Author: OJ Rivera

(August 1, 2016)

No matter what happens even if it is your “first” time, there will never be a last time that you will be loved by the Lord. Again, when we say yes to what the Lord presents, you will always be guaranteed growth. You will always be loved by Him. There is always something to receive the more you give.

This quote comes from a blog post of a very HAPPY brother of mine lol.

But this excerpt really spoke volumes of how this past weekend was like, and even how this past year has been. If there is any evidence of the Lord’s love for me, these past few days have been exactly that. I was graced with the opportunity to serve at Metro Region’s first ever KFC Family Conference as a competitions head and as part of the music ministry (1st time playing the ba-buh-bass). This also marked my first time serving in a KFC event. The reason why I said that the past few days was evidence was because that’s how long preparations and execution took place. We literally had only 4 days to prepare, 4 days to organize competitions, 4 days to learn KFC songs (thank the Lord most of them were in the key of E) and all the songs for each session. There were always moments where doubt would creep in. But for some reason, no matter the moment, there was always a moment of HAPPY-ness (hehehehehe).

The kids were energetic and always happy; even on the second day of conference. Just being around them, seeing them, it really encouraged and challenged me to have that same attitude. You know to have that child-like faith. They didn’t care about the mistakes I made when playing bass, they didn’t care that we were behind schedule, they didn’t care about anything but to simply enjoy the encounters they had with their friends, their family, the service team, and with God.

And so the Lord showed His love through these kids, always smiling and being joyful. I may have given a lot of energy trying to keep up with the energy of these kids (hence sleeping for 14 hours after the conference), but I received something far greater in the joy and smiles of the kids.

This was a year of firsts, first year serving in the GTA as Sector head, first time as program head at RYC, first time serving as transpo at TNC, first time attending NLS, first time serving in a KFC event, and first year as an MV. Through all of this I’m affirmed by the post of that happy brother of mine, to know and see that the Lord continues to show me His love for me.

AMDG.

(August 1, 2016)

Here’s the last reflection I had from the one on one I had with God at the office last week.

It would’ve been predictable and would’ve made sense to have this post titled as Give Thanks, reflecting the theme for this year. However, I find it fitting to first revisit the theme of 2014.

Behold and Ponder. It was the third year for CFC in our journey with Mother Mary, and it was a year of reflection. A year to reflect in silence. This theme challenged us to see or observe and reflect deeply and thoroughly on where are hearts are. For CFC it was a reflection on the 33 years of CFC and where it would go from there. But now (or 7 days ago) for me, it’s a reflection on how I should take the time to stop and look at where Christ is leading me. Now how do I relate this to third part of this year’s theme, ‘Give Thanks’? It’s through these two that we have a posture of receiving. Prior to Behold and Ponder, we looked at the Magnificat (“Proclaim the greatness of the Lord”) and then Obey and Witness (“Do whatever He tells You”). Both of which called us to act, to do something in response to God’s love for us – parallel to rejoice and pray. And then with the third part, it is a calling to revisit where the Lord is leading us and to receive the fruits. If we are to give thanks for what the Lord has done, we must first KNOW where, when and how the Lord has been so good to us. How do we do that? By stopping, seeing and deeply reflecting on what the Lord has done.

However, I’ve come to realize that this doesn’t happen enough times. How often have I been so caught up in doing deed after deed, resulting in a focus solely on the success or failure of that deed. It’s a lot of doing and acting, and not a lot of receiving. As a result I am either positive or disappointed about the end result. But, there is so much more to this than simply the start and end. Every single thing that happens in our life bears fruit. As long as we look to Christ and take the time to see where He is leading us then we will be able to see the fruits. This year we weren’t called to give thanks just for the good things in our lives, but to give thanks in all things. For by doing this, as well as rejoicing and praying, we allow God who “surpasses all understanding [to] guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:7)

Proclaim the greatness of the Lord, Obey & Witness, Behold & Ponder.

Rejoice, Pray, Give Thanks.

AMDG.

(July 25, 2016)

The most daunting yet overlooked question in a one on one: how is your prayer time?

…

One of the key messages from the Montreal SHouT was that, Everything we do is a reflection of our prayer time.

Whether it is how we worship, how we lead, how we carry ourselves in our day to day lives — all of it is tied up to our prayer life. Our lifeline with God.

Looking at it, it makes sense, if it is God that blesses us with the things of our lives then it will be through God and with God that we travel on this journey. It’s like going on long drives to a place you’ve never been to before but without a GPS, cellphone, or map. Just as you lose your way easily without these navigational devices, you will also lose your way on this journey with Christ if You do not turn to Him.

But diving into the actual praying itself, how do you pray? Do you pray with endless petitions and requests for God to do for you? Or do you allow it to be a conversation, a dialogue rather than a monologue?

