THEO GROUP REACTION PAPER

ABANTO, CATHERINE S.
CRUZ, PAULINE B.
REVILALA, MARIA TERESA L.
BSA- 4A

STUDIES ON THE FAMILY by Antonette Palma- Angeles
(Reaction Paper) Family is the basic unit and “cell” of society. This article talks about the evolution of family relationships and how these events gave an impact on our current family situations. Before, Patriarchal family exists where people create a family because it is mandatory to have children to guarantee their future. The father is the master of the house and the wife and children had no freedom at all. When the father gets old and sick, he will pass their livelihood to their children who will take charge of their family’s survival. Children enter into fixed marriage to have better livelihood. Women are stuck into household chores. When the advent of industrialism reached its point, labor became the economic trend. The children learned to enjoy their freedom and move out of their home to search for their own survival. They have formal education on the track they chose to take. The family now have lesser time to bond because they are more focused on their jobs. The essence of family responsibility ceased when jobs like care giving are introduced. Women also discovered that they can have jobs other than household chores and are even equalized with men. Surely it became a turning point and others even consider it as a major cause of family disintegration. The main argument in this article is the major change industrialism has given family relationships. It has been a big leap from family centeredness to self-enhancement and freedom. Each member of the family may have tended to search for their own purpose and self fulfilment so they set aside the nurturance of the family that the patriarchal era has established. But industrialism also has its good effects because marriage now became more passionate because children can now choose who to marry. The reason now for engaging into marriage is love and the child is the fruit of that love. Another argument is that due to industrialism and freedom, people disregard the binding obligations of parenthood. Overpopulation became evident. Bearing a child demands responsibility. Responsible parenthood is very important and their ability to sustain the needs of their family. Family is the basic unit and cell of society. As a Filipino, one of the major problems our country is facing now is overpopulation and poverty. This may be the effect of the past; the lack of sense of responsibility among parents. Some married couples engage into lustful acts without consideration on how they will sustain their family needs. They have no regard on their existing obligation that is why their kids lack basic needs. Also, since they are unable to sustain their basic needs, they cannot afford a formal education that is vital for their future.
Women nowadays engage to labor outside the household. During times when the father was unemployed, family roles could be dramatically reversed where the children and wife would bring home wages while the husband tended to the household. In conditions of severe poverty, family life could barely exist when multiple families and individuals crowded into tiny dwellings to save on rent. Unfortunately, love alone cannot solve this.
Family bonding is lacking too because of the degree of sense of freedom one has. As a Filipino, I can still say that we are lucky because of our culture and tradition so we can still bond during the holidays especially during Christmas and New Year. We are still given a chance to bond with our families and to make us feel our love for one another. Nursing homes are not a trend and we still take good care of the old and the sick which is a good thing. Age gap is also a problem in our society today because passage of time is inevitable and technology is evolving so there are certain differences every generation. Everyone should reach out with one another before it is too late. With these family problems we are currently facing now, our society is in the need for improvement. Since family is the basic unit and cell of society, one must start fixing it little by little and bring back the family centeredness it once have. It may not be totally similar with the patriarchal era but even a better one with God’s grace. Stating the conclusion of Antonette Palma- Angeles, “No amount of love and resolve to nurture and sustain the family can completely guarantee its flourishing and existence but a matter of divine grace, divine love and hope”, we absolutely agree because we all have to lift it up to God together with the hope that it will be a better future. Since passage of time is inevitable and uncertainty is towards us, we will never know what will happen in the futures to come. Solving these problems are just few steps toward a better future so each family must move now. We must correct what has been done before. We must be aware of the needs of our society. Picture ourselves doing our part and having our sense of responsibility, isn’t it a better place to live in?

