Archive for November, 2008

  • A new liturgical year

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    The feast of Christ the King is considered the last day of the Christian liturgical year and with Advent the new year begins (I’ve wondered about the week in between the 2 Sundays and the kind of limbo the Church seems to be in , must find out about it sometime)

    As part of advent, we set up a wreath ( I make mine form fresh Christmas Tree boughs) with 4 candles in it – each symbolizing a week of preparation in the Season of Advent. The wreath usually has 3 purple candles and 1 pink one. The purple candles represent repentance – our faith urges us to repent for our wrongdoings and begin afresh – and while the pink one symbolizes joy – at the coming of Christ.

    These candles also stand for Hope, Peace Joy and Love.

  • Wedding Daze

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    Remember the wedding I started talking about way back in January? Well I’ve finally managed to catch up with my life after all the activities and celebrations that went into making Priyanka and Ryan’s wedding one that I enjoyed to the hilt….. and here’s the gup on that :)

    Besides the evening we spent making the confetti pouches and liturgy booklets, we met about half a dozen times (in various people’s houses!) to practice along with a bunch of the Kurla choir regulars for the wedding mass. Virgil accompanied us on the keyboard and Wilbur put his guitar playing skills to good use :) The choir sounded pretty good to my ears, but were hoping to practice in the church to check the sound system. What happened because we didn’t get the permission is a story that you will read later in this post.

    So what exactly were all these nearly week long functions that made up the wedding?

    It started with the Bridal Shower the bridesmaid’s threw for Pri. We were having a lovely time when the boys decided to crash the party and give us their very own version of the Strip Tease!

    The boys strutting their stuff Malcolm, Amit, Selvyn, Wilbur, Ryan

    The “Serenade” came next :) The girls – led by Pri went over to Ryan’s place the night before the roce, stood outside his house with lit candles and added the fillers to Pri’s renderation of “You say it best when you say nothing at all” It was a very sweet gesture and I know that Ryan was touched to the core. Later that night we sat down and chalked out all that had to be done in the next 3 days.

    This was followed by the Rocea blessing ceremony where the bride / groom along with their bridesmaids and groomsmen are anointed with coconut milk and oil. These symbolize purity, fertility and God’s gift of creation. Each relative and friend anoints the forehead of the to be married couple with the coconut milk and oil and a sign of the cross. The roce however always involves a lot of mischief that may range from tomatoes being thrown to eggs being smashed on their heads! Pri, Malvika and Chetna got eggs and ice cold water apart from the ritulistic components! :P

    The day of the wedding came along and so I set off to start one of my tasks for the day – picking up white roses for the flower girls baskets. Got these and rushed home as I still had a whole lot to do.

    I managed to be at Pri’s house for the blessing inspite of the terrible traffic I got stuck in on the way. She looked lovely as she stepped out out her room in her off white bridal gown and long veil. Here are a couple snapshots from the afternoon.

    The gorgeous bride The Bride's Entourage

    Headed to church as we had to do a sound check before mass. Unfortunately, the sacristan decided that he owned the place and refused to make any adjustments. As a result we sang with 2 microphones, had to use a microphone to amlify the guitar (as the amp was not working) and had no feedback monitor. But I think we did a good job all in all :)

    The Choir

    Virgil and I headed to Ajay’s Grandma’s place to change into my little black dress and pick Ajay up. Reached the reception venue in good time. Thankfully my folks reached in time too and so did the newly weds and their entourage. Danced a bit in the evening and was exhausted by the end of it. The food was good and Pri’s Dad ensured that the waiters did the rounds properly and didn’t miss anyone.

    It was a lovely wedding and I was so glad to have been part of it through all the preparation.

    Ryan and Pri

    Congratulations Ryand and Priyanka. May God bless you always.

    BUT it doesn’t end there …….. there was still the Portapon! This custom is held on the day after the wedding where the bride is brought back home and henceforth will be welcomed as a guest. We said a few short prayers and then danced the evening away. Lets just say I enjoyed myself to the hilt :)

  • Liturgy Booklets and Confetti Pouches

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    When the Mistress commands her humble slaves to work, well then to work we shall go :P

    We went to Priyanka’s place on Sunday to help her with the liturgy booklets for the nuptials and the confetti pouches – (Below is proof that we actually worked!)

    Chetna with the bookets The gang at work Wilbur trying very hard

    (From left to right: Chetna tying the ribbon on the booklet, Priyanka in the foreground with the last of the confetti and the rest of the ’slaves’ in the background’, Wilbur desperately trying to punch holes in the paper – with the punch and template I must add)

    For the booklets we printed the hymns on ordinary A4 size white paper. This we used as the inlay. We used a blue printed wax paper for the jacket and printed the couple’s monogram on the upper right and the details of the date and church at the bottom. Finally we covered the front of the jacket with silver spangled white wooly paper (Thank you Dad for cutting them to size for us) and tied a pretty bow with blue tissue ribbon. Below is the final result :) which I was very happy with!

    The finished booklet The whole bunch

    After almost 5 hours of some serious ‘labour’, we called it a day. I was quite pleased with the fact that we got through putting together 48 hymn booklets and almost 75 confetti pouches – not bad for a bunch of people who don’t do this on a regular basis ! 

    Ryan and Priyanka went off for some food and we cleared up the mess we had ended up making! Then Malvika went shutter happy and captured some our antics :)

    Fooling around Malcom and Wilbur

    We said Rosary and had a  round of sing song with Wilbur accompanying on the guitar. Finally got down to dinner and by the time I hit the bed it was 1 in the morning.

    Couldn’t resist this picture of me with Pri’s yellow wall and ethnic piece of art :)

    Moi

  • “Marise” – But what does it mean?

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    For as long as I can remember, my name has caused (well for want of a better term) issues!

    For starters, there has been the difficulty pronouncing my name! I’ve been called Marisa (when they gave up trying to pronounce my name!), Macy (quite a pretty name – but no thank you) , Mercy  (beat the life out of me why!), Maricee (what!!!!) or even Maurice (when my gender was apparently in question!). I mean come on how difficult is is to pronounce Marise – correctly!

    Then, all through school I was teased mercilessly about how my name in Hindi meant “patient” – as in someone who is unwell.

    And finally there has been the wonder over what my name means? My parents say it has a Marian connotation (from the name Mary), since I was born on her feast day. 

    Well, I set out to find if my name meant anything else and this is what I came across.

    In Japanese, Marise means “Infinite”

    In French, Marise comes from the French word Marie meaning “beloved”

    In Dutch, Marise comes form Marijse meaning “of the sea”

    So I’ve discovered that Marise does mean something different among different cultures.