For myself, it has always been about me reaching out to Christ with petition after petition. I remember as a kid, for about a year, my prayer would be “I pray for a new playstation, if You allow it Lord I will be happy. If not, then okay.” Like legit that would be the full extent of my prayers, simple or even complex arrangements of requests. What I forgot was that the Lord was also reaching out to me. I’ve always treated my prayer life as a monologue, where I was the only one to speak. And my prayer time would always be second to my daily schedule, if I had time I’d pray, if not then maybe later. Then whenever I do pray it’d be a blitz of questions, and processing of what I THINK the Lord is trying to tell me.

But lately, I’ve been challenged by the Lord to make my prayers more conversational and personal. Meaning less structured and more genuine as to how I really am. Much like how I’ve written before that there is beauty in simplicity, I’ve challenged myself to keep my prayers simple in the sense that it’s a straight up conversation with God.

One thing I am affirmed of, despite how our prayer lives are, the Lord will always try to reach out to us. So no matter where you are in your prayer lives/times, keep at it. Your day should be built around your time with God, and not the other way around.

So again I pose the question, how is your prayer time?

AMDG.

(July 25, 2016)

I’ve always said that I’ll catch up on my blog posts, but every time I end up getting caught up in the busy-ness of conference season and I usually forget about it. But today the Lord was like, “yo you better get started on those blog posts.” So He made it literally impossible to be distracted from blogging by breaking down my phone service (aka no data or way of contacting others), he didn’t allow my macbook to connect to the office’s wifi (aka no youtube or anime) and he placed all the FTPWs in a coordination meeting downstairs while I’m here upstairs in the family min room. And so from 12 until whenever the coordination meeting was done (it ended at around 2, I think), it was a time for just God and me, the two of us, with no distraction. In a way this was a rare time where I’m not preoccupied by anything else, and also a way to reflect on the past few hectic weeks.

Because of this alone time with Christ, there will be a surplus of blog posts from me on this day lol. So there will be some overlap between the Montreal SHouT and TNC reflections. But that’s okay haha.

Just to give a brief timeline as to how things panned out for me, 4 weeks ago (June 29-July 4) I was in Montreal for their SHouT. And the past 3 weeks were dedicated to TNC service. And now this week is dedicated to the Family Conference here in the region.

I’ve never realized how busy my schedule had gotten as I was saying yes to service after service. But the challenge came during the week of TNC, where the Lord challenged me to find the joy in all of the busy-ness of TNC.

I can say that I have a hard time saying no, and that I hate disappointing others or not meeting their expectations. (My household knows, shout outs to you Mr. Bombae). Whether it’d be giving people rides, doing favours for others, cutting their hair (shameless plug here), I’d be willing to do it. And for this TNC, the Lord definitely brought me to my limits. At one point during the week, I heard the questions: “Hey OJ, how are we getting to the venue tomorrow? Are you driving me? I was told to ask you about how I’m getting to the venue tomorrow?” from countless numbers of people. And with all these people needing rides and my desire to meet their requests, the stress began piling up and I couldn’t handle it anymore – I broke down. You can sort of imagine this slow breakdown unfold, imagine like the destruction of an abandoned apartment, each floor being detonated until the eventual collapse of the whole building. That’s what it felt like.

I’m not the type to typically break down in that manner, but at that moment, I questioned the Lord why am I doing this? Why did I say yes to this?

I couldn’t find the answer, instead I kept chugging through serving Him as best as I could. But why did I keep chugging through? Looking back, it came back as the reflection of this year’s theme to REJOICE.

What is joy? Simply put, its one’s awareness of God’s grace, it is grace recognized. And as missionaries we are called to be joyful missionaries. However how does one remain joyful despite circumstances that prevent us from being joyful? The answer that rang deep within me was simply to keep trusting in the Lord. Joy is not a feeling or emotion but it is a understanding that God’s grace is present. And if God always present in our lives, then all we are called to do is become aware of God’s grace. We experience joy because we choose to be joyful knowing that the Lord in His providence will be with us through it all.

Therefore keep fighting the fight, keep running the race. Keep entrusting and surrendering everything to the Lord because it is only through Him will we experience joy. A joyful missionary is a good missionary.

AMDG.

(July 10, 2016)

#MTLSHouT2016

MTL. Messengers of the Lord.

This was the theme/title for the week of SHouT a sort of throwback to when Montreal would identify themselves as this, just like GTA referring to themselves as God’s Truly Anointed.

For myself, this calling to being a messenger of the Lord became reality the very moment I stepped off the megabus.

Everything was in French.

Not a single lick of English anywhere. Even the store names were in French with only the store design/logo that was familiar to me. It was as if I was in a new country. Now just to note, I have been to Montreal plenty of times, but all those past times were during family trips or for conference where I was with others. On the other hand, I was by myself called to serve in an area where I wasn’t familiar with the people, the geography, and even the language. The affirmation I received from the first full day however, was when we went to daily Mass as a SHouT house.

