In Between the Lines

Amidst the vast changing world, everything is in flux, people come and people go, people work and people run in order to meet the deadline.  Why always in a hurry?  Why panic? The answer? Because I want to meet the deadline.  Always the deadline!  Yes, deadline!  What if you will die before you finish the line? 

Do not be afraid!

Why is it difficult for me to surrender to your will, O God?  Why did I do my way and not your way?  Why is it difficult for me to understand others?  What is lacking in me?  The answer to these questions cannot be found anywhere but within me.  It is not the WHAT that is lacking but the WHO – GOD.  Am I doing my personal relationship with Him and with others well enough?

Give me the grace

Give me the grace to understand.

Give me the grace to believe in your might. 

Give me the grace to hope in your promise.

Give me the grace to lose myself.

Give me the grace to love and accept your will.

Give me the grace to believe that I am nothing without you.

Give me the grace to fight and conquer the forces of evil. 

Give me the grace to stand firm and remain in your love.

Give me the grace to erase the pasts.

Give me the grace to write down and start my life's journey once again.

Give me the grace to accept that I am the cross for other's sanctity. 

Give me the grace that I need them because they are Your wonderful gift of love for me.

Give me the grace to know your wisdom in those ahead of me, to accept corrections,

persecutions, to accept temptations and help me overcome it with love, joy and peace.

Give the grace to persevere in prayer.

For it is only in prayer that I may become humble to see your loving hands.

Give me the grace to accept my limitations because I cannot do anything unless I have a God who holds my life, who moulds my being and made me become whole and worthy to be called the child of the Most High.

Give me the grace to persevere in faith and to stand by it amidst all life's struggles and difficulties.

Give me the grace to be patient with myself. 

Especially for the times that I wanted to make a change and I am very much slow and rebellious. For this I am sure that in your loving patience with me I may accept and understand that you are one who stood before me, who accepts me against all odds, and who is always there beside me when everybody turns their back away from me. 

Help me my Lord to be loving most especially to myself when I reach the point of becoming impatient.

By your Perseverance: A personal reflection during our community faith sharing (Luke 21:5-19)

   

           I am struck personally by the words  "  You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed.  By your perseverance you will secure your lives."  In these words, I have clearly seen the greatness and the love of God which gives me hope to fight more by the power of his name because of the assurance that he will always there to rescue me, to lift me up, to support me, to accept me, to empower me and  to save me,  knowing…. that not even the hair of my head will be destroyed.  It is a great assurance of

By gazing at His grandeur...

"Let's strive to make more progress in self-knowledge, for in my opinion we shall never completely know ourselves if we don't strive to know God.  By gazing at His grandeur, we get in touch with our own lowliness; by looking at His purity, we shall see our own filth; by pondering His humility, we shall see how far we are from being humble. -(Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, second mansion, par. 9)

         The above text from the Master of prayer empresses me so much.  St. Teresa of Avila was a women who always teaches us to become more human, to go down deep within us, to discover the inner space God prepared for us so that we may be able to meet Him there.  This texts for me is somewhat the same from the lines of Socrates "the unexamined life is not worth living" and the words of St. Augustine when he says "enter into yourself and you will see that your heart is restless till it rests in God".  All of these ideas evolve mainly on the knowledge of the self, and of God. Like all the other, they wanted to let us understand that we cannot fathom and grasp the fullness of ourselves not unless we first know who we are, from the basic.  This is why I like it so much because St. Teresa of Avila teaches us that we have to strive to make more progress in knowing ourselves.  What does it mean? 

Eleven years today! June 13, 2013

  

    For Eleven years I left home. For eleven years I left my family, my friends and my love ones. For eleven years I broke the hearts of the two men I love. For eleven years I died to myself, my wants, my ambitions and stepped on the greatest desire that cries in the central fortress of my soul...to be with my King!

     I detached and forget everything and let myself absorbed in Him...in His Love...in His will..in His hands...though many times i struggled, cried, and wanted to give up and go back to the pleasures of yesterdays but He keeps on telling me "You are mine". The self you yearn to be, but fear to know. The world from which you flee in Me find home. All these I give you, if you remain in Me. I am always with you and be faithful to you forever....today those words are still fresh on my ears.

An advice to a friend who admitted to be continuously distracted during prayer.

When I got an encounter with a friend who admitted to be continuously distracted during prayer, St. Teresa of Avila comes to mind.  With our discussion, I explained to her the three stages of prayer in terms of what we seek.  In the first stage we seek knowledge of God and of ourselves, in the second- experience, and third transformation.  Then, as we go through it, we started in the first stage by letting her make an examination of conscience, the need for self-knowledge by checking whether her distractions is due to some negligence that has crept into her life.  She may have grown careless in her fidelity to a daily time of prayer, or she may not be coming to prayer properly prepared and disposed.  Maybe the negligence were in terms of disordered attachments in her active life: a festering resentment over some hurt, a preoccupation with her own success in some endeavor or a friendship that is competing with the Lord for the center of attention. 

God alone suffices!

