Anniversary

"Thank you Hon, ha." said Kuya Joe Dean, for a year of service at the foundation.
"No Kuya, thank you!"

Actually, thank God. Indeed, there is so much to be thankful for, much more than anything I've ever done for He Cares. I found God alive, living, and at work every single day I've spent here. For that I will be forever grateful.

One year ago, I was so content and so comfortable in a place where I knew I was appreciated and loved, where I knew I belonged. I even went as far as to commit myself (big deal for someone as commitment-phobic as myself)to something I thought would be truly worthwhile. But we never meant to be content or comfortable in this world, because we would never aspire for the far greater rewards of the next. So, seven days after I celebrated the 2nd anniversary of welcoming Him into my life, I found myself un-committed to everything else except God and alone in a strange new place that I now know I'd never have found had I remained in my comfort zone.

Tonight, as we celebrated in advance my one year in His service at He Cares, I was surrounded by new faces - people who've since taken the place of the old and the familiar, but tremendous blessings nonetheless. Just looking at them made me realize that God has indeed created us to be sent out, to expand our territories, to extend our reach. We are not meant to belong exclusively to any one fellowship or gathering; perhaps next year if or when I am elsewhere, there will be a whole new set of faces when I celebrate this occasion...but I'll have known that "moving on" is part of growing in - and spreading - His love.

Remind me to tell you the story about how God led me to He Cares. It's an amazing tale of His amazing grace and direction...and proof of how the Lord can be so clear-cut in His revelations in our lives. Anyway, 'til then. Not even 1 a.m. and I'm silly with sleepiness. Good night, my Beloved; good night, my beloved. :-)

I Love You Tes

Tes Flancia, my shepherd, my first glimpse of what heartfelt worship is really like, my favorite Alona Alegre-Sally Quizon-Jojo Alejar (este, Gina Alajar) lookalike. I never knew what an aching heart sounded like until I heard your voice. Because you helped guide my baby steps towards knowing Him, I will always look up to you, do you know that? And I will always love you (wika nga ni Whitney Houston). This entire blog was inspired by you, and is for you (and anyone else who happens to read it, but most of all for Him) as well - for indeed, freely we have received, freely we must give. See you soon :-)

Everybody Hurts

Was listening to an R.E.M. album today, and heard a song I hadn't listened to in a long time. My friend Carina likes to call this music-to-kill-yourself-by:

When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on
Don't let yourself go, 'cause everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes...

I was having a perfectly fine "me" day yesterday, shopping all by myself ("I wanna be...all by myself..."), enjoying the luxury of a free afternoon with no one and nothing to be concerned about, stocking up on books and repleneshing beauty products, picking up a graduation gift for my little sister, when, right in the middle of the madding crowd, my inner being went into slow motion and stilled. You know, just like one of those TV commercials where the main character goes into low gear while the rest of the world rushes past at 124235453254 rpm. It was a weird feeling - it's just like when you've had an aching tooth pulled, and although the painful member is no longer there, the empty space it used to occupy is possessed by a vague echo of the suffering that no longer is. And the ghostly pangs, while no longer fatally harmful, are familiar enough that you half-expect old agonies to consume you once again.

How strange is that? Even in the joy of this life in the Lord, old torments - and perhaps new ones - still raise their threatening head once in a while. I suppose that our daily "release" and survival is in how we respond and bear these crosses we need to take up, and how much of these burdens we cast upon the Lord. I know I need to have the "holes" in my heart plugged on a regular basis - and He has never disappointed whenever I take these hurts to Him and offer them up, even as He has already been hurt more than we can imagine. Sometimes I am shamed to burden Him even more with my constant and relatively trifling tribulations, but He always seems to be willing to kiss the littlest bruises and scrapes away, what more the festering wounds of my soul?

