Marriage Preparation Course

On Saturday we had our first session of four for our marriage preparation course in the Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool (Paddy’s Wigwam as it’s known locally for obvious reasons). The course is a requirement for us to be married and Fr. Michael who is giving the course will have to send a letter to the church in Spain to say we attended.
Fr. Michael is a nice chap, young enough at about 35 and was ordained only 3 years ago. He was keen to make sure we understood he had a life before the priesthood which I felt was good because it was better that the person preaching to us actually had some experience in the subject of male female relationships. But obviously he didn’t go into the specifics of his history in that area! He’s also a Liverpool supporter (i.e. not Everton, the other Liverpool team) and that made the more hard core football fans in the room more comfortable too!
Anyway, it was mainly a case of getting introduced to some other people that are getting married and him explaining the churches take on what marriage is all about. There was not ‘bible bashing’ to be seen and there was no praying except a little ‘our father’ at the end. Nothing over the top to alienate us at all! In fact we learned a couple of interesting things we didn’t know before and we cam a way feeling fine.
I’m not saying that everyone should do it but if you are going to get married in a church it’s a good thing to at least know what it’s all supposed to represent. I’m not a particularly religious person any more, and I can’t see this course changing that, but I’m going to feel less of a hypocrite standing in a church after attending this course.