Church Requirements

We finally went back to Archbishop’s Palace to submit some of the church requirements – baptismal certificate, marriage license, license to solemnize marriage, delegation from SHJ Parish and pre-cena.

Baptismal Certificate

Joema and I got ours separately. No need to get it together since we actually weren’t the ones who got it. My mother and brother got mine at the Our Lady of Grace Parish in Caloocan. If you’re baptized there as well, here are their contact details:

Open Monday to Friday
Office Hours: 8:00 am – 11:30am, 1:00pm – 4:30pm
No releasing during holidays
Tel No. 634-5905
Fax No. 361-9515

If a representative, other than parent/s will get the certificate for you make sure to give authorization letter and photocopy of your ID.

As for Joema’s certificate, this was cause for an argument for us, simply because he kept on insisting that their church don’t issue baptismal certificates for marriage purposes. He kept on telling me that he will give me his original baptismal certificate while I kept on telling him that he has to get a new one. Oh well, atleast he was convinced to get it after our argument hehe. I think his mother got if for him as well.

License to Solemnize Marriage

This was easy to get since our officiating priest was easy to contact. He celebrates the first Friday masses here at the office so I just walked up to him and asked him for a copy of his license. He just faxed me the copy and we’re done.

Pre-cana Seminar

EDSA Shrine conducts their pre-cana seminar in two parts. The first part I blogged about here. The second part we attended last August 23. There were six couples in the seminar. The facilitators were a couple as well. They were married for 26 years already (if I remembered it correctly). They compared getting married to building a house with the pillars of the house, the stairs and the door representing the different facets of getting married (is it obvious I forgot most of it hehe). The latter part of the seminar we were asked to answer a questionnaire – the questionnaire was the same one we answered in the seminar held for our marriage license – and the answers were discussed.

************************

Rhoda and Jopen went with us to the church. We needed them as witnesses for our dispensation (mixed marriage). I’m very grateful they gave us their time (we all had to get off from work early to go Villa San Miguel). This dispensation as I mentioned before is sort of a contract that’s done between a Catholic and non-Catholic getting married in Catholic rites. The dispensation basically states that as the Catholic, I vow to remain a Catholic and to bring up our future children as Catholics, while he signs the contract in agreement. Both parties and the witnesses sign the contract and the parish priest as well. At AP, they have a stamp of Fr. Jun Sescon with his signature so he doesn’t need to be present there. The next day we brought the dispensation at the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila in Intramuros. They said to wait two to three days to pick up the document. I guess they will give us another document that we need to submit to AP. I will have to ask my brother to pick-up the document this Friday.

As for the other requirements, Brother Alexis gave us the forms for the banns and the permission from my parish. We already have the forms for the canonical interview but we have to schedule it with our officiating priest. We also have to get a schedule for my confirmation.