Prior to going to Mass I was telling Ate Ellen, my counterpart for the SHouT, “let’s go to an English Mass so I could understand.” Without telling me or confirming whether it was an English Mass, we went to the nearby parish and as the Mass began…..”Au nom du père du fils et du saint Esprit” — it’s in French.

Throughout the Mass, I could only understand certain french verbs while responding in English throughout the Mass. The beautiful part of it all was that there was also Adoration after Mass. Once again all in French, but with the hymns “O Salutaris Hostia” and “Tantum Ergo” still in Latin.

There was two things I got from this. One was that I still have so much to learn about God. No matter how long we’ve been a practicing Catholic or how long we’ve been in the community, there is still so much to learn of our God. In my head, I kept recalling, “I still have yet to know of the Lord in French.” The second thing was the affirmation that we are part of one Catholic and Apostolic Church. Catholic meaning ‘universal’, thus by being a part of this universal Church we are all called to the same mission: to share God’s message to whomever and wherever we go. At the end of Mass the priest says, “GO in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.” In that very message, we are ALL called to be the messengers of the Lord. Therefore no matter who we are, where we are, we spread the message of God.

Part 2.

AMDG

(July 7, 2016)

#MTLSHouT2016

Guess who’s back, back again.

As you can tell I am not great at blog posts. Anyways, I hope these next few blog posts will inspire me to consistently blog as well as how I write haha. But to introduce this series of posts, #MTLSHouT2016, last week I was blessed with the opportunity to lead the SHouT in Montreal. And so the next few posts will be from my reflections throughout the week of SHouT.

But before I do, here is a quick sharing that relates to the first post of this series.

Yesterday, I had a one on one with a brother from my household, and something that he said really struck me.We were at a Tim Hortons, sipping on our Iced Capps (well-needed for this super humid day), and I just looked at him in disbelief when he told me so. He said, “my life is too boring to share.”

For myself, that was hard to believe. But I tried to take the perspective of the brother. And from how he explained it, he was overcomplicating, or setting too great of an expectation for himself. Something I am guilty of doing as well.

In my prayers, thoughts, actions, I would look at these things expecting the most extravagant, most “full” end result. How many times have I prayed to God, or asked God for the most complicated sign. “Lord, I will do this if this specific person, on this specific day, will do something specific that I willspecifically see.” But as a consequence I overlook the most important of these things and that is God. At the end of the day, the Lord simply loves us, and that’s it. No need to complicate it.

If we overcomplicate things then of course we get lost in all of it, but by seeing the simple fact that God is there and He loves us, we can find beauty in everything. Beauty in simplicity.

And that beauty of God is spread around through sharing.

It is through sharings that we find Christ and see where Christ is calling us to. For the SHouT itself, sharing is one of the important aspects. And at first, a lot of those at SHouT had a hard time to share, or the sharings were very limited. Maybe there was this thought of a level that should be met in order to have a ‘good’ sharing. But really, if we share Christ and how Christ has touched our lives (even in the simplest of things), then that in itself is a beautiful sharing. This is why I will share to you how God has affirmed me through the Montreal SHouT. Like St. Paul, I am sharing how I encountered Christ in the hopes that it may inspire you as well.

Post 1.

AMDG.

(June 10, 2016)

During the school year, I made it a practice to listen to podcasts on the way to school/classes (either walking or driving). But ever since I finished (woohoo praise God I graduated), I haven’t been able to keep up with that practice. Luckily today, there was insane traffic, and so I was able to listen to a couple of episodes from the Catholic Stuff You Should Know podcast. And one thing that stuck out was the notion of the intractability of sin.

The podcast referred to how sin clings to us, or that whole cycle of committing the same sin over and over again. And in some cases, we are able to tell when we’d commit that sin depending on our surrounding circumstances. But we shouldn’t sulk over this, there are opportunities for grace. There must be a realization that we need God, and by His side is where we would want to be.

We hear plenty of times that it is our fallen nature as humans that explains why we sin, we aren’t perfect, there aren’t any perfect situations in our lives. Instead, we have a perfect God who is there to LOVE us, and that is it. As Bishop Barron wrote in his book Catholicism: A Journey to Heart of the Faith, God is not self-interested and is only concerned with loving you. He created the world “not out of need but in order to ‘manifest his glory’ and to share his life and perfection,” and glory is God’s beauty. Therefore we are a manifestation of God’s beauty.

All the things of this world came from nothing, ex nihilo, wherein it was the very expression of God’s love for us that brought us to existence.

If it was love that made us, then why is there sin? Simply put, there is evil, wrongdoing, suffering so that the greater good may be brought out in this world. We must come to understand that what we see or interpret is basically a dot of paint in the grander work of art that is God’s plan. Therefore, do not lose hope, but instead look to the Lord. Because God, in His love, BECOMES the answer to the problems of evil.

Heavenly Father, may we not lose hope in Your providence and grace, but instead cling onto You even more every single day, every single hour, and every single moment. Amen.

AMDG.