forgive me, Father, for i have sinned:

it's been approximately...12 (?!) years since my last confession... Yea, that sounds about right...

Dustin & I met w/ Msgr. Hambrough last night to start our meetings (since we are getting married in a Catholic church). Since Dusty is Baptist, he was a little nervous about the meetings & classes at first, I think. Well I don't know about being nervous so much as, he just didn't WANT to do them. But I kept reassuring him, "They won't be that bad...It'll be easy...It's basically just talking to Msgr. at the meetings, then learning 'Catholic-y' (is that a word?) stuff at the classes...Piece of cake..." Boy did those words come back to bite me in the ass last night...

So we're sitting out in the foyer of the Church, waiting for Msgr. to get there, and I start kinda whispering repeatedly, "Please don't let him ask how often I go to church...". Well we went in, sat down on the couch, and Msgr. sat at his desk. He started off simple: names, birthdates, parents' names, addresses, phone numbers, just for the file. Then he gets out a plain white sheet of paper and starts asking us questions to get to know us better. It was kinda weird sitting there answering all these questions while he was scratching away on the paper. Like taking notes on us. Felt like I was at a job interview or something.

Anyway, Msgr. started out simple again: what do you do for a living; where did you go to highschool and / or college; what do your parents do for a living; how many siblings / how old. Most of these he already knew about my family since he's been w/ our parish since April of 1998, but it gave him a chance to get to know Dustin and his background a little better.

Then he gets into:
1) How & where did you meet each other (well, Msgr., we were cruising Lindbergh and he yelled out his window to me)
2) How long have you been dating (4 years) / engaged (1.5 years)
3) What do you love about him / her
4) What kind of mother / father do you think or hope you'll be
5) How many times (if any) have you broken up since you've been together (can't even REMEMBER that answer, although it's been none since we got back together for good in December 2002). All those questions weren't really so bad either.

THEN came the damning questions--at least for my own (not so much anymore) Catholic self:
1) How is your relationship w/ God (at this point, pretty non-existent, though I didn't say it in those exact terms)
2) Why is your relationship w/ God the way it is (bc I'm kinda bitter, I have questions, etc.--wanted to say, "Bc I disagree w/ over half of what I've learned as a child", but I didn't go there. )
3) How often do you pray
4) How often do you go to Church (ummm...are Christmas and Easter enough to redeem myself?) / why so infrequent
5) When was your last confession (ummm...maybe 12 years ago? My answer to Msgr.? "I can't sink much lower into the couch...")

Well crap. I definitely "flunked" that part of the test.

After all of the questions and such, Msgr. talked w/ us about what we'll be doing at the remainder of the meetings w/ him (4 or 5 more over the course of the next 5 months), and gave us a bit of info about the classes. He stressed the importance of prayer & going to church ("Especially YOU," as he pointed his finger at me) to strengthen our relationship w/ God, thereby strengthening the relationship w/ each other. And it did all make sense to me, and I've even been saying to Dustin for the past couple months, "I really need to start going to church more often...I really ought to go to church..." But like I told Msgr., it's out of sheer laziness that I DON'T go. I have no good reason NOT to go.

Next time we go to meet w/ him is December 11 at 10:00 a.m. On that day, we'll be taking a 160-question "Agree or Disagree" test about each other. After we're done w/ it, Msgr. will review it, and we'll spend the next meeting or two discussing our answers, and going over any that we disagreed on. (Kinda like pre-marriage counseling.) I told Dustin to be honest, though; this could definitely be beneficial, if we take it and treat it as such. I just hope this test doesn't ever ask, "Have you engaged in premarital..."

Oh sheesh...I'm really screwed. (No pun intended.)