“Love Can Be Kept Only By Being Given Away”
(Reaction Paper) This essential article is practically a Christian guidebook about loving people, and it is a must read. We have learned a lot reading this in the past hour than listening to Papa Jack for the whole day. For starters, it talks about self-satisfaction, or pleasure. According to this, happiness that can be derived from it is shallow and short-lived, because it weakens our spirit. It is a selfish love, and to love like that is to live not as you’re destined by God to live. Profound happiness is found, therefore, in unselfish love. “Unselfish love is a love that increases in proportion as it is shared”, that’s what the article said, verbatim. It is a love that becomes greater the moment we share it with others. Logic would dictate that when you share, your proportion decreases. Imagine a whole pizza, if you were to eat it alone, you’d get 100% of it, but if you share it with someone, you’d only get 50%. And imagine if you were to share it with lots of people, surely, your satisfaction, cravings, and your belly won’t be entirely filled. But then again, there is always an exception to the rule, and in this very special case, the exception is unselfish love. Virtually, there is “No end to the sharing of love … the potential happiness of such love is without limit.”, again from the article, verbatim. And there is no limit, because the more we share it, the more love there is. The future is not looking so bleak anymore because we know that to be truly happy, the only things we need are the ability to share love, and love itself. The possibilities are endless, and the limit is way beyond the blue skies. But as the article progresses, more specific guidelines are given. Selfless love “must be shared freely”. You cannot oblige someone to selflessly love you, it is not something that can be taken from you. It has to root from your free agency, for if you did not will it, it is a delusion. The core of genuineness is that is comes from your liberty, it must be your own choice. What good is selfless love, if not genuine? “Unselfish love that is poured out upon a selfish object does not bring happiness”, verbatim. Think of selfless love as a liquid substance that follows the shape of its container. If the container is evil, then it doesn’t matter if your elixir contains good magic, it’ll become contaminated with the evil container. Selfless love poured upon a selfish object is wasted, because it is not genuine anymore. A selfish object is an object of love that does not will for the good of the beloved. A selfish object prefers his good. A selfish object shares the good with the other by dividing it with him, rather than having only one whole good – the good of the beloved which is at the same time, his good. A selfish object seeks the satisfaction of loving, much like loving blindly merely for the sake of loving. It is a selfish act of gratification, because its end is geared towards having pleasure by loving. “Love does not seek a joy that follows from its effect, its joy is in the effect itself”. Therefore, “love is its own reward”. Unselfish love is both the means and the end, the how and the why. However, it does not stop there. It further states that “to love others, we must first love the truth”. The truth pertains to God himself, living in our beloved. It is the universal truth that we are instruments of God in fulfilling his grand master plan for us, and that is for each of us to enter the Kingdom of God. The truth also refers to our destiny, as willed by Him. Loving the truth means embracing the fact that we are all connected, because we have the same destinies, which is, eventually, to be with our Almighty Father in His Kingdom. We have the same ends even with different means.
We love the truth by helping our beloved create their destiny, which is at the same time, God’s destiny for them. God must reveal Himself to them through us. But it is not enough to seek for that truth, we must also find it in others. Selfish love will lead us to seek happiness that could never be found, but genuine, selfless love will not lead us to err.
“In order to love others with perfect charity I must be true to them, to myself, and to God”. Being true to ourselves and to God means that our interests are willed by us, and that it is perfect because it is one and the same with the will of God designed according to His grand plan, while being true to the persons we love means that we see and respect God’s separate plans for them. To love others with perfect charity, we must discard our shallow plans, and leave everything in God’s hands. It means seeing and following the invisible blueprint titled “Divine Destiny of God’s People”, and giving in into God’s secret workings.
Another great point is that “selfish love often appears to be unselfish, because it is willing to make any concession to the beloved in order to keep him prisoner”. Selfish love can disguise itself as selfless love, by giving everything that the beloved wants, just to keep him at bay. It is much like bribery, using the desires of the beloved to snatch them of their liberty. It is unjust to do that, since the other person could not grow and realize his full self, because unselfish love wants to keep him in conformity with the selfish lover. To love them unselfishly means to let them grow into what they’re meant to be, even if that means growing apart. In the end, what matters more than what you gave to them, is what you gave up for them.
Lastly, I would like to close with this: “charity is not hungry. It is the juge convivum, the perpetual banquet where we are nourished by serving others rather than by feeding ourselves”. It is such a delight to know that we become fuller by feeding others instead of ourselves, that we can be happier by making others happier. It could be the best application of a paradox ever, and I hope we could apply this is our daily lives.