Last Sunday, we had our Graduation Day at the Catholic Junior College. We've finally come to the moment we've all been looking forward to. We were very thankful and blessed that with all the activities made to complete the 6 weeks journey -  we have made an effort to be punctual, meet new friends and learned a lot.

In each exercise, we have been given time to write and express ourselves to our partner, share our thoughts and feelings and practice positive affirmations. We have some fun doing the activities. It gives us the opportunity to stop, be present with each other, and look deeper into marriage instead of just planning our wedding day.

The group sharing is wonderful, we may have some differences, our group consist of Catholic and non-Catholic friends, sharing opinions depends on each other's background and culture but everyone is open and our course facilitator Steve & Louisa were a very good listener and gentle loving couple.

We have learned love as a decision and not as a feeling. Feelings come and go but love that is chosen, love that is a decision is a committed love. Pledging myself to my partner that in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, I am committed and will love him unconditionally.

The MPC help us a lot to reflect heart-to-heart how to grow healthy marriage relationship. By sticking with each other, keeping each other as our first priority, listening for love, willingness to work on our relationship, by practicing loving communication and revealing ourselves to be open in marriage and much more.

This past week we have grown together. We recognise the need to trust, to focus on changing yourself rather than your partner, speaking gently and work together to resolve conflicts, listen and do the act of reconciliation by showing thankfulness and forgiveness with each other.

Characteristics of Marital Love
Come FREELY to this union, give yourself TOTALLY for better or for worse, be FAITHFUL till death and FRUITFUL to pledge to have the children that God blesses you with.

Two elements of Forgiveness

1. Reconciliation - We are hurt and distant from each other. We need to get together, share and discuss.
2. Healing - Disappearance of guilt feelings, mistrust and hurt. This is replaced by feelings of inner peace, joy and greater love

Week 1:	Difference between Man & Woman Decision to love
Week 2:	Communication in Marriage Faithfulness & Decision Making Forgiveness
Week 3:	God & Sex - The nuptial meaning of the body Sanctity of life / Abortion Natural Family Planning
Week 4:	Sacrament of Matrimony Covenant of Marriage Marriage as a vocation
Week 5:	Divorce Three major areas of conflict: Religious differences, In-laws, Career vs Children
Week 6:	Breastfeeding Sharing Graduation Day

Overall, it was a great experience to prepare as we enter married life. We got to learn and hear stories from married and engaged couples. Good marriages don't just happen. Relationship and love need constant decision to love and sacrifice and putting God in the center of our relationship.

It was a good way to reflect and understand that receiving the Sacrament of Matrimony is not just for formalities but accepting marriage as a vocation.

We both really enjoyed our Pre-Cana session and for OFW couple in Singapore who are considering doing it here, I’d highly suggest it. It brings up all kinds of questions and issues that couples might not have been through before, things that all couples should probably address prior to getting married.


Although, our pre-cana took us 6 weeks, the sessions are longer than back home, we were very thankful we sign up and that we were able to get through and open up some valuable lessons we didn't imagine before.


xoxo,

Catholic church requires Pre-Cana, it is one requirement that we can accomplish overseas. Pre-Cana is a course for couples preparing to be married in 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.

When we visited our church in the Philippines last February, we first asked them if it's okay to do our pre-cana outside the country. They said it's not a problem as parishes and dioceses are worldwide. Immediately, they asked us to come on the other day as they arranged our Canonical Interview. It was like a confession with only you and the priest. Just be honest will all of his question. In the storytelling, I cried, I was overwhelmed sharing our relationship experiences, trials and challenges. The priest was so gentle and good listener. The interview I had lasted one hour and half. After me, he told a joke to EJ that he knows everything about us, haha :)

After we contacted our parish, we make an arrangement to enroll at Marriage Preparation Course in SG. MPC reservation is by slots available, Q2 is closed already when we inquire so we enrolled for Q3. We are thankful that it is still open. The month of July to August works best for us.

MPC Course Application 2016

Quarter	Availability	Course Starts On	Course Ends On
Q1	Closed	14 February 2016	20 March 2016
Q2*	Closed	17 April 2016	29 May 2016
Q3	Closed	17 July 2016	21 August 2016
Q4	Closed	9 October 2016	13 November 2016

The course fee is $200 per couple. We made payment by crossed cheque via UOB. There is $5 dollar fee for Cashier’s order. The course is held over a period of 6 weekends and not to be missed.

Date	Time & Venue
1st, 3rd & 6th Sessions (Sun) 17Jul, 31Jul & 21Aug	8.30am to 2pm at Catholic Junior College (CJC) Mass is celebrated.
2nd, 4th & 5th Sessions (Sat\Sun) 24Jul, 7Aug & 14Aug	These are Home Sessions, held either on Saturdays or Sundays, in the home of the presenting couple (PC) assigned to you.

3 weekends/Sunday sessions are held at Catholic Junior College and 3 weekends/Saturday or Sunday sessions at the home at our presenting couple.

Our First session

Few days before our first session, we received a message from WhatsApp group for a reminder to be punctual as there will be mass that will start early.

We wake up early and before 8AM we arrived at CJC.  We took a bus and MRT to Stevens Road. We saw couples going to CJC as well, we just followed them. There’s excitement feeling inside because I saw couples inside the campus, talking to each other, holding hands and together.

First, you need to register to confirm your attendance. Afterwards, we sit down and were able to chat with the other couples our group. Each table has group number.

We started the program by attending the mass.

Then, we watched some short clips, the speaker is a couple. The program is couple focused, with presentations and variety of important subjects such as managing conflict resolution for difference, developing positive attitude, balancing differences, exposing inner feelings and forgiveness.

Words that I noted are Commitment, Communication and Complements.

We also had breakfast, Chinese dishes and hot coffee/tea.

After some talks again, we went to classrooms for grouping. Our presenting couple introduce themselves and all of the couples give introductions to know each other. They gave us the Couple Pack or workbooks. The couples in our group are all Singaporean. Some had mixed religion, some felt comfortable sharing, some were shy, some were young, some were established, it was a great mix. We had some activities. EJ and I had a near perfect match on everything.  The orientation is friendly and we learned a lot from our presenting couple life experiences.

They gave us homework, each couple had partner couple and assigned specific topic to discuss for the next meeting which is the home session and then we met Friday at Bugis for group for discussion.

Although this was just our first day, I want to say that we learned some valuable lessons based from other people experience.

Mag-asawa’y di biro nga talaga, there’s more to life after the wedding na kailangang paghandaan, at ang preparasyon na ito ay malaking tulong sa amin dahil baon naming ito habang buhay.

xoxo,