In Mass last night, aware of the "echoing hurts," I presented to Him all my infirmities, all the wounds that needed - and continue to need - healing. And He showed me His hands - the hands of a healer, gentle hands that shaped the earth and knit me in my mother's womb, but hands that were wounded so brutally just so they could free me from eternal damnation. My Healer is Himself wounded, as are all of us, but through His touch I am made well again, I am made whole. A reminder of how all of us, despite being broken, shattered in a million pieces inside, have been held together by His Healing Grace in order to reach out and heal others' wounds. We are broken to make each other whole, just as our God allowed Himself to be for our sakes.

Earlier yesterday I was telling - perhaps even complaining to - a sister about the "burden" for others that I carry. I now understand why this burden is in fact a blessing; I am thankful that despite my own woundedness, the Master has allowed me opportunities to rise above my selfish introspection and focus my concern on others He has sent my way. I pray I never complain again - may I learn to love the way He loves.

'Cause everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts. Don't throw your hand. Oh, no. Don't throw your hand
If you feel like you're alone, no, no, no, you are not alone...

We are not alone. We have each other - we are burdens of each other. And we have the One Necessary Friend who knows exactly how we feel, whatever kind of pain we're going through...because He's been there, done that.

Pajama Day

Today was one of those rare luxurious days I call "pajama to pajama": you change out of last night's sleepwear just to get into tonight's pajamas. After a long roller-coaster week of working hard, praying hard and, finally, playing hard, I got to spend the rest of my Monday just "chilling" with the Lord. No schedules, no pressure, no demands on my day - just hours upon hours of sleeping and waking up and eating breakfast the whole day in between casual conversations with Him.

I also had time to finish a book I'd started reading some time ago but neglected for one reason or another. While in the middle of it, I spontaneously struck up one such "casual conversation" and submitted a little faith activity a brother and I have been planning (in our enthusiasm, we probably got ahead of ourselves and forgot altogether to consult Him!). Hardly seconds had gone by after I returned to my book - which, on its face, had absolutely nothing to do with what I'd talked to the Lord about - and what do you know - He gave His surefire, dead-on, unambiguous answer to my question. And as I plowed through the rest of the book, He continued to confirm, and to reassure: some of the author's experiences were uncannily similar to what I (and some other people I walk with in faith) had gone through. Truly, "Commend what you do to Yahweh, and what you plan will be achieved,"(Proverbs 16:3). Anyway, more on that later. Here's the part of the book, Authentic Relationships (by Wayne and Clay Jacobsen), that answered my question:

"(I)n the course of your journey, you will find those with whom God makes a connection. You will find affection in your heart for them. This won't include only people who are easy to love; God will also give you affection for those trapped in deep bondage or need. Out of those relationships we may find ourselves walking more intentionally with a group of brothers and sisters, either as part of a congregation, mission team, or fellowship group. Most enduring friendships are formed in small-group environments where people share the Christian life for a season. I have always tried to have a small group of ten to twelve with whom I regularly walk in openness and honesty, and that has yielded some extraordinary fruit in my life."

Back to my pajama party :-)

Daily Divine "Coincidence"

It seems that God has once again been particularly insistent on making His will known - and the best way to do that in my case (I tend to be skeptical at the very least, and cluelessly dense for the most part) is to bombard me with confirmations and reassurances that are dead-on. No beating around the bush or ambivalent messages, but straight-to-the-point, unmistakable declarations through both His Word and my world's circumstances. Just yesterday I had a couple of long telephone conversations with a fellow servant in the vineyard, whom I first looked up to when starting this part of my journey in His service. The heart of our discussion was Matthew 6:33, the anchor which tethers us to this commitment and keeps us from being swept away by the fickle tides of distractions and losing our way. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness..."

Oswald Chambers, whom I have not read so devotedly since the last time I used his devotional two years ago, is again God's sounding board. This time I'm reading My Utmost... online, and just as I clicked on today's date, I had a sense that the Lord would once again be confirming something - anything - through Ozzie. And, of course, He did. Amazing, indeed.

