April 7, 2009

I just came from a recollection sponsored by our Parish Church and the speaker was a very young apologist, Caloy Palad. He is 26 years old and single, but his topic was about the Filipino Catholic family, marriage, and the recent congressional moves about contraception and population control. I wondered about his qualification, he being young and single , but he spoke well. He was well informed ( he would not be an apologist if he were not) and was able to answer questions thrown by the audience convincingly and with much authority. Having attended and conducted similar talks before, however, I was almost tempted to dismiss this one as just “one of those talks” which would not offer anything new. Indeed, most of the information I heard I had heard many times before but there was one topic which, for me, made the night truly a night for recollection and reflection. He said ‘ women are meant to become mothers.’ He then offered a lot of explanations and sited Papal letters/encyclicals to support this position, even covered those who enter into single blessedness and sisterhood.

Women are meant to become mothers...... I remember at Grade four when our teacher asked us what we wanted to be when we grow up. I wanted to answer “to be a renowned doctor” because in my mind I really wanted to be one. But when I stood in front of the class, I was impelled to say “to become a good mother.” What made me do that? I almost died of shame when I heard my classmates laugh. And so that episode in my life stuck in my memory like glue. In retrospect, I can offer a lot of explanations for that unexpected answer. But what is important now is the affirmation that being a good mother is as good as being a well known surgeon, or a successful business man, or a fantastic career person. I am meant to be a mother and it is my primordial duty to become a good one. Am I a good mother? I have raised my children to be good children – they know their responsibilities, they are respectful of their elders, they have ambition, they are well mannered. I can enumerate countless qualities of my children which can tell me that I have been a good mother. In the end, though, the only measure I need to satisfy is if I have led my children towards God. I sincerely hope that I do.