Author: Niccolo Arboleda

September 27,2014

Teopoli, Ontario

Lord thank you for giving me this mission of Loving you deeper each day. For sharing your joy to other people through me. You affirm me in prayer and actions done for you. I am not worthy to serve you and I don’t think I will ever be.  Despite that you entrust me with your work and I am forever grateful. Praise you for your Love oh God, praise you for your greatness, praise you for your forgiveness, praise you for everything that you are Lord. There is nothing more beautiful than your promise fulfilled in us. In living out that promise may I not only be physically in your image but also spiritually one with you. That I may be more human as you intended me to be each passing day.

Amen

Did you ever ask God to give you a sign?

Sometimes we want a sign, something intricate or amazing to happen in order to make a decision or know what the Lord is telling us.

We want to feel something and and be overwhelmed to know what he wants us to do.

But the thing is whether or not any of our senses can detect a sign is irrelevant because  God is always speaking to us. How do I know this? It’s because I know he Loves me.

If you  Love someone don’t you want to always talk to them or at least keep some sort of communication with them?

The Lord is always speaking to us despite dryness or silence simply because nothing can ever separate his Love from us. He tells us that He Loves us even through the silence in our hearts.

Sometimes no words need to be said between close friends and that is also true between ourselves and our closest friend.

Sometimes life seems to have me in a constant state of being overwhelmed.

Being overwhelmed by the many things I have to do.

Being overwhelmed by my responsibilities  as a son, a brother, a missionary, a friend, a household head, a leader, and the list goes on.

I’m sure many of us can relate to this feeling in at least one occasion.

I went to mass today and I realized i couldn’t focus. I was listening but i couldn’t process anything because I was thinking of the things I have yet to do.

I’ve been struggling with this for a while now and it’s gotten progressively worse since I became a mission volunteer. I’m trying to think about so many things at once that I overload my thoughts.

I was talking to a brother today and the Lord really spoke to me through him. He said “I really need to focus more”. The truth is I really need to focus more.

The thing about focusing is that you cant focus on many different things. The whole point of focusing is to find a focal point in which to center your attention.

The only true focal point that we should have in our lives is God and nothing else. I truly believe that He is calling me to focus on Him. To see through all the things in my life as I look at him in all His glory; simply because everything that we are and everything that we do is for His greater glory.

To focus is not to ignore the things that are happening in your life but to face the realities of it; to taste, see, and experience God through it. This is what he is calling me to do moving forward.

Everything we do should be for Christ. Only then can you consider yourself focused.

I remember being in adoration before leaving for Vancouver just a little over two weeks ago. I looked upon Jesus and thought to myself “why do you Love me?”.

It was an honest question, I imagined myself as a child and how I would look at myself if I was my own Father. I would actually be very disappointed in myself. I would be frustrated and angry because of how imperfect and how much of a sinner I am. People tell me I’m too hard on myself but I’m just being real.

I know my sin and my imperfections, the only one that probably knows these things better than myself is God.

Then why? Why is it that when I look at Him in adoration I feel no disappointment, anger, or frustration?

Why is it that there is only Love looking back at me?

If there is anything I’ve learned serving the CFC- Youth/SFC and the CFC Conferences it’s that He simply chose to Love me, He chose to call me beloved fully knowing who I am and how I would hurt Him.

It was God’s choice to Love us and I think that is the single biggest blessing that has ever been freely given to us as His children.

God does not need a reason to Love us, he Loves us simply because that is the nature of His Love.

We see Him rise in our darkest moments and our highest victories simply because he Loves us with a:

A Love so intense it ignites us

A Love so overwhelming it conquers our hearts

A Love so pure it overcomes ALL our sin

Truly we are blessed in belonging to a God who Loves us so completely, intimately, and unconditionally.

Praise God!

The past week I was blessed enough to be part of a mission trip to Montreal.

Kuya Kevin asked me if I could help with the ShouT that was to be conducted there.

This was the third ShouT that I have been to in the past few weeks having attended the MV ShouT and the GTA area ShouT. I was asking the Lord what else he could possibly want to reveal to me in this ShouT that he didn’t reveal to me in the past two.

We arrived in Montreal and instantly my blood started rushing and I got excited. It was as if my soul felt the Lords presence, as if He was there to greet me. I knew from that moment that He had an important message to tell me.

Something different about this ShouT was that it was in a rectory and circumstances led us to pray more than what I am used to even for a ShouT. We had our morning prayers, three worships, a rosary, and the evening compline each day. In a way we were allowed to “abuse” our time with the Lord by making full use of our prayer time. We were allowed to focus on Him and dedicate that time to Him. I even spent some time at the church in front of the tabernacle since it was connected to the rectory. It was truly a different experience fitting for the heart of Catholicism in North America.

In the times of prayer the Lord spoke to me in a way that brought me back to my own heart of worship. In a way the Lord wanted me to go back to basics since my mind has been so engrossed with much deeper and complicated reflections. I have read so many so many books about our faith and immersed myself asking deeper questions to the point that I’ve forgotten how simple and beautiful a Love the Lord has transformed me with.