May 21
Having God’s "Unreasonable" Faith

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you
—Matthew 6:33

When we look at these words of Jesus, we immediately find them to be the most revolutionary that human ears have ever heard. ". . . seek first the kingdom of God . . . ." Even the most spiritually-minded of us argue the exact opposite, saying, "But I must live; I must make a certain amount of money; I must be clothed; I must be fed." The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God but how we are going to take care of ourselves to live. Jesus reversed the order by telling us to get the right relationship with God first, maintaining it as the primary concern of our lives, and never to place our concern on taking care of the other things of life.

". . . do not worry about your life . . ." ( Matthew 6:25 ). Our Lord pointed out that from His standpoint it is absolutely unreasonable for us to be anxious, worrying about how we will live. Jesus did not say that the person who takes no thought for anything in his life is blessed— no, that person is a fool. But Jesus did teach that His disciple must make his relationship with God the dominating focus of his life, and to be cautiously carefree about everything else in comparison to that. In essence, Jesus was saying, "Don’t make food and drink the controlling factor of your life, but be focused absolutely on God." Some people are careless about what they eat and drink, and they suffer for it; they are careless about what they wear, having no business looking the way they do; they are careless with their earthly matters, and God holds them responsible. Jesus is saying that the greatest concern of life is to place our relationship with God first, and everything else second.

It is one of the most difficult, yet critical, disciplines of the Christian life to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us into absolute harmony with the teaching of Jesus in these verses.

I'm off to seek His Kingdom. Good morning, my Savior!

Solo Dios Basta

Nada te turbe,
Nada te espante,
Toda se pasa,
Dios no se muda,
La Paciencia
Todo la alcanza;
Quien a Dios tiene
Nada le falta,
Sólo Dios basta.
- Santa Teresa de Avila

Let nothing disturb thee;
Let nothing dismay thee;
All things pass:
God never changes.
Patience attains
All that it strives for.
He who has God
Lacks for nothing;
God alone suffices.

Strength in Weakness

From today's morning prayer, a verse that has been welling up in my head the last couple of days. Many people tell me about my "strength of character" or my "strength of personality," or the "strength of my faith." And yet down inside I am a timorous weakling who would be absolutely nothing without Him. Sometimes He has to remind me of that, especially when I forget and become so full of myself. :-) No such thing as coincidence, so I claim this morning's verse as both a reminder and an assurance from the Lord:

Wherefore, so that I should not get above myself, I was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to batter me and prevent me from getting above myself. About this, I have three times pleaded with the Lord that it might leave me; but he has answered me, "My grace is enough for you: for power is at full stretch in weakness." It is, then, about my weaknesses that I am happiest of all to boast, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me; and that is why I am glad of weaknesses, insults, constraints, persecutions and distress for Christ's sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

In my many weaknesses, may You be at full strength O Lord. Let none of my own strength remain; take control, take all my will, my mind, my memory, and be the Master of my life. Fiat.

At daybreak, be merciful to me.
Make known to me the path that I must walk.
Be merciful to me.

God, examine me and know my heart, test me and know my concerns.
Make sure that I am not on my way to ruin, and guide me on the road of eternity. (Psalm 139:23-24)

Sunrise and Schedules

I know she loves the sunrise
No longer sees it with her sleepy eyes
And I know that when she said she's gonna try
Well it might not work because of other ties and
I know she usually has some other ties
And I wouldn't want to break them, no, I wouldn't want to break them
Maybe she'll help me to untie this but
Until then well, I'm gonna have to lie to you.
- Jack Johnson, Flake

These past few days since I've been back, I've found myself waking up at 6:30 a.m. Actually, I've been waking up at that same time almost every day the last several weeks, even while traveling - my body clock has apparently begun to like to synchronize itself with the sunrise. It's a refreshing change: I find that I have time to take care of important stuff - prayer, cleaning up the house, breakfast, leisurely "lingering" on e-mail - with all those extra hours in the morning instead of rushing out of the house, frazzled and harassed, because I got out of bed at 10.

