Confirmed!

Posted on Feb 14, 2010 03:30 PM




While the rest of Manila is still having breakfast, we breeze through Mandaluyong to Malacanang Palace, all the way to Arlegui and to San Miguel (the Archangel) Shrine. It is Valentine's Day and we are getting confirmed.

The shrine earlier celebrated a mass wedding for 14 couples, and each Saturday and Sunday the monsignor anoints the sacrament of confirmation. What is confirmation? It is knowingly accepting Christ and the Church as your religion, as a part of your daily life. It is the same as baptism, except this one you answer in behalf of your parents. Also, it is a church requirement if you are to have a church wedding. Pay P600 per person and you get the certificate, and a sermon from monsignor for not attending mass regularly, having premarital sex and or being married outside the church, which is not acceptable according to the eyes of God. Monsignor jokes but wonders what is happening to the world- when we should all have been confirmed at the age of 12, so we could gain more blessings, when women walking down the aisle still dressed in white while there is already a baby inside. He says only virgins should wear white while walking down the aisle, and all others should wear polka dots. Ha-ha.
He talks a lot about premarital sex, and mentions more and more teenagers are doing it. He reminds us that as we are getting married,we should know how to raise children of God, not to let them wander the streets like flies along the train tracks with dried sipon on their noses, and black lines on their armpits cursing like dogs.

I like this reminder. I know what an enormous responsibility it is to be a parent. I wonder how my mother and all our mothers did it. But one day at a time. As of today, we are confirmed, blessed, and ready for our pre-marriage seminar.