Wedding Planning Adventure: Pre-Cana Seminar
What is pre-cana? Well aside from its one of the requirement if you decided to get married in a Catholic Church, Wikipedia says Pre-Cana is a course or consultation couples must undergo before they can be married in a Catholic church. The name is derived from John 2:1–12, the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee, where Jesus performed the miracle of turning water into wine
Even how much one Googles it still doesnt prepare you, I just know that I have to attend a seminar listen and go but then I was glad and happy that the Church requires a soon to wed couple to go thru this, maybe for some they find it troublesome or unnecessary thinking that since we are raised up as Catholics that we know almost everything and listening to a lay man talk about marriage is just simply put a waste of time.
But behold the day of our Pre-Cana at Our Lady of Mt Carmel Shrine started off as we rushing to the place... we woke up late luckily the most dreaded traffic from Shaw to New Manila was not as bad as we have thought ... Thank you Lord.
Arriving and thinking we are so late... we were the first ones to arrive
While waiting for anyone to arrive hahahaha we took the time to have some fun...
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| Pose pose |
It did not last long and Mr Ely from Mt Carmel welcomed us and ask us to do some work,
He asked us to answer the worksheets in the workbook, there are several and you need to answer them on your own, no sharing of answers you would be glad you didnt during the session :-)
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| Jowaness focused in answering the questions |
So what did I take away from this half day seminar? Well it came from a surprise visit from one of the Fathers in Mt Carmel.
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Fr. Jack Tangan, OCD |
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| my notes |
So what did Fr Jack actually said? When you are getting into marriage both of you must always do or at least try to...
1. Give your maximum
2. Tolerance
3. Grace of God
see not so hard right?
Now am wondering if we could request for Fr. Jack to be our officiating priest.. opps!! there is one advise that Fr Jack left for the brides to be...'DONT GET FAT" hahahahha... well sorry Fr Jack am trying my best but then I have to pass on this :-)
Our facilitator was Mr Johnny he is married for 40 years. He would share his experiences and you could actually learned from it, the stories are funny with a pinch of reality that it could happen to you during your marriage, he told this story about compromise his wife has this thing for being neat and on the other hand he is a mess, they were able to tolerate each other... compromise he said that most of the times you have to compromise and he reminds us that we should be willing to do it in our marriage it does not mean that we are foregoing our pride and ego down the drain, if you love that person and want to spend your lifetime with each other then you have to learn to compromise ... both of you should compromise.
Mr. Johnny also shared about a couple who is married for 60 years, when asked what is their secret.. they replied that for 60 years they gave each other love notes saying what are they thankful for in their relationship or anything positive to say to each other..
Wow!!! 60 years... thats 21,840 love notes.. you think its impossible? Mr Johnny doesnt think so, come to think of it how difficult could it be to say one positive thing to your other half? even on a bad day am sure there is one you could write...Awww!! now is that not sweet waking every day reading those notes reminding you why your other half likes about you... come on..those who doesnt like saying those cheesy little words that is stuck somewhere maybe should consider doing this...
hmmmm... maybe I should give it a try hahahahahah
So, those couples who are still thinking that a Pre-Cana seminar is a waste of time or it's just another requirement that we need to tick off from our long list of requirements, do attend this with an open mind and heart.. and you would leave the seminar with much much more than you expected... I surely did.
BTW, you would be receiving your certificate of attendance right after. Remember to keep your worksheets and the certificate for submission to your Church :-)
Contact details
Our Lady of Mt Carmel Shrine
ADDRESS: Doña Juana Rodriguez (Broadway Ave.), New Manila, Quezon City
CONTACT NUMBER: (02)724-5938, (02)725-1508, fax (02)724-1489
