Posted on: Friday, October 10, 2003

Laughing but getting serious

• The Wedding Planner's Web log

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

Thursday, Oct. 9, 2003

At times, it's been hard to keep a straight face talking to our priest.

My fiancé couldn't help but crack up yesterday when the priest asked us if we pray together before we get intimate. (Not that the priest approves of premarital sex, he just wondered if we look at sex as something holy.)

Still, the prayer advice struck me as funny. It's just not something I would think of saying out loud at a time like that.

I relayed the story to my co-workers when I got back to the office.

"Dear Lord," one of them pretended to pray, "please give me a good orgasm."

I'm sure I will be plagued by Catholic guilt for even writing about this. I don't want to sound like I'm making fun of the priest. It's not that. It's more about finding humor in the sometimes-comic process of digesting everything that goes along with marrying within your religion.

At least my fiancé and I passed the Catholic couple's test. Well, the church doesn't call it a test. It calls it FOCCUS (Facilitating Open Couple Communication Understanding & Study) and insists you can't fail. But it is one of those standardized forms that comes back graded.

We scored highest on lifestyle expectations and personal issues and lowest on personality match (opposites attract, right?) and questions about his remarriage (probably because we skipped some of the questions we didn't think applied to us, which raised red flags.)

The test, which the church prefers to call an inventory, covers everything from sexual expectations to managing money, raising children and feelings about future in-laws.

Among the questions my fiancé and I found amusing: "I think I will feel uncomfortable being nude in front of my marriage partner."

On the serious side, the results come along with premarital counseling from the priest, who highlighted areas where we disagreed. Despite some of the silly questions, it really did make us focus on our strengths and weaknesses.

Funny how it took that to remind me that preparing for marriage is a lot more important than the trivial wedding details that have been occupying my mind lately.

Tanya Bricking writes about relationships for The Advertiser. Reach her at tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8026.