Early mornings, aside from giving me extra time to myself, in communion with God, also give me time to focus. My day seems to be a lot more organized, with scheduled "appointments" running almost like clockwork, and enough flexibility to accomodate spur-of-the-moment activities. Yesterday, for instance, I spent the morning cooking at the Center, and finished making the two-course meal exactly at 12 noon. Carol Anne needed company to shop for the sewing ladies' graduation party today, so I had a free hour after lunch to do that with her, after which I set off into the horrible EDSA traffic for a meeting with CYA's Lorna and Sis Shane at Shangri-la. And since Oman works in the area, we had a very pleasant couple of hours catching up over panini and coffee before I needed to head to my next meeting in Makati. Because everything moved like clockwork - my CYA meet was finished by 4, Oman and I called it a day without needing to rush or being bitin exactly at 6 - I was where I needed to be, in Greenbelt, with a few minutes to stroll around National Bookstore, by 7:00 p.m. Which gave me the opportunity for yet another "spontaneous" activity - I hadn't seen my best friend Miles for more than a month and when the editorial meeting wrapped exactly at 8:30 p.m., we had time for drinks and long-overdue chika the way only we can make chika. What a full day - especially since the main part of it was trying to do God's work - yet I was far from exhausted when I got up, at 6:30, this morning. :-) Could get used to this kind of schedule after all.

In the "life-altering" book that spoke to me during the last Holy Week, Peter Kreeft wrote very powerfully about how we should never allow time to be our master. Yesterday, I discovered how it's like to have the clock as a good friend as it cooperated with my schedule rather than despotically pressuring me through the day - I hope we remain buddies from this day forward and that I never get to use the word "toxic" when referring to my day's timetable!

Time used to be our friend. Now it is our enemy. Entertainment is called “killing time.” You don’t kill your friend. If you really want to kill time, the most effective way is suicide: that kills all of it. Killing time is slow suicide.

But we can reverse this any time we want to. All you have to do is to perform the radical, earth-changing act of “stopping and smelling the roses.” Joshua made the sun stand still and time move backward for a day. You can do something similar; you can reverse the flow of modern time which is “slip-sliding away.” How? Simply by TAKING time to do something that is not measured by clock time.

For instance, a Zen monk said, “Drinking a cup of green tea, I stopped the war.” That sounds ridiculous, but I think it is very profound and realistic and true. You can contribute mightily to peace in the world by increasing the peace and spiritual sanity first of all in yourself; and you can do that first by realigning your soul’s relation to time. Drinking tea can be a timeless moment, a deed that in its small way flows from and into eternity. We need not join mass movements to move history. History moves like families: one at a time. (For history IS the history of a family).

I dare you. Experiment. Slow down. Stop the flywheel. Get out from under the wheels of the juggernaut. Stop and smell the roses. Literally. Do it, don’t just think about it. And do other timeless things even more important than that truly radical deed of smelling roses. Pray. Without a clock. I’ll guarantee that the same thing will happen to your time if you sacrifice it to God as happened to one little boy’s five loaves and two fishes, and for the same reason it happened then.

You see, God created time, and is its master. So he can multiply it and give it back to us transformed. The offering, however, must be freely made. We must first destroy something – not time but our ownership of it, in sacrificing it to him. Once we sacrifice the bread of our time to him, he breaks that bread and multiplies it and feeds our hungry souls with it.

I do not know how he does it. But I know he does. I know this not only by faith but by experience – more the experience of failure than of success. Whenever I am too busy to give God time, I find myself even busier, and unable to do half the things I had hoped. Whenever I ruthlessly tear myself away from what I like to call my “responsibilities” but are really my idols, when I put away my watch and just rest in God’s presence, he somehow arranges it so that at the end of the day I’ve accomplished more than I had hoped.

He’ll do the same for you. I promise you. I dare you to try this simple but revolutionary, life-changing, world-changing experiment. It will unleash a power of creation greater than the power for destruction unleashed by the experiments with nuclear bombs.

