Author: Miguel J. Javier

Note to self: Don’t forget to pray

I have to be careful not to let busyness take priority over my time with the Lord. The more I have to do, the more I should be praying. I fall into the temptation and believe that I am more effective if I do more and pray less. I need to remember to get on my knees and listen. If I forget to listen, I will serve aimlessly and be easily caught up with the things that are seen. I will be easily disappointed and frustrated.

Heavenly Father, I praise You. Thank You for Your goodness and mercy. Lord, increase my faith! Take me out of my tunnel vision and open my eyes to limitlessness Your sovereignty. Help me to escape from my ego and lean not on my own understanding. Come, Holy Spirit! Your will be done.

I Believe, Help My Unbelief!

“A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.” –C.S. Lewis

I’m so ignorant. Thank You Jesus for being the only Way, Truth, and Life. Thank You for making sure I am guided accordingly through the Catholic Church. You know how ignorant I am, and in Your infinite wisdom, you decided to establish Your church to make sure the Truth is kept untainted and unchanged. The times change but You, the Truth, do not. Sometimes You are hard to accept because accepting You requires for me to change my habits, thoughts, words, and actions. Please Lord, humble me always, that I may always be open to Your Truth that is Your Love. May Your Truth change me, humble me, and consume me. If I don’t understand something, please give me the patience to simply believe first and trust that You will allow me to understand in Your own time, Your own ways. I believe, help my unbelief! You showed me the straight line, and You wrote it in my heart. Please give me the grace to know Your will and the strength to do what I ought. Help me to know all the crooked lines in my life and always look to the straight line that is You. I am stubborn, and I will sin, but Lord please be merciful always and help me in my continued resolve to sin no more. Amen.

Thankfulness

I find that when I’m thankful, I’m loving. When I’m unthankful, I’m unloving. For me, it’s hard to receive and love the best I can without first being full of thanksgiving.

Before I went to the Philippines for training, I took a lot for granted. My weakness was being able to love and be loved. Though I was in a very loving community and came from a very loving family, still, my heart was not truly, genuinely, loving. It was because I was ungrateful. The most important lesson I learned from immersing for three months in the Philippines, training to be a full-time lay missionary, was how to be thankful.

I was so used to a comfortable life. I was two years into my career as a Graphic/Web Designer and made enough to be independent and comfortable. Also, I was now making money for doing something I did for fun. In a worldly sense, I was fulfilled, but I wasn’t truly thankful. The material abundance in my life distracted me from being thankful for the invisible things: relationships, virtues, grace, …love. Being a leader in the community I served, I was more focused on production and results rather than building relationships. I mean, I had a good relationship with my household and a few others here and there, but I was selective, and that’s the farthest it went. I settled for mediocre relationships so that it wouldn’t be so hard. I thought that investing in people wasn’t worth the sacrifices I would have to make on my end. It would mean less time for me and the things I wanted in life.

Despite all of this and my hardened heart, the Lord was still so faithful. He still inspired holy inclinations and desires within me. He still gave me the grace to follow Him and draw closer to Him. He still affirmed me of His love even in the midst of my sinfulness. He led me to discern to give my life to him as a lay missionary, and He gave me the grace to answer His call. It would take another post to share how faithful He was throughout my discernment, but let’s just say that He never stopped knocking at my door. He never stopped affirming me of His love, and He never stopped forgiving me of my sins. This only led my heart to be opened to Him more and more. I found myself so caught up in Him, so much that I was compelled to say YES to fully surrender to Him and allow Him to use me fully.

I encountered Jesus in a way never before when I immersed in the Philippines. Last time I visited was for a family vacation 6 years prior to my return. However, this time around I was there for mission and I encountered Jesus like never before in the poor. My most profound experience was when I stayed at an ANCOP village for three days. I will never forget the family I stayed with, the youth I met, the kids I played with, and the generosity they showed me. They humbly taught me what’s truly important in life, and that’s simply Love. Love in it’s most real and raw form. The message continued all throughout my time in the Philippines, and the Lord blessed my heart so much.

The more I surrendered, the more I was blessed. And that is still the case now, now that I’ve been two years living this life as His missionary. He has blessed me, my family, and all my relationships all the more, and He has pruned my life so that it could bear even more fruit. It has been the most challenging, beautiful struggle, but I can rest assured it’s the path of holiness He’s set me on. It’s the path that is leading me closer to Him and the salvation of my soul.

