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| Living an ordinary life in an extraordinary way: a conversation with Professor Donna Orsuto by Nick Chui Yongtai (Cont’d) |
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When I was in Kuching, Sarawak, I was very impressed by Archbishop Ha; he mentioned a lot of times in East Malaysia, husbands are called to work overseas. He said his recommendation—based on his pastoral experience—is that the wife should go (with the husband). This is of course very painful sometimes: must the wife leave her good job? How about the children? Will there be less money?
I think in these situations couples must recall what is important is the vocation to marriage and family life. It’s not having the biggest house or the best car. I hope I am not too morbid but I think you have to ask yourself sometimes: if you are going to die tomorrow, what will be really important to you? It’s very interesting that when people are close to death, what’s very important is that they have said “I love you” to their loved ones. If we don’t say that in our everyday life to people who are close to us, then we have to ask ourselves: why not? Having said that, I think the Church has to be an important pillar of support for families, especially when Christian life calls for heroic sacrifice. Families need to know it is in the Church that small communities of love and friendship exist to help them face the pressures of the outside world. It would be terrible if even in Church, we see the so-called “survival skills” being practiced. That is when people get really disillusioned. We also need to help people to get a really good formation. A lot of times, we hear the saying that the Church’s social teachings are the Church’s best-kept secret. We need to give lay people the tools to make good decisions and to know what is the Church’s teaching on various topics such as responsibilities towards one’s neighbour and those in need. This, coupled with constant contact with scriptures, prayer and the sacramental life, especially in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, will help families integrate faith and life. But what if couple is on two different spiritual wavelengths? In Singapore, the chances of a Catholic marrying a non-Catholic are quite high. This theme came up in Kuching as well. I think the first thing is formation before marriage, to do as much as we can to really stress the importance of marrying Christians. However, if a couple is already married, the first thing to realise is that the Catholic party needs a lot of support from the community. In Kuching, they were discussing some sort of a monthly meeting, a kind of Catholic fellowship for people who have married Muslims. We need to also recognise there may be situations where the Catholic party is isolated from the Church. They need our support and prayers and lots of encouragement to do whatever they can to be united to God. Among Christian women, Elizabeth Leseur stands out as a particular example. Her husband was an atheist and ridiculed her faith. But she was convinced that she wanted to live her vocation as a Christian woman, so the most important thing for her was to show her love for her husband. So she did all of the things she was supposed to do as his wife, totally embracing her commitment and loving him. In the end, he was converted and even became a priest. I think she was a great example of living your vocation as God calls you and trusting in Divine Providence that God will provide.
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