‘The sacrament we give each other’

Mark and Maricel Sebastian live out their matrimony in the every day

By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald

If you ask Mark and Maricel Sebastian if they considered getting married anywhere but their parish church, they’d quickly say no. The pair, who celebrated four years of marriage in January, deeply believe in marriage as a sacrament.

In fact, the cradle Catholics, who are active in their parish of Immaculate Conception in Ewa Beach, and with Couples for Christ and Engaged Encounter, got engaged at church! Mark surprised Maricel on her 27th birthday with a proposal on the church steps, surrounded by their parish friends.

Their nuptials on Jan. 17, 2016, held during an extra Sunday Mass at Immaculate Conception, was open to all.

For their honeymoon, they went to Italy and joined other married couples in bridal attire to receive a special blessing from Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square after his Wednesday audience.

And each year on their anniversary, the two go to Mass and are blessed by their former pastor, Capuchin Franciscan Father Michel Dalton, who presided at their wedding.

“They are beyond card-carrying members of the Catholic Church,” said Father Dalton. “They don’t go out of their way to practice their faith because it’s not out of the way, it’s just part of them. Whatever they do is golden.”

“They are so natural in their faith that you just want to rub shoulders with them.”

The day-to-day

To sing the Sebastians’ praises as an ideal Catholic couple doesn’t make them any less of an ordinary married couple.

On a recent Saturday, the 32-year-olds were going through their usual round of weekend chores, yard work and cleaning at their Kunia home. The night before, the couple had young adults from Couples for Christ over at their home until late, making personal pizzas, watching movies and hanging out.

There’s a pool table in the garage and a pop-up tent, tables and chairs at the ready for backyard gatherings.

“Like their wedding, their home is an open church. Everybody’s been there, in and out,” said Mona Ishihara, a Hawaii Catholic Schools department employee, who has known Maricel since 1998 when they were both involved in the youth branch of Couples for Christ, a lay family ministry program.

Before starting an interview with the Hawaii Catholic Herald at their house, Maricel confessed that she and Mark had just been in a little spat over housework, for which she apologized to Mark.

Focusing on the graces that come from the sacrament of marriage helps her handle couple issues as they arise, she says. The goal, after all, is to lead each other to heaven, arguments over chores or not.

“Marriage is the only sacrament that we give each other,” Maricel said, the other sacraments being conferred on someone by a bishop, priest or deacon. “Because we decided to give that sacrament to each other, we have to know that we can’t take that away from each other.”

“You always have to remind yourself why you’re in this relationship and why you choose to love each other,” Mark said.

He lovingly describes her as “irritating” because she can be loud and is a talker, and he’s more of a low-key kind of guy. But she also “irritatingly” knows just how to say the right thing he needs to hear. They are easily affectionate and jokey with each other.

“We do complement each other,” he added.

When they lead retreats, Maricel is more of the public speaker and socializer while Mark works behind the scenes on logistics and set up. He’s the detailed one, and she’s more impulsive. He’s great with babies, and she excels at working with elementary through teenage kids.

They take care of each other.

A slow-boiling romance

But it didn’t always seem like they were meant for each other.

Mark and Maricel met in high school through her father’s driver’s education business. Since she already had her license, Maricel would shuttle students, including Mark, to class. They also knew a lot of the same people.

Mark had a crush on Maricel and would make sure to hang out with her when their paths crossed. He even asked her out a few times while they were in high school and college but Maricel wasn’t interested.

Jump forward several years. After a difficult relationship, Maricel spent about five years considering a religious vocation or living in “single blessedness.”

“That’s when I got to build my relationship with Christ,” she said. “Knowing that I only had him to rely on and realizing what my worth was with God being in my relationship, it made me discern more on, ‘What if this really was it?’ If my relationship was with God and not somebody else.”

She even spoke at a Diocese of Honolulu vocations event in 2014 on living the single vocation.

Meanwhile, Mark was ending a long-term relationship and spending time reflecting and praying to God about his vocation.

He was born on the feast of St. Joseph and so named Mark Joseph. He has a particular affinity to the step-father of Jesus.

“A lot of people say I have the marks of St. Joseph himself,” he said. “I love playing with kids. I love to build things.”

So he told God, “I’m pretty sure you want me to be a married man.”

One day during a long-period of adoration at St. Joseph in Waipahu, Mark fell asleep and had a vision of Maricel.

“I was like, what does that mean? I haven’t seen her in years!” he recalled

Soon after, Mark started working with Maricel’s “uncle” Eddie Crisostomo. He eventually asked Crisostomo for Maricel’s number and got it after some prodding.