My brothers and sisters, let’s always be thankful …and joyful! We have Christ in our hearts. We are His Church. We are part of a communion of saints with multitudes upon multitudes praying for us. We have His Sacraments. We have His real presence in the Holy Eucharist. What more could we ask for?

Eucharist means “thanksgiving”. When we receive Jesus, we are filled with thanksgiving! To live a Eucharistic life is to live a life of thanksgiving, believing that God has given everything we need (and more), and most especially the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ.

He has blessed us in superabundance, overflowing so that we can share the blessings! How can we not be thankful?

Thankfulness helps us to focus on what has already been given rather than what we want. Thus, it helps us focus on the Lord through the people and everything He’s given in our lives. Even if we’re very sinful, we can still be very thankful. Being thankful simplifies our desires—it helps us to desire and see only Him in everyone and everything.

Lord Jesus Christ, giver of all that is good, thank You for my life. In all my shortcomings and weaknesses, please help me to always be thankful. Thank you for all the people that I share this life with. Thank you for providing for all my temporal needs as a lay missionary. Most of all, thank You for the fullness of Your Love and Your graces! With these I will be rich enough and desire nothing more. Amen.

Remain in Grace

Apart from the Sacraments, what better way to remain in the state of grace than to remain in Mary who is full of grace? She helps us live a consistent life in her Son, full of beauty and integrity. She helps us to love and be like Jesus.

Mary, help of Christians, pray for us.

Totus Tuus

Be Water

“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless – like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” —Bruce Lee

Our theme this year is to OBEY and WITNESS. To obey is to be water and to become whatever we are poured into. To witness, is to be the shape of what we have been poured into.

“Mary is the great mould of God … Everyone who casts himself into it and allows himself to be moulded will acquire every feature of Jesus Christ, true God, with little pain or effort, as befits his weak human condition. He will take on a faithful likeness to Jesus with no possibility of distortion…” — St. Louis de Montfort

Thus, “be water, my friend.” With the obedience of faith, let us allow ourselves to be poured into our Mother Mary so that by the grace of God we can truly be formed into Jesus Christ. When this happens, our nature is transformed, like water into wine.

Totus Tuus!

Flourishing

“The Eucharist is the heart of the Church. Where Eucharistic life flourishes, there the life of the Church will blossom.” —Bl. John Paul II

I feel like the community has been more and more fruitful because of our deepening devotion to Mama Mary and the Eucharist.

Praise God.

What We Ought to Do

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (2 Cor. 3:17)

This verse brings back fond memories of YFC back in the day, when we would sing “where the Spirit of the Lord is there is FREEDOM! (FREEDOM, what what, FREEDOM, oh yeah…).” It makes me reminisce about the community in the past—the good ol’ times—and also causes me to reflect on the community now. I’ve realized that in this community we have and still experience true freedom.

Bl. Pope John Paul II once said that “freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” I truly believe this. That freedom is not doing what we like, nor what we must, but it is in doing what we ought. The world constantly barrages us with messages to do what we like when we like. If it feels good, do it. They say this is freedom. However, a serial killer likes to murder people. A drug addict likes to use drugs. An alcoholic likes to drink. Are they free? Rather, I would think they are a slave to their impulses.

I think what separates us from animals is that we have an intelligence and will to discern and know what we ought to do, and do it because it’s morally right. An animal cannot discern the morality of its decisions but we can.

This brings me to my point, that we experience true freedom in the community because it is filled with individuals and a moral compass that is centered in doing what we ought. We are imperfect and full of sinners but we are united in one vision: “families in the Holy Spirit renewing the face of the earth.” And as CFC-Youth, our vision is “young people being and bringing Christ wherever they are.” We are not young people doing whatever we like. We are young people with a common purpose, to be and bring Christ wherever we are. To bring Jesus and to imitate Him, is to truly live a life of freedom.

In our current state it is very difficult because of our tendency to sin. I realize this in my own life, that I am a great sinner and my desires are really out of whack. I am spiritually sick. When our body is physically ill, the doctor gives us a prescription. If we follow it, we will be healthy and be able to experience life to the full. By following the prescription, we follow the path to living a good life. If we don’t follow it, we will be sick and remain sick, even die. Jesus Christ is the heavenly Physician. The Doctor of life. His prescription is His commandments written in our hearts. If we decide not to follow, we will be spiritually sick. This sickness will affect every aspect of our lives. We will even be led to a spiritual death. However, if we follow and keep His commands, we will live and experience life in all its fullness. We will be truly free from sickness and death, and we will be free to love.

“For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ ” —Galatians 5:13–14

This is what we ought to do: love our neighbour as ourself.