely unreasonable just to add the cherry on top of our challenges. We took it as a blessing that we got to talk to Fr Antonio Samson. He’s voice made us feel that he wants us to be guided, he didn’t sound pushy, and he spoke with reason.
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| photo from Flickr, Le Montage |
We were lucky to have been interviewed by him. All is well! “,)
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