It revolutionizes everything because time is a universal feature of our lives. Everything we do is in time. Not even space is that universal, for only the body is in space, not the soul. But the soul too is in time. It takes time to think just as it takes time to walk. So if we revolutionize our relationship to time, we revolutionize our whole life. - Peter Kreeft in Simplicity, from Making Choices (Practical Wisdom for Everyday Moral Decisions). Copyright @ 1990

Seek Ye First

God's word today is courtesy of the Gospel of Luke; a reminder that in putting Him first, all else follows.

And he said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat, nor about your body, what you shall put on.
For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.
Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!
And which of you by being anxious can add a cubit to his span of life?
If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?
Consider the lilies, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
But if God so clothes the grass which is alive in the field today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O men of little faith!
And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be of anxious mind.
For all the nations of the world seek these things; and your Father knows that you need them.
Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things shall be yours as well. (Luke 12:22-31)

I pray, now that His plans are slowly coming into the light, that I be able to hold firm to His promise, for He has always been faithful in His providence whenever I seek Him first. Praise God for His word, the lamp upon my feet, the light unto my path.

And truly, His insistence in putting the point across jolted me this early in the morning when, moments after receiving His message in today's Gospel, I find the very same sentiment echoed in today's meditation of Oswald Chamber's (he's not even Catholic, so the Divine "coincidence" is truly stunning) My Utmost For His Highest. The icing to top it all off is Chambers' mention of simplicity, which, as some of you may already know, is the goal I've been striving towards since the last Holy Week, and focus, which I am likewise trying dearly to achieve!

May 18
Living Simply - Yet Focused
Look at the birds of the air...Consider the lilies of the field...
—Matthew 6:26, 28

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin"— they simply are! Think of the sea, the air, the sun, the stars, and the moon— all of these simply are as well— yet what a ministry and service they render on our behalf! So often we impair God’s designed influence, which He desires to exhibit through us, because of our own conscious efforts to be consistent and useful. Jesus said there is only one way to develop and grow spiritually, and that is through focusing and concentrating on God. In essence, Jesus was saying, "Do not worry about being of use to others; simply believe on Me." In other words, pay attention to the Source, and out of you "will flow rivers of living water" ( John 7:38 ). We cannot discover the source of our natural life through common sense and reasoning, and Jesus is teaching here that growth in our spiritual life comes not from focusing directly on it, but from concentrating on our Father in heaven. Our heavenly Father knows our circumstances, and if we will stay focused on Him, instead of our circumstances, we will grow spiritually— just as "the lilies of the field."

The people who influence us the most are not those who detain us with their continual talk, but those who live their lives like the stars in the sky and "the lilies of the field"— simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mold and shape us.

If you want to be of use to God, maintain the proper relationship with Jesus Christ by staying focused on Him, and He will make use of you every minute you live— yet you will be unaware, on the conscious level of your life, that you are being used of Him.

Bo

I finally met Bo Sanchez up close and personal last Friday, after Alvin Barcelona's Believe concert. Not that I haven't had the opportunities to do so - I e-mailed him once to ask his availability for a talk (and even if he wasn't free, he was good enough to reply very kindly!). He was two seats behind me on a flight to Cebu, but I didn't have the guts to approach him, even while hanging around at the airport baggage claim. Ate Ardis used me as an "excuse" to throw Kuya Joe Dean off-scent when Bo kept excitedly calling their house to confirm a video honoring for Kuya's birthday: "Aaah, love, Bo needs to talk to Honey kasi about whatnot and whatever..." Kuya Mike says that after the shoot, Bo conveyed his fondest regards to the "excuse." And, when our French volunteer Greg was ready to leave for home, Kuya took him up backstage after the Feast to meet Bo and get his autograph - unfortunately, I was out front tending the kids and missed the chance.

And then, this Friday, we got to shake his hand. My nickname is the kind of name that bears amused repetition, and Bo was no exception as he kept grinning while saying "Honey, Honey." As AG commented afterwards, tao din si Bo. He's just a man - a wonderful creation of God just like all of us - with his gifts and his flaws. Yet this man has allowed himself to be an instrument of God, and is therefore one of my personal heroes, especially because of what he shared in his last tell-all book testimonial (Your Past Does Not Define Your Future).

