Our class, which is called, “The Call of the Kingdom of God and Christian Responses” or simply TREDFOR, revolves about the different vocational exposures that are available to us; in particular, we focused on the holy matrimony. We started our class by discussing on the personal faith that each of us has towards God. Additionally, we sought to identify and relate our relationship with God.
As a Christian, I believe that claiming as such does not make me more “Christian” or “holy” than any other individuals; however, to validate that claim, the Christian values and beliefs should be reflected in my everyday life. Taught from our previous TRED classes, we are created based on the image of God. This actually means that to be like God, we should embody the holiness of God through applying the teachings of Jesus Christ. Frankly speaking, I wholeheartedly agree with this line of thought. After all, it is not religion that offers us salvation; it is through the love of God and our acceptance of His Gift that redeem us from the consequences of our sins – death.
I am not Catholic; rather, I am a Protestant. I know that Roman Catholics value Mary and pray to her too. While I do not pray to Mary, I respect her a lot. I agree with our class lecture about how difficult it was for Mary to see Jesus, her son, suffer and die; yet there is nothing she could do about it. I concur with Sir Ian that this event would have to be really the most trying thing that one can experience in the world. The sense of knowing that the person you love is suffering and you are powerless about it is certainly painful to know and endure.
As stated previously, our TREDFOR class focuses on the marriage and the family life. The way I understand the course syllabus, the class seeks to help us integrate the Christian values and principles with the holy union. It also wanted to make the students aware of the other vocations such as: Priesthood and Religious Life, and the Single Blessedness. Personally, I feel that our class has successfully tackled marriage and family life, however, due to time constraints, we did not get to dwell too much on the other two vocations.
Being a young adult myself, I have never been in a romantic relationship, let alone be in love with another person. Admittedly, serious matters such as commitments never even crossed my mind; it is not as if I wanted to “play the field”, rather, I do not consider myself mature enough to be involved in a serious relationship. For me, I would rather be in a relationship that I know will last a lifetime than be in a fling that will end in months, or worse, weeks. Nowadays, people often engage in relationships without taking them seriously. It does not mean that I think couples should not have fun and be uptight with each other; it would, nonetheless, be ideal if a certain level of understanding between couples was reached. This level of understanding is closely related to maturity and commitment.
In class, we reviewed about the “Human Maturity”, “Value Clarification”, and “Authentic Love”. It was discussed that these three concepts play crucial roles keeping marriage successful. The “Human Maturity” is divided into three primary ideas: the different crises an individual undergoes, the give – get balance, and the troublesome feelings that a person feels such as self-esteem and super ego. After the lecture, I realized the importance of loving oneself first. After all, it allows us to let go of our insecurities and develops us to become more mature; it prepares us to accept and endure the difficulties of handling relationships.
It was discussed in our class lectures; marriage requires complete and total love for the other person. While I am aware that I cannot control the time, occasion, and other specific things about the person I will be spending my life with, I will never forget the freedom of choice that God has granted to all of us. We have the power to express our love or to hide our feelings for other persons. God respects the freedom of individuals. We make our own choices and we should be responsible for the consequences of our decisions.
Our spouses become the human representations of God in the sense of expressing our longing to be together with God. In fact, during our discussion on “Sensuality, Sexuality, and Spirituality”, it was explained that human genitals are designed as complements of the other; in that sense, we became co-creators of God through the union, and of course, through the natural course of creating lives.
Another interesting topic that we had discussed on was the genogram. The genogram is a visual representation that seeks to identify interlaying similarities of characteristics, attitudinal behaviors, and preferences of the offspring to their biological parents and predecessors. This representation made me realize the traits of my parents that I had unknowingly adapted through time. It is also possible that I was exposed to those things due to the influences that my parents have over me.
The medical history (cause of deaths) of the family members and relatives can also be observed from the genogram. The hereditary sicknesses can be reflected on the graphic representation. For example, in my father’s side, I have observed that both my grandparents have undergone operations related to their kidneys. Kidney stones were taken out during the respective operations. My father’s sisters (he has two siblings; an older sister and a younger sister) also had kidney problems before, and had their kidney stones taken out too. Further, on my mother’s side, I observed that most of my relatives have problems with their eyes. It is not their eyesight per se, but because they are cross-eyed. Some of my cousins even needed to wear corrective glasses and to undergo operations to remedy that problem. My younger brother, who is now 11 years old, has been wearing eyeglasses since he was two years old; it is not because he has poor eyesight, but because he needed it to correct his cross-eyes.
The controversial RH Bill was examined in class. The bill positions itself as “pro-choice”; it is even claimed to be crafted for the empowerment of women. I believed it to be true before, now I know better. The bill is not empowerment to women, further, the way I see it, it is derogatory for women. Most of the artificial contraceptives are designed to be utilized by women, hence, the failure of the functions of these contraceptives made the women appear more liable for the unwanted pregnancies. Instead of being equally responsible, the men assume that they can freely abandon their responsibilities. This bill only enables the males to show little or no respect to women; it only allows them to “abuse” such methods that prevent pregnancy.
Admittedly, I was confused before between the differences of artificial family planning methods and natural family planning methods since the objective of both is to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Through this course and from my vocational exposure, I came to understand that the Church allows natural family planning, since our reproductive organs are designed to be fertile only for a certain number of days and vice versa. By applying the natural family planning method, we do not hurt or damage our physical shell. After all, what is done to the physical body is certainly reflected on the self; it cannot be segregated. Thus, when the physical flesh is abused and treated as instrument for pleasure, the dignity of the person, as well as the holiness of the sexual act, is degraded.
What am I most thankful for?
TREDFOR is one of the classes in DLSU that I have appreciated the most. It’s not because it is the most informative class, or it has directed me to the career path that I wanted. I regard it as one my most special classes in school because it has helped me realize about some of the things that I had never knew about my self before.
The class made it clearer for me to know my personal stand regarding marriage and it also elucidated me about the genogram. The discussion about maturity made me understand that I am not prepared for commitment yet. My priorities right now does not really permit me to get involved with someone. What I need to do now is to prepare myself to become a person that is mature enough to handle the downsides of a relationship. Through our TREDFOR class, I know that before I can completely be in love with someone else, I have to start loving myself first.
