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| Our FULL Church |
On April 20th, in Camiguin Island, Meredith, Abram, and I received the Sacrament of Confirmation. We had been notified one month before that they were going to have Confirmations in Fr. Joe's parish in Camiguin. We eagerly asked permission to join the Confirmation, and my mom started to prepare us with what books we had on the subject. At first, I felt a little rushed; like we wouldn't be fully ready to receive the Sacrament because of the little time we had had to prepare for it. But my mom reminded us that because we've lived this missionary life for the past 2 years, our everyday lives have been almost sufficient enough preparation for this new Sacrament, and she felt that we were really just as prepared as any others preparing for their Confirmation.
As missionaries, we have a personal prayer time everyday, and really talk with the Lord about our ups and downs, trials, hardships, what we are thankful for, and what we need to work on in our lives. We have seen miracles happen, sometimes when we had least expected them, but asked for them anyway. And finally, we know Who the Holy Spirit is, and that He really does work, in a tangible way, in our lives and in the lives of others.
For our additional preparation, we did study the Fruits and Gifts of the Holy Spirit, what our responsibilities as adult Catholics are, etc.. The three of us also made good Confessions before we started on our trip. And after all this, I felt completely prepared for our coming Confirmation.
We left on the 17th for CDO. Abram had earlier asked Sidney, our missionary friend, to be his Confirmation sponsor. Abram wanted Sid to come but we never told him that Sidney was actually coming. Abram was so surprised when he met Sid at the airport!
Saturday, we received the Sacrament of Confirmation. There were 1000, (No, I'm not kidding!) others being Confirmed and even more people were present, probably around 3000 or over, because of all the families and sponsors. As there were so many people, the Archbishop needed a lot of help administering the Sacrament. Four priests and a few lay ministers helped the Bishop, and it all went very smoothly. We three were lucky enough to be able to be Confirmed by Archbishop Ledesma.
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| I chose St. Maria Goretti for my Confirmation Saint |
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| Abram chose St. John Bosco . |
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| Meredith chose Saint Therese of Lisieux |
I am so thankful that we were able to receive the Sacrament! I'm also excited to see what new things the Holy Spirit will do in our lives and what new opportunities to serve Him He will put in our way. ~ Maddie  |
| The Celebration Afterwards |
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| Together With the Archbishop |
P.S. Sorry! I'm not very good with arranging the pics in the best way imaginable on here...
