Choose Your Own Adventure #1

Hello everyone! 

For the choose your own adventure, I chose to write about the Rites of Passage on our culture. The three that I have found most important in my personal life would have to be my high school graduation, my marriage and then my confirmation into the Catholic church. In Van Gennep’s model of the rites of passage, you have separation, transition, and then reincorporation. To start with the first passage, high school graduation, we see that it adheres closely to the three stage model. When one is getting ready to graduate, you are separated from your family and grouped with all other graduates before the ceremony is to start. You’re then seated together as a group where you have several speeches said to you before you walk the stage to get your diploma. After receiving your diploma and celebrating with your fellow graduates, you then return to your family as someone who has completed their secondary education. When one graduates, you are separated from your family, you transition to a graduate as you receive the well earned diploma, and then you are reintegrated back into society when the ceremony is completed. The second rite of passage that I have experienced was getting married. Now this can be in different orders when one gets married and may not hold to the traditional three-stage model. Personally, when I had my wedding, I was separated from my then fiancé the evening before the wedding to spend time with my best girl friends or bridesmaids. We had a sleepover. And this was major to me. It was going to be one of the last times that I would have a true sleep over with my two best friends. The next morning, I continued to be separated from my fiancé until the wedding ceremony, where it was a weird separation of the important people that I had in my life consecutively. Starting with my mother and grandmother, and then my sister, and then my two best friends, until it was just my father and I for a bit. After the ceremony, my new husband and I were then separated from all family and guests for us to finally have    a minute to breath, and actually talk. We then entered back into the reception room, where we were welcomed but friends and family alike to celebrated the marriage. Similar to graduation, this does follow the model, but its a little different. Over the course of two days, I was separated from family and friends, almost one by one, until finally it was just myself and my father, and then he handed me off to my husband, where it was just my new husband and myself. The transition is the physical ceremony of the wedding, starting with “We are gathered here today…” and ending with the “I do”s. The reintegration happens after the bride and groom have a moment to themselves, and have taken all of the photographs, and they rejoin the wedding party as the newlyweds. For the third rite of passage, I’ve chosen the rite of confirmation in the Catholic church. After months of taking classes in the Catholic faith, the Easter Vigil was upon us. The group of people that were going through the confirmation, were to meet at a retreat the day before Easter, or the day of the Easter Vigil, a lengthy mass, leading up to the confirmation and first communion of people joining the church all over the world. We spent all day going over the passages that were going to be read at the mass that evening, and talking about the faith, and practicing the ceremony that was to happen. A few hours before the mass was to start, we were sent home to get ready, and then were to meet back a the church. Once the mass started, we were all to be seated away from the other members of the church, and all together. When the ceremony started, we were to be in front of the congregation, and be blesses, confirmed, and welcomed into the church. After the ceremony ended, we were free to go as members in the Catholic faith. The three stage model here is very clear, where we were separated from the congregation, the transition was the ceremony, and the reintegration was when we were full members of the church. 

For the experience of one of these, my marriage was such a relief, after over a year of planning, it was all finally over, and we could just relax and have fun. It changed several people after it was all over, mostly my husband and myself, as we were now a partnership. This also changed both of my parents, as I now was moving out of my mother's house, and my parents were now financially free of me. It became an adjustment and a transition that I think is still happening to this day, five years later. The key players in the entirety of the wedding would my myself, my husband, all of our parents, the bridal party, the priest, and lastly, all of the attendees. My husband and I for the obvious reason; our parents were key players as they were the ones to host the wedding; the bridal party to be there to support us and shower us with love; the priest to do the actual marrying of the two of us; and then the attendees to be there to witness, and celebrate us. The list of the symbols used in a marriage are endless. From the white dress to the first dance, the throwing of the bouquet. The rite of marriage can be both looked at as a secular and also a religious rite of passage. A secular marriage is due to that of two people being in love and vowing that love to one another, and the religious marriage is doing the same, but God is added in. In the Catholic church, a marriage is expected as one of the sacraments. It’s also extremely common to go through these three stages in the process of a wedding at some point, or another.