RP family in IV World Meeting of Families on Jan. 23-26, 2003

Last December 15, 2002,our youngest son, Jorge Bienvenido, bearing the enchanted smile of a young man in love, walked down the aisle of the Abbey of Our Lady of Montserrat in San Beda College to exchange "I dos" with his girlfriend of almost ten years, Maria Susan D. Batula.Facing each other before the altar of God in the presence of Fr. Narciso Ma.Tarcisio,OSB, their parents and the principal sponsors, Jaybee and Susan cemented their union and "became one" before the eyes of God and man by giving each other the Sacrament of Matrimony.Jaybee and Susan’s wedding is the fifth and last one in this generation of our family of one daughter and five sons.Our oldest and only daughter Joyce embraced a vocation of total service to the Lord when she became a member of the larger "family" of Opus Dei.

As my wife Josie and I watched and witnessed the latest ceremony, happily beaming but with tears in our eyes, our thoughts lingered to the four previous weddings of Jopet and Cef, Joel and Ruby, Jay and Mireille, and Jolly and Jane who now have their own families that have generated so far ten grandsons for us,thus assuring at most ten additional Sison families.At that moment, we were amazed and awed at how we were able to raise our six children and how four of them have raised their own families with all the concerns and trials of day to day married life. And here’s a fifth one in the offing plunging head-on, seemingly unmindful of what awaits them.Then as the priest was giving the blessings during the nuptial mass, it dawned on us that there is one ingredient of the union which gives them enough graces to cope with the ups and downs of couples tying the knot – the Sacrament of Matrimony.

The sacramental union of man and woman makes for an inviolable marriage that is the core of a strong and stable family. This is the union entered into by our five sons and by most Filipinos who invariably want to get married "sa simbahan" particularly referring to the Catholic Church.Thus very often, church weddings are held even after the civil ceremonies. By elevating their wedlocks into a sacrament, couples adhere to Christ’s admonition not to "put asunder what God has joined to gether". Our Lord backs up this admonition with the example of His own Holy Family of Nazareth where there is "heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, and above all love, that is the bond of perfection"(Colossians 3:12-21).As Pope John Paul II describes it in Familiaris Consortio, n 86, the Holy Family "underwent the trials of poverty, persecution and exile. It glorified God in an incomparably exalted and pure way. And it will not fail to help Christian families–indeed all the families in the world–to be faithful to their day-to day duties, to bear the cares and tribulations of life, to be open and generous to the need of others and to fulfill with joy the plan of God in their regard". It cannot be gainsaid therefore that the Filipino Families–and all other families in the world formed by couples who receive the Sacrament of Matrimony–have better chances of withstanding the tests of time and the vicissitudes of life.

The example of the Holy Family of Nazareth is admittedly a hard act to follow. Many Christian Families, including Filipino Families somehow fail to emulate the Holy Family of Nazareth. In fact they are exactly its opposite.

They have broken homes because of poverty and hard life or due to absentee or physically abusive or unfaithful fathers who lord it over the rest of the family inflicting harm on children and battering their wives; or to wives neglecting their domestic chores also because of infidelity or for some flimsy and whimsical reasons; or to children disrespecting and disobeying their parents.Undoubtedly,these Filipino Families cannot be considered the foundation of the nation.On the contrary, they make the country’s foundation quite unstable.But how could they be helped? Will legislations protecting the "human rights" or economic well being of its members be enough even if it means a disintegration of the family itself as some people are advocating?

These are among the many issues that will surely be tackled in the Fourth World meeting of Families on January 23-26, 2003.There is apparently some tension between the spiritual solution of the Church and the temporal remedy of the government.The Church supports these families not by merely

looking after their immediate temporal welfare but more importantly, their long range spiritual well being. The Church is more concerned on supporting these families by making them aware of the many spiritual graces available to them because of the Sacraments particulary the Sacrament of Marriage;or by helping them tap those graces precisely because they may have not yet learned how. In the Church solution,trials of poverty and cares and tribulations of life are parts of the process like what the Holy Family of Nazareth underwent.

Hence the Manila meeting of families is most important for all Filipinos not so much for being the hosts but more especially because these are the times when the inviolability of marriage and the sanctity of family life must be preserved as they are being threatened with some purely secular and temporal solutions to human problems.

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