I just ran out of roads again, don't know where to turn
I started counting stars again, then I lost my way
I just ran out of time again, will I ever learn
to stop my chaste of hours again only to learn I've lost the day.

...the last thing I want is this voice that rises from within

I'll need to go home soon, I know but maybe tomorrow 

not now

when the last thing i need here and now is this lasting need for YOU!

                              - adapted from the song  "out of the road",

                                                    Jesuit Music Ministry

An awesome experience with the Holy Spirit

     One of the great minds of early Christian history, our Holy Father St. Augustine, wanted to write a book explaining the Holy Trinity, the fundamental Christian belief that God is one God in three Divine Persons. There's a legend that one day St. Augustine was walking along the beach at Hippo, his diocese in North Africa. He was trying to figure out the mystery of the Trinity. And as he moved along, he saw a boy running back and forth from the surf, carrying water in a bucket and pouring it into a small hole in the sand.  Augustine was curious. He asked the child what he was doing. The boy responded: "I'm pouring all that water" — meaning the ocean — "into this hole." St. Augustine said: "That's impossible. The ocean is huge, and your hole in the sand is tiny." The boy responded: "Then how can you expect to put the mystery of the Holy Trinity into that little head of yours?" And then the boy disappeared.

To give our very best to our friends

                                               Scripture: John 15:9-17  

9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 

13 Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 This I command you, to love one another.

       The love of Jesus Christ compels us to give our best not only to God but to our neighbor who is created in the image and likeness of God. God's love purifies and transforms us into the likeness of Christ. The Lord Jesus promises that those who abide in his love will bear much fruit for the kingdom of God – fruit that will last for eternity as well (John 15:16).

If you seek to unite your heart with the heart of Jesus, you will bear great fruit in your life – the fruit of joy, peace, friendship, and love that lasts forever.

"Lord Jesus, make me fruitful in your love, mercy, kindness,compassion and gentleness. I thank you for all my friends in my life who colored my life.  

May you always remind me that my vocation is to love and  not to have.  

 May there be nothing in my life which keeps me from your love and joy."

I TRUST IN YOUR PROMISE (Ascension Sunday)

        Jesus’ ascension is not a question of abandonment and leaving behind but an experience of new beginning towards great responsibility. It marks the beginning of our mission to go and proclaim the good news through all the earth.  It is the time of fulfillment of Jesus’ mission to continue his saving mission not only to the people of Israel, but to all the nations as well. 

To Lose Myself

What else do I need?

but Yourself.

What else do I have?

but your Love.

What else do I seek?

but your Will.

What else do I follow?

 but your Way.

What else do I look for?

but your Eternity.

And what else?

To lose myself so as to take Yours

and live in me for the rest of my life.

Reflection on the Commentary of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians 1:3

"Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with spiritual blessings in the heavenly places, in Christ."

         The  Apostle Paul writes this letter to the Ephesians who were Asians, coming from Asia Minor which is part of Greece.  They were not initiated into the faith by the Apostle Paul but he did strengthen them in it.  This letter of Paul according to St. Thomas Aquinas were entitled encouragement and reassurance to the Ephesians.  The intention is to strengthen them in habits and spur them on to greater perfection.  The letter was divided into six parts but I have chosen only the third part.  "Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with spiritual blessings in the heavenly places, in Christ."  St. Thomas Aquinas here said that St. Paul here have mentioned the benefit of praise in two aspects.  The praise itself which should be rendered, at Blessed be God and the blessing account of which it should be rendered, which is unto God himself.  He said that God should be blessed and praised by all with all our hearts, tongues and actions.  I see this as a fundamental way of living by each one of us to bless and praised God in every way, in everything we do and in everything we say.  For me, I cannot  go on and live my day to the fullest without blessing and giving thanks to God in the beginning of the day. In every accomplishments, I praise and blessed God who is the source of all my strength.  In every failure and weaknesses that I have encountered I also praised God as the source of all good things in life, and allowing negative things to happen so I may able to learn a lesson and trust more in Him.  St. Thomas Aquinas here in saying so is giving us light of the truth that God is worthy of all our praises and honor.  He also mentioned that the copula and used by St. Paul in saying Blessed be God and Father…was not placed to designate two separate persons, for there is only one Father, but to denote what he is by essence and what he is in relation to the son.  As St. Thomas said, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is, of the Son who is our Lord because of his divinity, and Jesus Christ according to his humanity.   This is basically true.  There is no need for me to comment further on this because this is already very clear that the Father and Son is one. 

A Reflection on St. Thomas Aquinas' Lauda Sion

"Christ, Good Shepherd, bread divine, show to us your mercy sign.  Feed us still, still keep us thine that we may see your glory shine in the kingdom of good."

         A prayer, a praise, a cry, a supplication and a pleading.  St. Thomas Aquinas opened his humble heart by recognizing and praising Christ as the Good Shepherd and Divine Bread.  I too, have to say that Christ for me is my Good Shepherd and the divine bread in my life.  Night and day Christ as the Good Shepherd watches and guides me in the right path.  Christ as the Divine Bread sustains me, strengthens me and have given me food for eternal life.