Today's the start of our Marriage Preparation Course.

I'm excited. Even James was excited though he didn't show it.

James makes a quick breakfast (a rojak of ham, bacon, eggs and tomatoes, like the ones we had in Europe) while I bathe. Yes, my dear husband takes good care of me, worrying I'll go hungry during the mass, and truely believes in "I'm hungry now and I want to eat it now". While, I'm the sort who often skipped breakfast and willing to bear through on an empty stomach.

Somehow I keep thinking today's session would be at some church, it turns out the marriage preparation course fixed at SJI. The lecture hall was converted for the morning mass. Maybe becoz James' has ideas how it would be like since my parents-in-law used to volunteer to "chaperon" the engagement couples; I was kinda over-excited.

Catholic masses are always spiritually refreshing to me. Maybe becoz I was in a convent school for 10 years, hence attending masses always been not of a problem. The hall's been filled with all sorts of people. Young, matured, decent looking, sloppiliy dressed, all skin colors, locals, foreigners, catholics and non-catholics.

Father amuses me throughout the mass. He's pretty old, and he sure has lots of humour to keep many of the non-morning people (like myself) wide awake. I suppose I cause him a couple seconds of bluriness when we walk up to him to recieve holy communion. (Note* As a non-catholic, I chose to recieve blessings from Father, alongside with James while he recieves holy communion. The only way for Father to differentiate us was for James to hold out his hands to recieve, and I crossed my arms at my chest, and wait. But I suppose Father must got confused by me since I'm 1 step ahead of James, with my arms crossed and looked at Father. Father returns a wait for my hands to hold out and keep looking for my hands, while James just giggled behind me. When Father looked into my eyes, then he realised: "oh...")

Anyway, we finally had proper introductions to the rest of our groupmates after breakfast and a short briefing. (Each group consists of 1 presenting couple and 6 engaged couples.) No doubt, James' right (as he's always is), this course is all about communications. Some excerises (our homework) will be given each week, and we'll be paired with another couple, so we can share, listen, support and help each other. I hope with this course, I can tweak myself to be of a better spouse.

Someone asked me before, is MPC religious?

The answer is:

Coming from a non-catholic point of view:
No. Not at all. Even there are masses to attend, that's becoz the course was intended for catholics. So respect that they organised it and non-catholics are very welcome to join. So even if you're not a catholic, be respectful of other's religion and remember to switch off your handphones before masses. That's just plain super rude.

Coming from a spouse who wishes to grow spiritually matured with her partner:
Yes. Even though religion is not the main focus of this course, somehow I deem it as equally important. Becoz not only will I learn to communicate well with my spouse, I'll also learn to be more tolerate with his beliefs through being exposed to the environments they built for us. Afterall, our upbringing are different, our beliefs are different. Hence, we see things very differently. Luckily James and I are the sort who taking things as it comes. Questions we may, we will always try to be acceptant and supportive to each other.