I.

Interview

1. Explain the details how you met each other.

I actually have known your uncle since we met during college, we were
actually sweet hearts, and you probably would not hear that a lot anymore
because a lot of my girlfriends that i graduated with, they, met their husbands
obviously in the workforce, and took a little bit of time to discover them, and i
definitely feel blessed to have met my husband very early on.

He was one of those true romantic and of course being in that age, you want
that fairy tale story, i mean i remember I wanted to be on a plane and i want to be
sitting next to this guy and i would just to hit it off by the end of the fight we are
planning our wedding and naming our children *laughs* i really have that kind of
mentality when it comes to romance. We have never really hung out or talked but
you know we went to a fairly small school, obviously i have known his name, who
he was, it was during 8:45 am, I went off to class early that morning and was out
before the bell, and i was sitting on the main green with a cup of coffee, and i
was reading the school newspaper , and while i was reading the paper i saw him
come out of class and he was walking across the main green, and i just kind of
sit and i will say i was struck by how handsome he was, it was really kind of silly,
but he was a good looking guy , he smiles from ear to ear, i mean it felt that he
was my other half, all people have missing puzzle piece in this world, and part of
the journey is finding that puzzle piece and sometimes you get a perfect fit and
Ive always felt that, that day- was just the day, and sure enough i kind of waved

like a shy wave , and he replied , he waved and came over and we just started
chatting, it was right about Halloween and i remember him saying to me , you
know were having a Halloween party at my house you should come together
with your friends and all a while there wasnt really a party, he just said that so
he can see me again and actually that very night we ended up getting in touch
again i went out with him together with my girlfriends to grab some dinner and we
just clicked, it was really on that moment, on the green main that day , it was
really funny haw an average ordinary day can become extraordinary day.

2. What influenced your decision to get married?

Weve known each other since we were in first year college. I`ve met your
uncle through our common friends, and a common relative by affinity. We
became steady dates in college. In marrying him, since we were relatively young
at the time when we got married, we only considered love for each other and
nothing else.

3. What are the blessings of a married life?

For the blessings, I consider having my 2 children as my biggest blessings of

this married life. Everything else comes secondary.

4. What are the challenges of a married life?

Ricardo is rally stubborn He usually doesnt follow what hes told to do,
especially when it comes to food. But we manage to solve our problems. And
throughout the years, we have become brothers and sisters to each other.
Religion also plays a vital part in their relationship. We have our own respective
beliefs and we respect freedom of religion. Religion provides spiritual guidance
and peace of mind.
Everyday life poses many challenges. Keeping a family intact, peaceful,
happy and contented is already a challenge, but just a minor one. Once you
have God at the center of your relationship, no challenges will be called big.

5. What can you advise to the young people who are in a relationship and
planning to get married?

Admittedly, you do not act like young couple as you grow older, but the
love and respect remains.
To have a sustainable martial life, the couple must learn to give and take.
Both must also be financially stable. Some would comment that love isnt about
money. But money plays a big role as well. Many couples have conflicts about
finances therefore if both are stable; there would be one less problem to worry
about. The couple should not get agitated about little things and they need to be
understanding. Adjustment is also essential. When a person gets married, he has

to adjust his ways of living in relation to his partner so that there will be a
harmonious relationship with your partner. Lastly, there should be a sense of
contentment. Another reason that couples fight is because one is not able to give
something that the other wants. Sometimes this happens because we are limited.
Be careful not to tip the balance, give space to each other in order to keep on
growing. Love or romance can be shown in many ways. Once you have your
own family, you will understand what I am trying to say.

II.

