Motherhood Sanctifying Family Life

Motherhood: Sanctifying Family Life

2 May 2021

2 May 2021

Love gives meaning to sacrifice. It gives a purpose to a seemingly mundane, simple, unnoticed task. Catherine Doherty, a Catholic social worker, and foundress of the Madonna House Apostolate, meditated on Christ’s hidden years, which we are called to imitate, just as surely as we are called to follow him. In her book, The People of the Towel and the Water, she invites us “to connect ordinary and seemingly boring life, in its repetitious and constant details – with love who is God.”.

Motherhood is one such “ordinary” path. Often, it is filled with it’s own set of challenges, and twists and turns along the way. Yet, it is certainly a journey no mother would exchange the world for. These are sentiments commonly expressed by mothers of the Couple Empowerment Programme (CEP), an Archdiocesan-approved Post-Marriage Catechesis and formation programme based on the Catholic Church’s teachings, which also touch on modern day issues faced by married couples.

As we celebrate Mother’s Day come 9 May, let us hear the reflections of Marie and Yunita, two mothers from CEP, and their journeys of Motherhood amidst the realities of their family life. They share with us their stories.

The Struggles and Joys of a Working Mother

Banker by day; full time wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend by night. Some days I feel I’m running on 36 hours a day; the tasks, wants and needs seem endless. At times, it truly does get both challenging and exhausting.

Marie has been married to Jonathan Thio since 2015, and together have three beautiful children – Nathaniel, Sonia and Ryan.

My son Nathaniel has always been a sensitive child. As a toddler, he was easily upset and needed lots of reassurance. Disciplining him is not easy; I often found myself losing my temper with him. But when I bring him out on one-on-one outings, it just adds to our “love tank” (cf. 5 Love Languages, by Gary Chapman). It makes me appreciate him and he thoroughly loves my undivided attention.

As parents, we can only demonstrate the behaviours we hope they would emulate. Formation starts at home in little steps. Before bed, we pray as a family and it touches our hearts when we hear our little ones praying for their grandparents, a sick classmate and each other (despite fighting just before bed).

Then came 2020, I had a pay cut, our helper was stuck in Indonesia and I was heavily pregnant with our third. I did research on activities to occupy the children so that we could work in peace, only to have them make a mess or simply lost interest in the activity after five minutes. I found new meaning to “let go, and let God”.

Motherhood has certainly been tough. Often I feel like an octopus, multi-tasking a hundred-and-one things. I am nonetheless thankful to have my husband supporting me in this great partnership. When I come home to my husband and hear the sound of my children’s laughter, it’s all worth it. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t thank God for my countless blessings.

Parents as “First Heralds” of the Gospel

Yunita Poernama has been married to her husband Leo for the last 14 years. They moved to Singapore around the time of their marriage, and now take great pride in their 4 lovely children.

Ever since our first-born was a toddler, we made it a habit to read the Bible and pray together as a family before bed. With 4 kids of different ages, 2 school-going kids, a toddler and a baby, the prayer experience varies. On good days, we take turns to share our take-away from a bible passage and close with night prayers. On bad days, we might be scolding the kids when they don’t pay attention, with a toddler crying because she had just knocked her head and the baby fussing to be nursed.

But we persist anyway. Family prayer has been a daily habit for the past 10 years of our marriage.

Since kindergarten, we also teach our children to do simple house chores. Now, everyone, except baby, picks up a vacuum cleaner, mop or duster to clean up the house every weekend. The older girls take turns washing dishes after meals, iron their uniforms, help with simple cooking and care for the younger ones.

I have learnt to embrace my roles as mother, worker, cook, nurse, teacher and finally wife and lover. With God’s grace and the help of my family, I’ve been able to find meaning and purpose in the mundane tasks.

To every mother reading this article, God has chosen you and you alone, as He had chosen His own mother from the many women. Let us learn from Mama Mary to always say “Let your will be done” as we continue to walk this journey.

Contributed by Couple Empowerment Programme (CEP), an affiliate of Catholic Family Life. CEP hosts regular prayer gatherings on top of their titular programme. The next run of the Couple Empowerment Programme will begin from 1 August 2021. If you are interested, please register here: https://tinyurl.com/cepregform.