One very significant insight in the book, “Finding God at Home” by Ernest Boyer, Jr. that caught my attention is the Sacrament of the Routine, the sacred in the Ordinary, the liturgy of Daily Life.  If the natural world is the primal revelation of God’s presence, then I would like to say that the family is the basic unit where God can be encountered, revealed and experienced in the realm of human community.   The wisdom that is hidden in the daily rounds of caring for each family member presents a fresh and simple way of enriching one’s spiritual life.  A process that is often taken for granted because of its triviality along with the pressures and concerns of everyday life.  Looking at the ordinary family life in this manner changes the way I treat life within the family and the role of parenting in the enrichment of one’s spiritual journey.  There are lines in the article that made me teary-eyed.  There are thoughts there that made me feel and understand the burden and the pain that my parents were carrying when they were raising us up.  There are phrases that conjured images of my parents when they sacrificed their own needs just to meet the demands of their children.  They must have suffered in silence setting aside their own self for the welfare of their children.  It touches my heart to the core to imagine my deceased father who during his lifetime, he labored as a “mekaniko” (automotive mechanic), staining his clothes and face with grease for our own comfort and wellbeing.  I can picture my mother’s anxious face when the week’s budget is dwindling while the school’s project and expenses are competing with the daily needs of the household.  Having experienced and realized all the hardships in the family (my family-of-origin), I could say that living a family life is also a desert experience, not far from the experiences of the monks and nuns in solitary places.    On deeper reflection, family life is imbued with the richness of God’s loving presence if I may consider the affection, love and nurturing of the parents for their children as well as the love of the children to their parents.  The love of God is first actualized, experienced and felt in the family through the presence of each family member who willingly give each other in love.

This felt realization changes the way I look at family life today.  It never came into my mind before in my growing up years this beautiful reflection about family life.  That it is possible to sanctify one’s life and live fully immersed in the ordinariness of everyday rounds of caring, looking after the welfare of children, experiencing the joy and struggles of married life and parenting.  Now, I find it strange to hear people who escape the struggles of family life by joining charismatic groups, church activities of every sort because they are “suffocated” by their own “family problems” or individuals who spent more time with their church groups than their own families because spending more time in the church means “spiritual” or “being close to God”, while family life is not.  Now, I came to realize that experiencing the routine of family caring is not far from the daily Liturgies we celebrate in the churches.  This realization makes a radical change in the way I treat family life now.  God is ever present; he is very active in the high and lows of family life.  Life becomes richer, meaningful, sacred, precious, seeing God participates in the trivial, ordinary almost monotonous routine of home-making.

    Awareness of what is taking place in the lives of people and the world around puts a person in a state of consciousness to feel and understand the immense reality of which he or she is a part.  The McCann-Erickson sociological study and survey on Filipino Men and Women stirs up my own perception of our Filipino society and checks the way I look at myself and scrutinize my own values and convictions.  I feel that I am enriched by the insights I gained from the McCann-Erickson findings realizing that I also share some convictions of the urban Filipino male both positive and negative.  I am amazed by the resilience of the Filipino spirit (both men and women) in carving their own niche in life amidst hardship and struggle. 

    Among the subjects in the McCann-Erickson study, I find the role of common women somewhat sensitive in the sense that it reveals some areas that our Filipino society (the men in general) has taken for granted.  I can feel the weight of the burden that these women are carrying.  The struggles that they silently endure in all areas of their lives stretch them like rubber bands and almost reduced them to a state of servitude.  The readings conjured images of my mother in her moments of joys and struggles as a wife, mother and daughter.  It also recalls images of women that I came to know in the apostolate during my seminary days, women-friends whose lives I’ve touched and enriched my own life too.  With the images of Filipino women that were presented in the McCann-Erickson study, it strengthens my conviction that these women deserve understanding and compassion from our male-dominated society.  Many women today particulary mothers forget their own personal concerns for the welfare of their spouses and children.  Everyday, I always see these self-effacing women in the noontime show of WOWOWIE doing funny gags just to earn the privilege of becoming studio contestants and win the much-coveted jackpot.  I saw one woman-contestant on tv who was interviewed by Willie how does she feel when her husband left her and their children. She said: “Mahal ko pa rin ang asawa ko kahit iniwan niya kami ng mga anak nya. Kahit minsan sinasaktan nya ang mga bata, mahal ko pa rin sya.  Di magbabago yun dahil asawa ko pa rin sya.”  I felt sad and admired her at the same time.  I can’t believe a woman who was hurt and yet still able to proclaim publicly without shame and resentment that she loves her husband so much.  What I admire about the our common Filipino women especially the mothers are their readiness to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their loved ones, the children most specifically.  I can see this trait in my mother.  At 55, she still works in the field.  Whenever I visit her at home in the province, I can see and feel the marks of sufferings she endured when my father died.  The anxiety she bears in making both ends meet.  My family’s economic condition has changed drastically since my father’s untimely death.  My heart rends whenever I listen to her as she confides her anxieties to me. She might not be the best mother in the world but through her, I learned my basic lessons about life and values of living as a person.

    The different psychographic portraits of the common Filipino woman presented by the McCann-Erickson study reinforces my high regard for our Filipino women especially those who function as mothers and wives to their own families.   It also made me believe that our “macho culture” has a lot to learn from the values exemplified by the lives of these courageous women who are frequently misjudged and misunderstood, boxed and marginalized by our Filipino machismo.