I've recently taken to asking Christians I admire to signing their names in the Bible I carry with me always. Unfortunately, that evening, I'd left the Bible in the car...a good enough excuse to approach Bo one of these days and rid myself of the curse of chope.

Back

Finally back home after a total of 20 days on the road (sea, air). It's good to be back after a prolonged journey - especially when the reason to "be back" is continuously and vividly made apparent during the time spent away.

It was probably a fitting metaphor that we came full circle - literally - by beginning and ending this northern part of our travels at He Cares, which is perhaps the main reason why - if I may speak for myself - I am, or we are, back. It's the touchstone of this particular stage of my calling, a part of the mission that I've found myself carrying no matter how far away from the physical "center" of activity the roads lead me. In the same way that I bring to the "farthest corners" the many things God has taught me in He Cares, so too do I now bring what He has taught me on these travels back into His service.

One thing I've learned is the irony of how being away and apart from the familiar world actually moves one towards commitment - or otherwise reinforces existing commitments; you actually realize what your heart and soul find truly essential and important and what superficialities you can live without. I find myself at the end of this trip with a new armful of strengthened commitments in more than a few areas - spiritual, personal, and even professional. The simplicity in "trimming the fat" is beautiful - it's a matter of saying "yes" to some things and "no" to some others. I also began this series of travels with one question - or should I say proposition - I needed God to resolve, and I believe He's made His answer clear enough.

It's also a blessing to hit the ground running in returning to His service at He Cares, and an additional blessing to be able to share how He reveals Himself (as He promised He would in Matthew 25) daily as we go about our mission. Yesterday was a day to experience truly the fullness of joy in Him, especially after missing three Saturdays in a row away from the Center - started the day with singing His praises with His little angels, continued with serving Him through ministering physically and emotionally to the kids, and the day just kept on giving as I talked to at least four different people at separate opportunities about the magnitude of His love and the reason for this commitment to His service. A reminder of St. Peter's exhortation to "simply proclaim the Lord Christ holy in your hearts, and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you have." (1 Peter 3:15)

He is the Reason, the only Reason for this hope and joy - and today, Pentecost Sunday, celebrates once again the reason why our hearts burn so much with His love that sometimes we cannot help to cause "forest fires" of blazing light to spread throughout the darkest corners of this earth. May His Holy Spirit that has descended upon us continue to radiate His glory from within! I pray that He will continue to send me on more journeys like this past series of travels, for the grace to carry His light to all the corners of the earth, and for the strength to do His will and proclaim even more loudly His holiness in my heart - in the way that I live, in the way that I love, and, when the occasion calls for it, in the words that come out from my heart. Amen. :-)

I love you Lord, even more today than yesterday. Thank you for everything.

Call Mom

As I reflect more and more upon it, God’s revelation in my “young” life as a renewed Christian has followed an observable pattern thus far. It began with a homecoming, the acceptance of a wayward child by an immeasurable, overwhelming forgiveness of a loving Father. Then came a period of straying, of being found and taken home again, of intense pruning, of getting to know the One True Love, of submitting, of following Him. And all that entire time, Jesus Christ was all I knew – establishing a relationship with Him was the one consuming passion. Maintaining and deepening that Friendship is still my “one desire.” But, as a few people already know, lately, the Friend who holds my heart in His hands has recently allowed – or should I say implored? – me to love some others, for loving them is a necessary part of loving Him.

He asked me to love His Church. And He asked me to love His Mother.

Sometime in 1990, one of my closest friends tried to get me to accept Jesus into my life as a Born Again Christian. I felt so drawn to what he had experienced, but in that moment, I told him that I could not leave the Church until I knew what it was all about. And I told him I could not give up Mother Mary. It made no sense for me to say what I did at the time, since I was a non-practicing Catholic who grew up in U.P. without any religious formation. But it makes all the sense in the world to me right now. The mere fact that I remember the incident vividly despite my notoriously Alzheimer-ic memory is proof enough of how it would impact my life many years later.