Maricel was surprised when Mark called, and not sure if she should go out with him. Her friend Mona Ishihara remembers talking it over with her.

“I was pushing him away because I thought I was set on religious life,” Maricel said.

But Ishihara told her she didn’t have anything to lose by exploring the relationship.

So the two went to dinner, and from there the pair “got serious real fast,” as Ishihara recalls.

Unlike in past dating relationships, Maricel realized that with Mark things were easy and she didn’t need to force the relationship.

“I never had to worry and I was never insecure with him,” she said, “I could just act myself and he took it fine.”

Mark said that he soon felt so strongly about his future with Maricel that it was the right time to propose after eight months together.

“I felt like there’s nothing else that I can do or find out there that will replicate or even be better than this relationship,” he said.

So he enlisted Ishihara’s help to propose, making sure the way he popped the question was just right, from the ring to getting permission from Maricel’s family, her Couples for Christ directors, and Father Dalton.

A year and a half after their engagement, the two were married. That Sunday’s normal Mass readings just happened to include the Wedding at Cana, and about 300 people showed up for the service, more than the number that would attend their reception.

“It’s not just about us. It’s about why God has put us together in the first place,” she said. “Regardless of where we came from, there’s a purpose why we’re together for each other, for our future family, for the community, for the world.”

Mark + Maricel | Same Day Edit from Visionize Media on Vimeo.

Time for service, each other

Before they met, Maricel was very involved in youth ministry at Immaculate Conception and many other ministries. After they got together, they both taught religious education and did other parish volunteering. But they’ve since stepped back from a lot of that, realizing they need to make sure they have enough time for each other and their marriage.

Now they focus on Couples for Christ, where they act as mentors to the “Singles for Christ” young adult group, and they serve on the Oahu Engaged Encounter team.

Maricel’s family was involved in Couples for Christ when she was growing up, so it was natural for her to continue in that ministry as an adult. Mark is involved now too.

As for Engaged Encounter, their friends Donna Lyn and James Baguio invited them to join the team as a presenting couple who give talks on the weekend retreats for couples planning to get married in the Catholic Church in Hawaii.

“When they presented for the first time at their retreat in September 2019, I witnessed how their words came alive in the candid and humorous ways they delivered their talks,” Donna Lyn Baguio said. “They are naturals at being at the front of the crowd giving their talks, and it truly was a blessing to watch this couple grow from their days of courtship to now preparing couples for marriage on the retreat weekends.”

Mark and Maricel also serve on the Engaged Encounter board and manage its ministry supplies.

“Being a part of Engaged Encounter is a nourishment for us because it makes us talk about our issues,” Mark said. “And throughout the retreat, when other people are doing their talks, we get to listen and get nourished through their experiences.”

For Maricel, it is hard sometimes to “share the realities of marriage.” When they prepare their witness talks, the two have to talk about current and past issues and “hash it out.”

“But at the same time, it’s also relieving to let other people know that we can work it out. And it’s comforting to know that we can inspire other people through our faults,” she added.

Ishihara sees the Sebastians’ unity through prayer.

“They definitely lift up everything to God when it comes to decisions and things between them,” she said, adding that she’s known them to say a novena for guidance on certain questions they have.

The Sebastians often see engaged couples focusing so much on their wedding day and forgetting to talk through long-term marriage issues such as financial philosophy and child-rearing plans.

“They’re so focused on the planning … all the fairytale of the [wedding] day,” Maricel said. “But then the day after, what’s going to happen?”

For the Sebastians, when they got married they did not know they would have trouble conceiving children, which has been a tough matter to face.

“I get insecure when I have to tell him that maybe we won’t have kids … especially him being such a family man and loving kids,” Maricel said. “I still feel guilty that I can’t give him that.”

“But at the same time, at least that makes him understand where I’m coming from and it makes me feel secure when he tells me that it doesn’t matter.”

“You’re not the one that’s giving me a child,” Mark said. “It’s God that gives us a child.”

For now they continue using their married life to act as witnesses for the sacrament and grow in their love.

“Love is not a feeling. It’s a choice that we have to continue to make every single day, every single moment,” Maricel said.

“God put us where we had to be … and we’re just really thankful for the opportunity that God has given us to be married to each other and try to lead each other to him,” Mark said.

“I mean, everybody’s goal is to get to heaven. It’s hard sometimes to do it by yourself.”

Mark + Maricel | Love Story from Visionize Media on Vimeo.