Theology of the Body

During the seminar about the theology of the body, it focused on how the sense

of being erotic was turned into erotic by men. On the initial part of the talk Father took
some volunteers and interpreted on how they would act in accordance to actions with
connecting actions to those erotic views. Initially it was asked of who am I? there were
three types of level in answering this questions, on an intrapersonal, interpersonal and
meta personal, intrapersonal is what we call as pagkakakilala sa sarili, interpersonal is
pagkakakilala sa sarili at sarili ng iba and meta personal being sarili at Diyos .
During the talk it was also said that several misunderstanding of the people
reading the bible mainly due to the fact that the translation was hard since some words
exist in other word forms that are contextual just like how it was stated of how Adam
was created, Adam in Greek really means humanity and was told so in a metaphoric
sense, God created Adam not as a person but as humanity and thus several questions
were formed throughout humanity where have I been? Where am I? Where will I go?
And the answer was the call of God- the vocation comprised of marriage and celibacy,
a call by God to be responded by a man through marriage and celibacy.
What exactly is love? Revisiting Eros and Agape might lead to the answer, the
understanding of these two concepts, and how they were transformed contextually
through time and modernization.
Eros was really a worldly possessive and ascending love, it is also the
passionate expression of love often turned inwards self. Initially erotic was a very

normal word, a word with a senseful meaning but because of Manichaeism which tells
that human body and everything belonging to the material world is bad based on
scriptures, the word eros was not used, it was sin that was responsible for the distorted
and disordered meaning of eros. Based on Saint Ignaceus, he once stated that my
eros is crucified. However, eros and lust must not be confused with each other, eros
refers to the natural and hence good desire experience in the attraction for men and
vice versa.
Eros inclines us to receive the gifts of God, on the other hand, Agape impels us
to pass on to others what we ourselves have received, Eros the corresponds to the
ascending moment on the spiritual life whereby we turn to God, in actuality, eros and
agape complement with each other, with eros being the first before agape.
The theology of the body is the human love on the divine palm of or the
redemption of the body and sacramentaliy, it also encapsulates the idea that we can
come to know about God looking at the body and we can come to understanding the
body by looking good which in summary tells us that God is made visible I our body
through the sacrament of marriage.
The image of God consists of the Father, the Son, and the holy spirit, which goes
deeper if we break it into the following:
Father love husband
Son beloved wife
Holy spirit love child

Without one component from the aforementioned, the image of God is being distorted,
the also reason why pre marital sex disorders the image of God.
The evolution of men also was responsible for the changes and transformation of
the humanity with respect to sexuality. In the beginning, there was the original men,
which were created as innocent, they had the original solitude, the original unity as well
as the original nakedness. It was when sin entered the seem that the historical men
which had the experience of shame came about, these comprised of the cosmic shame,
immanent shame as well as the sexual shame, and that sexual shame was how we- our
sexual mentality came about.
In modern times, modesty is the cloak people wear to hide meaning of sexual
shame, modesty is how we help others to see us as persons, thus we protect ourselves
from being used. It always comes to the human mind the question If the body makes
me a person with great dignity, how should I dress in a way that it highlights my
dignity?
The talk was the concluded that the theology of the body is a clarion call for the
church not to become more spiritual but to become more incarnational, lastly, we should
remember that sex was made by God to be a visible sign of His invisible love for us.

III.

Synthesis Paper
Mr. Ricardo Chua and Mrs. Jocelyn Tan have been married for almost 22 years

now. They have been married since 1992. Currently, the couple manages their own
business. Ricardo studied to become a businessman and Jocelyn Tan is a bank
manager. She was also the one who shared the couples love story and while she was
telling the story she was partly laughing. She mustve remembered the good old days.
Same as for everyone, we laugh about the things that have happened in the past.
Upon interviewing, I realized that people who are married experiences plenty of
problems and encounter many obstacles throughout the course of their marriage. Some
arguments may be small and some may be big, but it is always important to
compromise in the end and show that even today, people still values church marriage
and obeys their vows and promises with the Lord and with one another. Couples who
are married for a long time should be the inspiration of all young couples today, they are
the ones who truly show love and show it in different ways throughout the years,
meaning their love is already tried and tested because they were able to surpass many
problems together and still end up being together.

