On Floods And The Freedom To Love

(This was originally posted on the website of one of our country's leading newspapers, the Philippine Star. Feel free to follow my posts there every Tuesday, Philippine time. Or you can also follow my blogs: www.trulyrichmom.com and www.teachermamatina.blogspot.com. Thank you and God bless you all!)

Couples for Christ, our Catholic community, just celebrated its 30th anniversary.

CFC’s Main Anniversary Celebration was held at Rizal Park last Sunday, June 26.

It was a very busy week for a lot of us, myself included. I was tasked to be part of the Documentation Team, heading the CFC Writers’ Guild. It was a fun but tiring job, and I missed my two kids a lot during the entire week, as we had to go home late many nights.

Typhoon Falcon came and threatened a lot of our activities, but thank GOD for answering our prayers! People still came to the conferences and were blessed by the messages.

One such conference that we thought would be greatly affected by the heavy rains and flooding brought about by Falcon was the Freedom to Love Conference with Christopher West. Christopher came to the Philippines as CFC’s special guest and main speaker on the Theology of the Body for 2 conferences: the Church Integration Congress and the Freedom to Love Conference.

Christopher West

The Freedom to Love Conference was held on Saturday, when Typhoon Falcon had already been raging for several days. As early as Friday evening, many parts of Metro Manila were already flooded, including our own village. Some roads were impassable, and a lot of people got stranded, like my husband and I, who couldn’t get into the village because the roads going in were flooded. (I was a nervous WRECK as we couldn’t get to our little ones, who were at my parents’ place.)

We ended up getting into the village on Saturday morning riding at the back of a kind stranger’s truck, after spending Friday night trying to wait for the water at the village gate to subside (we ended up staying at a nearby motel in the early morning, since hubby was SUPER tired and had not slept for more than 24 hours straight because of his work assignment [he headed the logistics team for the events starting Tuesday evening until Friday evening] for the anniversary celebrations). I was so happy to be reunited with our children! Thank God my Kuya (older brother) was there with them; he had been allowed to leave work early to be with his kids, who were also at my parents’ house.

The view from the truck

Since the roads going in and out of the village were still flooded, hubby and I could not leave to go to the Freedom to Love Conference, which was held at the ULTRA. We also didn’t want to leave our kids while the water had not subsided. We informed our co-workers and resigned ourselves to the fact that we would be missing out on the conference, which was one we had been really looking forward to attending.

But the wonder of technology is truly amazing! Christopher West’s team, bless their souls, agreed to let CFC broadcast the conference via live streaming (no recording though)! It was the only event in the week-long celebrations that supposedly was not allowed to have live streaming. So thanks to modern technology, we were able to catch the conference online, in the comfort of our own home!

How blessed we were to learn more about Blessed John Paul II’s Theology of the Body! Through the live streaming and live updates on CFC’s Facebook page, we were able to hear about God’s true purpose for man and woman, and why each of us, no matter what state of life we are in (consecrated celibate, married, single), are called to live out the Theology of the Body.

Here are just some of the striking and inspiring statements taken from the Freedom to Love Conference with Christopher West:

God’s plan is for us to be with Him forever.

The only way we know who God really is, is if God shows himself to us, and this has happened. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."

Our bodies are good. We cover our bodies because we feel an instinctive need to protect its goodness from those who can cheapen it.

God knocks on the doors of our hearts to pierce them with love, but He always asks for our permission.

The exercise of freedom is not the right to do nothing. Freedom exists for the sake of love, for no other reason than to be in the ability to have the power to love.

Why does God give us the ability to sin? So that we can have chance to love him. He does not want machines or robots. If we do not have the capability to disobey, our obedience means NOTHING.

God is pro-choice but some choices are always wrong.

License says do what feels good; it is the freedom to indulge your passion.

Freedom does what is good; it is the freedom from the compulsion to indulge.

What the culture calls sexual freedom is actually sexual addiction. 

‎Love means I want to give my life to you totally, freely, faithfully, fruitfully.

The beauty of being one with Him in heaven brings us to dance.

The entire Christian life is marked by the spousal life of Christ and the Church.

Whatever our vocation, no one can escape the vocation to love. No one can escape the interior battle that IS REQUIRED TO LEARN HOW TO LOVE.

Do not be afraid to admit that you are a great sinner. All we have to do is to take it to Jesus.

The world tells us what love is and 99% of the time is false. What is being sold to us is actually lust.

Lust wants the pleasure of sex but not the commitment of having children. The RH bill is based on lust. To overcome this we must learn to suffer for the truth. Redemptor Humanis is the true RH BILL – redemption of man.

The love of man and woman is meant to make the most beautiful music in the universe.

The Theology of the Body is what it means to be educated in being a man and woman.

I could go on and on, but I won’t. (You can read more of Christopher’s statements on CFC’s Facebook page, just scroll down to the posts on Saturday, June 25.)

Needless to say, hubby and I are SUPER inspired and encouraged by the message of the Theology of the Body. I personally feel as if God is trying to tell me something here. I am still trying to figure out what it is – in the meantime, I’ll keep my heart and ears open, Lord!

Hubby and I with Christopher West. Please don’t mind my goofy grin! Hahaha!

P.S.

Can I just say that Christopher West is SOOO nice?! And SUPER passionate! I love the way he speaks, with total conviction! I am SO star-struck. Haha. I was blessed to do an interview with him, and I am just amazed at how enthusiastically he answered all our questions, despite his being exhausted. PLUS, he and his wife homeschool their 5 kids! Awesome!

P.P.S.

If YOU feel like you want to know more about the Theology of the Body too, join us in discovering more about it. This is a NEW teaching and ideology, probably an alien one, for many of us, and we in CFC have also just begun to learn about it. But we hope and pray that more and more people will be blessed by its message, and we believe that Christopher West and his team coming to the Philippines is really part of God’s plan for the family, especially the Filipino family. Feel free to send me an e-mail at teachermamatina@gmail.com.