My reflection led me to the simple fact that I am crazy. I am crazy for the Lord, but I wasn’t crazy first. The Lord was crazy first because He Loved me first. He Loved me despite of my imperfections and my sin. He Loved me despite my unwillingness to love Him back.

How the Lord Loved me first is nothing short of a crazy Love because no one in their right mind would Love someone like me so deeply. The Love that the Lord has allowed me to experience reminds me of his message to Mother Theresa, “I Thirst”. He desires me and thirsts for me despite every reason not to. Truly a crazy Love. I look back and realize that I’m crazy because when I experienced God’s Love I told myself that I want to be crazy like that. I want to Love like that, I want it more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life.

The Lords Love is so crazy that it allows me to rise beyond my own unwillingness to live more fully, it allows me to praise and worship Him with all that I am in every opportunity that I get to.

The Lords Love is so crazy that I end up in Montreal trying to pray the rosary in French when I don’t even know French. (A very humbling experience I assure you, I am so sorry Mama please forgive me LOL)

The Lords Love is so crazy that it allows me to love others greater in simply responding to his love for me.

I had to leave the ShouT early because my family wanted to celebrate father’s day on the Saturday. I said my goodbyes and took the megabus early on Saturday to make my family father’s day dinner. I went to morning mass on Sunday and the priest said something in his homily that truly struck me. He said that if we keep giving our money we will eventually run out of money, if we keep giving our time we will eventually run out of time, but if we keep giving our Love we will never run out of it. Love is the only thing in this universe that we will only gain more of the more that we give it away. This is because the Love of God is overflowing and we are all connected to Him.

The Lord is really calling me as a missionary to go forth with His crazy and overflowing Love in my heart. The Love that has made to who I am today and continues to transform me every second of my life.

I am thankful for what I experienced in Montreal and I hope to be blessed with the privilege to go there again. As I end this little story of my spiritual adventure in Montreal a prayer from St Augustine of Hippo rings in my mind to remind me of how profoundly the Lord has touched my life:

Late have I loved you, 
O Beauty so ancient and so new, 
late have I loved you! 
You were within me, but I was outside, 
and it was there that I searched for you. 
In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. 
You were with me, but I was not with you. 
Created things kept me from you; 
yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. 
You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. 
You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. 
You breathed your fragrance on me; 
I drew in breath and now I pant for you. 
I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. 
You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

Truly late have I Loved you Lord.

Amen.

I was looking through some photos on Facebook of an SFC Pre-Conference that happened in Montreal this past weekend. As I was looking through the photos I came across a photo of myself receiving an award at the end of the conference.

As I looked at this picture I had a profound moment. I realized that I have never seen myself so happy, so full of joy. You might think that I’m going crazy for making such a big deal out of this but maybe I am. Crazy for the Lord.

There was a point in my life where I never would have thought such an expression on my face would even be possible. Now even the smallest things can bring about such an expression. How is this possible? It’s not but truly with the Lord anything is possible.

The Lord is truly good, He is the one that brings me joy, the one that allows me to be more human as each day passes. There is nothing but gratefulness in my heart because of what the Lord has done for me. Praise God.

Lord, please allow me to be even more crazy for you today as I was yesterday. To smile, to laugh, and to live in your Joy. Amen.

I remember myself before joining the community.

I really didn’t know myself and in a way I had no identity. I really didn’t stand for anything and was oblivious to what being a child of God meant. This gradually changed as I journeyed with the Lord with the community.

Praise God because now I stand for something and I’m even known as a lot of things. In the GTA I’m known as the love guru, #guardyourheart guy, the book, and six packs (I don’t actually have six packs) to name a few.

Although I’m known as a lot of things I often ponder on what identity the Lord has revealed to me and more importantly what He has called me to do. Who am I? What is the lord calling me to do?

I firmly believe that the Lord made me to be a lover and in doing so continually calls me to love. Now before anyone tells me to guard my heart I want to put this statement in a proper context. I am talking about the genuine love that can only be found in Christ. The love which is our true heart’s desire. The Love who is our God.

I say this because God is the Love which excites me, the love that allows me to dream and hope for greater things. The Lord has given me the identity of a romantic who thirsts to be an active part of the greatest love story ever told. I have found this love in serving the Lord and others through the community.

I was told by a brother that it seemed as if I was living my missionary life to the fullest. I replied that there is no other way to live it and that it’s such a blessing to be a missionary. There are many hopeless romantics out there that can only imagine the love that is out of their grasp. I am blessed because Jesus has made me a hopeful romantic, allowing me to live out the love that I have hoped for every day of my life, knowing that in continuing my pursuit of Christ no matter what my vocation might be it can lead to true love which is infallible intimacy with God.

To someone who doesn’t know the love of God suffering in the service of others is crazy and doesn’t make sense; however, for those that do know the love of God to suffer in the service of others and further more to be joyful in that suffering is the most sensible and logical thing.

So yes who I am is a hopeful romantic who seeks God through deepening my faith and acting upon the love that God has showed me.

I feel most fully alive when serving others and this is the love that the Lord has revealed to me. So when someone asks me why I am a missionary the answer is very simple.

“It’s who I am because I am loved”.