I have no profound, intellectual arguments to sustain this newfound affection, although there are such brilliantly powerful ones that eventually caused the likes of ex-Protestant pastors Scott Hahn and Marcus Grodi to deeply love the Woman they had previously reviled. When I was still new in my relationship with Jesus, it made little sense to let anyone else “in on the action,” since Jesus was sufficient, more than enough. And truly He is, but I recall the first time I truly understood how Our Mother perfectly fit into the scheme of His love.

A couple of years ago, my family went through a very anxious period when my grandfather, the 94-year old pillar and patriarch of our family, underwent delicate surgery to relieve a blood clot in his brain. Prior to that, he had a pace-maker installed, and suffered from various other problems, that he was constantly the source of worry when it came to physical ailments. I praise God that he’s been healthy thus far in body, mind, and soul since surviving the operation that even he didn’t think he’d get through. After that mega-traumatic time in our lives, I was not prepared for the sudden news that my hale and happy grandmother, who is the heart and hearth of our family, was found to be suffering from cancer.

It was like being kicked in the stomach after you’d just begun to get up. If you know the feeling, it was like I had no more strength to pray. In the middle of this tribulation, I prayed to Our Lady for the first time after my renewal – I asked her to pray on my behalf, since I had no more prayers to say. And the Queen of Heaven did. She took up my burden, the burden which I could not even lift up to Her Son, and prayed FOR me. I cannot describe how I felt her move in that moment, but I was at peace, knowing that my petition was in good hands. And Praise Her Holy Son, today my Lola is sound and healthy as well.

She prays with us, she prays for us. Even when we sometimes forget that she’s there. Just the other day, during my prayer time, I turned my attention to her, while asking the Lord to help me love her more. And she spoke in my heart a bittersweet understanding: she reminded me of my own mother, and how, despite the busy-ness of the day or the week and the fact that I usually am too preoccupied with other things to call or see or talk to her, I know that my Mom is always, always praying for me. And Our Heavenly Mother said that that’s the way it is with her too…she’s always praying for each of us even when we never take the time to even say “hi, Mom.” It’s always a good time to give Mom a call – Mom on earth, and Mother Mary in heaven.

By the way, when I was explaining to my Christian friend how I was not yet ready to give up the Church, I compared leaving Catholicism to changing one’s name – you were born with it, you lived and suffered all this years with it, so you might as well find out all about your name and why you have it before making the decision to change it. My real name is Maria Lourdes – after the French town where Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous, and after – guess who – Lourdes, my grandmother. :-)

Praise God for giving us His Holy Mother to love and be loved.

14 April 2004

(N.B. My grandfather has since joined our Heavenly Father - on 2 December 2004 - but my Lola is still with us on this pilgrimage on earth.)

Vital Intercession

Tonight, only one person will truly understand the import of this post if "they" read it - Divine "coincidence" indeed - but it's a reflection that cuts across all audiences. Good old Ozzie.

"May 3
Vital Intercession

. . . praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit . . . —Ephesians 6:18

As we continue on in our intercession for others, we may find that our obedience to God in interceding is going to cost those for whom we intercede more than we ever thought. The danger in this is that we begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting up to a totally different level in direct answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from our close identification with God’s interest and concern for others and step into having emotional sympathy with them, the vital connection with God is gone. We have then put our sympathy and concern for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.

It is impossible for us to have living and vital intercession unless we are perfectly and completely sure of God. And the greatest destroyer of that confident relationship to God, so necessary for intercession, is our own personal sympathy and preconceived bias. Identification with God is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with Him it is because of our sympathy with others, not because of sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our intercessory relationship with God, but sympathy will. It is sympathy with ourselves or with others that makes us say, 'I will not allow that thing to happen.' And instantly we are out of that vital connection with God.

Vital intercession leaves you with neither the time nor the inclination to pray for your own 'sad and pitiful self.' You do not have to struggle to keep thoughts of yourself out, because they are not even there to be kept out of your thinking. You are completely and entirely identified with God’s interests and concerns in other lives. God gives us discernment in the lives of others to call us to intercession for them, never so that we may find fault with them."

- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest

Graduating From Groundhog Day

There's a lot of backlog blogging I "need" to do, especially since I've written so many tentative notes to develop into potentially extensive reflections, but I just had one thought a few seconds ago as I was walking from my bedroom to the kitchen and back.

It was a reminder from God about one day when He spoke so strongly into my heart. Like I told one sister-in-Christ in Cagayan de Oro recently, God "speaks" to us all the time, but rare is the occasion when you are 110% sure that it's His "voice" you actually hear. On this short journey of mine, I can count experiencing that blessed privilege - you know, that kind of encounter Saint Ignatius calls consolation, when you are brought to your knees by the magnitude of His presence - on the fingers of one hand. This, as opposed to the times He speaks to us and we only much later realize, after much confirmation and lapse of time, that it was Him speaking. Anyway, I hope you understand what I'm saying. Better yet, I hope you've had a few of those encounters yourself.

Tonight, I was reminded about how one day, when I thought my head and heart would explode because of a confusion I never expected to find myself entangled in. I thought I'd gone through the worst anguish ever, and I actually "graduated" in my relationship with the Lord because I'd let Him enter through the wounds still raw and bleeding and heal me from within. But then, very soon after, came a whole new complication, and a whole new internal turmoil that left me holding on for dear life to my sole Consoler. I was living Bill Murray's torture in Groundhog Day, reacting the same negative way, experiencing the same bad emotions, thinking the same destructive thoughts.

We can be very adept at driving ourselves stir-crazy, and I was (am?) a poster child in that respect. But one morning, I gave God the entire wreck that was my being, and told Him to do what He would. I was too tired to put up any resistance. And He worked so beautifully - after "wrestling" with Him for a whole heart-rending night and morning, He led me to journal my current state of mind and heart, and spoke through my own fingers.

I just took a look at that entire entry written a lifetime ago; funny how it's not at all difficult to do so at this point in time. But God cut into the midst of the churning chaos with a simple declaration that "calmed the raging sea that came crashing over me": The breaking you feel is not of your heart…but of the walls around it. And, all of a sudden, everything was stilled. I knew, it was God.

Thank God that He is still and always there, even when things are not "still." And, through His grace, I hope to graduate soon from this Groundhog Day where the walls of mistrust and self-preservation and inability to love the way He loves, still continue to crumble. I pray that these constricting walls finally be made dust, if not in this life, then in the next.

No need to remember past events,
no need to think about what was done before.
Look, I am doing something new,
Now it emerges; can you not see it?
Yes, I am making a road in the desert
And rivers in the wastelands. (Isaiah 43:18-19)

Pit Stop

When I was younger, I used to wonder how it would feel to experience Manila as just another stop along the journey, and not as THE destination. I could hardly comprehend the reality of people actually living further up North (if, say, someone from Pampanga had just taken a trip to Batangas) or down South (a Bicolano coming home from Baguio). Because in my case, Manila has always been home.

Not that I don't like the city - I love Metro Manila and all its grimy splendor. But today I just realized that my body reacts the same way, without fail, every time I return to the city of my birth, no matter if I'm planing in from Paris or Hong Kong, or getting off the bus from Abra or Sorsogon. I just got off the ship from Cagayan de Oro, and today I'm once again experiencing the malady of Manila: I'm sick.

Must be the air or the pollution or I don't know what. Maybe I have SARS. It's a familiar annoyance, but only now do I realize that the onset of this scratchy throat, dry cough, itchy nose, and over-all cranky disposition is brought about by the mere fact of coming home. To Manila. Which I dearly love, in case you didn't hear me the first time. But man, it sure is nice to dream of a little ranch in cooler climes, a horse, a 4x4...and someone to share all these gifts from God with. Yuck, I really must be sick.

The good thing about all this is that this time Manila is actually just a pit stop...unless I die from meningo tomorrow morning, we're off to explore the North this time. May God bless our trip - and may we bring Him greater glory as He sends us out to the farthest corners of the earth.