53. Get Confirmed

The road to confirmation has been a weird one. I discovered that if I wanted to have a wedding in Peru, it should be a catholic one (or else it wouldn't feel culturally authentic). And additionally, in order to have a catholic ceremony, I needed to first get confirmed. Nate doesn't need to, it's not his fault wasn't raised Catholic so long as he is baptized. I, on the other hand, had not excuse, and had to go through the whole Confirmation class process.

I found St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church two blocks from our apartment, mostly because they had mass in Spanish. I was terrified of being "found out", that they would realize that I was at heart a proud atheist who celebrates Christmas only from a cultural standpoint.

I should not have feared, as Father Tom is one of the nicest, most open minded, inclusive, forgiving and humble people I've met. He reminded me of the liberal Catholicism I'd grown up with in Peru, which had almost been erased from my memory by years of extremist vocal religious zealots in the bible belt. St. Augustine's is great- they say there's no wrong way to be christian, that the most important thing is to help those less fortunate and be forgiving of those around us, encourages us to be open minded and loving, and Father Tom apologized for the current polemic state of the catholic church while promising they (we?) we will do better.

With priests like these, I don't mind being associated to Catholics. In the end the ceremony was much simpler and understated than I expected, for which I'm thankful. I was anointed with a very aromatic ointment, and welcomed to the fold. Jen was there to be my sponsor, and came to Brooklyn all the way from Morningside.