EDWARD and Helen Bub love nothing more than to come together with their big, immediate family for prayers and a family feast.
The Brisbane couple celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary on Mother’s Day, surrounded by their nine children and four grandchildren.
First came morning prayer and a decade of the rosary in honour of Mary our Mother, then a table set full of delicious dishes reflecting their unique Aussie-Asian heritage.
Everyone brought a plate to share – rice, steaming rice noodles with vegetables, beef rendang, okra with squid, curry chicken, bitter melon with eggs, barbecue pork, followed by butter cake and fruit salad.
“It’s a gift of God,” says Edward reflecting on his growing family and counting the fruits of their Catholic marriage.
“One of the fruits is that we are still married and praying together.”
Not that Edward and Helen would ever sugar-coat their decades spent together straddling cultures, with the usual ups and downs and squabbles of family life.
They have also faced extraordinary family medical challenges that have tested their faith and fortitude as a couple.
In their search for spiritual strength, they have delved deep to better understand themselves and what it means for a marriage to flourish.
“There are many times we don’t see eye to eye, but it’s the fact that we are husband and wife put together by God,” Helen said.
“Certain decisions he (Edward) may make I don’t agree with, but after making my suggestions I just step back and pray.”
As a former officer in the Singapore Air Force in charge of many staff, bending to a husband’s will is a recurring struggle tangibly supported by God’s love.
A daredevil at heart, she admits that during her early married years she had always wanted to go skydiving, but Edward believed it was too risky for their young family.
It wasn’t until she was 50 when one of her children, Sebastian, bought her a skydiving ticket as a present that she finally took the plunge.
For Edward , an engineer who has built up several successful businesses, work demands have often been a stressful juggle and at odds with family life.
He said praying together has become a sustaining force in their marriage.
“Morning prayer is like putting up an umbrella so that whatever storms come, they don’t penetrate as deep,” Edward said.
“During the worst periods of our marriage, we still prayed together every morning – it’s important, even if we can’t say anything else all day because of a suffering we are going through.
“We also knew that during these moments that there were others praying for us.”
Life-changing challenge
June 2007 marked one of the biggest shocks in Edward and Helen’s marriage.
It was the month that oldest son Augustine started going blind at age 15.
Four of the six Bub boys have each rapidly lost their sight, each diagnosed with a rare condition called Leber’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy.
It is a genetic condition where part of almost every blood cell is mutated and when certain cells divide, instead of two healthy cells from one, both cells just die out. The optic nerve is what is most affected.
Related to the condition, each of the three Bub daughters, suffers from varying degrees of chronic fatigue.
“It doesn’t stop them. They still have a love for the Lord,” Edward said, recounting how oldest daughter Catherine was bedridden for six months during her final, year 12, but still managed to top her school in English and topped Queensland in Religion – being graded on her written work and the exams she could do.
“She has learnt to accept what her body can’t do.”
“Catherine is now a practicing lawyer running her own business. Younger sisters Deborah and Cecilia are known for showing great love and care in simpler careers.”
Despite being legally blind, Augustine, now 28, is married with a newborn son and practices as a muscular skeletal therapist.
Youngest son Clement lost his sight when he was just 11, he is in Grade 12.
Fabian was a factory trades assistant when he became legally blind at age 18.
He is beginning a business course with Skilling Queensland.
Ambrose who captained his school in 2018, also lost his sight at age 18.
He had completed the first year of a double degree in engineering and physics and now with assisted technology, has switched to a Bachelor of Economics.
Sebastian and Isidore have a high appreciation for their gift of sight and generously help their siblings when needed.
Instead of being overwhelmed, Edward and Helen have led their family in coming to grips with these life-changing challenges.
Helen believes, through prayer, her children have received the gift of perseverance and this has allowed them “to see where God is leading them and not be bitter about it”.
“You can get angry with God all you want, but at the end of the day you have to slowly learn to accept it and move on from there – from a sighted world to an unsighted world,” she said.
“So, this perseverance, to us, is a gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Foundation in Faith
Ed met Helen, an officer in the Singaporean Air Force, when her aircraft detachment was sent to train at Amberley RAAF base outside Brisbane.
Through the Church’s Neocatechumenal Way communities, the pair met at a Eucharist in the Guardian Angels parish in Wynnum in 1988.
The following year Ed and Helen both went on a World Youth Day pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
It was not a straightforward love affair.
Edward said his whole family suffered after his older brother, Eric, was killed in a car accident aged 18, and he carried his own unresolved issues with his brother for seven years.
From an early age Edward showed his devotion to church liturgy.
He was an altar server and at 17 became a regular church singer and musician and busied himself in parish activities – something he continues to do to this day.
Somehow, family and friends assumed the next step for Edward would be to enter a seminary.
“Before I was married, almost everyone who met me thought I would become a priest one day,” Edward said.
“I never felt that calling, but that didn’t stop people talking about it.”
During the pilgrimage to Spain, Edward remembers visiting the grotto in Lourdes at 3am and telling God he was leaving the church.
“It was then I felt Christ come looking for me,” he said.
“I really felt His presence. I realised those unresolved feelings about my brother’s death were holding me back from being free.
“God, in a moment, helped me to see that I had a problem wanting revenge against Eric and that the church was there to heal me. This was a huge healing.
“My prayer was this: ‘Okay God I’m sick of everyone’s opinion. I seem to be doing things for others, but no one’s doing anything for me.’
“I told many people before leaving for Spain that I’m going overseas to look for a wife.”
Helen had veiled reservations about marriage.
In strict and conservative Singapore, her parents were the exception to the rule having divorced when she was young.
“There was a fear in me. I didn’t want to end up like my parents – the brokenness of a marriage and the kids affected as well,” she said.
“But in a moment during the pilgrimage (to Spain) God took that fear away from me.
“It was such a strong experience. I felt a calling to be married.
“So I said okay God ‘you want me to be married, you provide the man’.”
Soon after the pilgrimage Helen visited Brisbane again, and after several weekends sightseeing together in south east Queensland, Edward proposed.
Ed and Helen both had strong convictions about their marriage.
“We were praying together and it just felt right,” Edward said.
“Christ calls us to love Him first, and then He calls us to make our love fruitful. The children’s faith are the fruits.”
Helen recalls their marriage preparation with Fr Michael Moore, now rector of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Perth.
“Fr Michael told us: ‘It is not a question of different culture – what is important is how you are Helen in Jesus Christ as a woman and wife and mother. And how you are Edward as a man, husband and father.’”
Family faith
Facing their family medical challenges, Helen looks to an icon of the boy Jesus comforting Mary and Joseph.
“When they went blind I went through a lot of emotions, ups and downs and spiritual struggles, but my children comfort me in their understanding that the blindness is their cross given by our heavenly Father,” she said.
She recalls during one Sunday morning prayer when her eldest son first lost his sight.
“Augustine shared ‘that if He who loves me gives me this cross to carry, then He who loves me will strengthen me and help me’,” she said.
“It comforted me when Augustine said ‘He knew his cross was his blindness’, many emotions and worries settled down a lot.”
Edward said: “God allows every couple and every family to go through ups and downs just as God has allowed our Catholic Church to go through ups and downs throughout history.”
“God wants everyone to pass through their moment of testing in order to know Him, but not everyone is able to receive God’s graces of faithfulness during their downs.”
Helen surmised: “God gives the grace to be faithful to him when things are difficult, and God also gives the reward.”
Each day, Helen said, she calls on Mother Mary to be with her.
“I tell my children: ‘Pray the rosary because you will find Our Lady is very real’.
“And I tell them: ‘Pass on the faith to your children’.”