For me, the idea of marriage is two people coming together and starting a new
life together for the rest of their lives. Marriage is a beautiful ceremony. Marriage is not a
contract. Marriage is not one person owning another and pretty much controlling how
that person acts. Marriage is not an ownership of someone, but true love between two

people. Marriage is all about mutual trust, not jealousy or worry. Marriage is supposed
to be teamwork.
Marriage is not an ownership of someone, but true love between two people.
People now think that when you get married, your life ends because now you are tied.
However, that is not the case. Marriage is about true love. One does not own a person
in a marriage, but actually love the other person.

In this generation, it is a shame how the meaning of marriage have gone.

Marriage is supposed to be a beautiful thing between two people that love each other.
People now believe that marriage is just two people using each other for happiness,
kids, and social benefits. Society now feels that it is a contract between people.
Therefore, marriage has lost all its beauty and meaning. Marriage is supposed to be
true love between two individuals, not benefits and using each other. Marriage is not
someone that just qualifies for the job. A good marriage has a strong and mutual trust
between two people. Without trust, a relationship falls apart easily. Finally, a marriage is
teamwork. If a man and wife are spending time arguing, nothing gets accomplished.
When you meet the one, you know it. True love is a feeling, not a position that someone
needs to fill.

A marriage is not fields of flowers and rainbows everyday of every week. I have
learned that a marriage takes patience and effort to really stick by each other. Marriage
is perceived as this wonderful fairy tale that is every young girls dream, but once you
get married that fantasy goes out the window. Marriage is about two people from two
different backgrounds and uniting together as one in love. Marriage really takes a lot of
work and effort to get through. It has many obstacles and trials that arent always easy
to get past. Marriage is not as easy but with love, patience, hope, mercy, grace and
strength then it is still able to get through. It is also important to put god in the center of
the relationship. A couple should always follow God`s words. Practice it and expose the
children to that so it will be a tradition when they have their own families too. Constant
communication is also a key to resolve issues within the family and in everything that
you do, you must transmit love and appreciation which is normally shown by
communicating with, caring for and respecting reach other

To wrap all things up, marriage is something that should be taken seriously.
When people marry, they tend to do so for the intentions of love, romance, and
commitment. Some may consider it as a sacred tradition. Marriage is a beautiful thing,
but it is also hard to maintain. Without the right communication, trust, love and
understanding marriage would not work, and it would loose the meaning of the word
itself. Communication is one of the main factors to a good marriage. It helps the two
people understand and aid each other through good and rough times. To have a good
successful marriage, partners have to trust each other strongly. If the trust were
missing, the relationship between two would not work. To gain trust into a partner, they

have to know their partner well, and for a long time, because trust is mostly earned over
time.
The last thing that makes the marriage complete is love and understanding. To
make the marriage successful partners have to understand each other intellectually, as
well as physically. Last but not the least, what makes the marriage work is love. This is
because when two people love each other dearly, they are inseparable.
A successful marriage is hard to make and harder to keep. It has its ups and
downs, however if communication, trust, understanding and love are established, it will
be easier to keep it and maybe yet improve on it. A marriage is a serious yet beautiful
relationship between two people that lets two people work and live as one.

The interview helped me to learn more about Ricardo and Jocelyns marital life.
Ive known them since I was a kid and I felt that it wasnt really that formal to dig in
about their love life. But through this activity, I was able to know their stories. Thankfully,
they didnt feel hesitant in answering the questions. The couple enjoys each others
company because both have the same hobbies. They love to travel and eat. As of now,
Im not thinking about marriage because I just came right from a break up and Im not
ready to embrace it yet. Through this activity, I was able to evaluate myself why and
what points have I done in my past relationship, and it certainly was love is not
everything that powers a marriage and a relationship and that mind over your heart is
an effective way in relationship decisions. Many of us if asked would say that they plan

on marriage after landing on a nice job. I, on the other hand, have decided to build my
career path instead and maybe exclude marriage first from my life goals.