Author: Rocky Nguyen

I’ve always known myself to be fascinated by the grandeur of the cosmos and majesty of the universe. As early as elementary I remember loving to look out at the stars and imagine how far off each star is from our measly little planet. It was all just a little past time for me, something I enjoyed to do for fun, until I got to know the Lord. Now, every single time I look up at the night skies I can’t help but to see the Greatness of our God.

A simple conversion starter that I like to use is to ask people what their favourite scenery to look at is. Some people would mention that they like to look at the ocean, some would say mountains, and some would say nature. Although there are many more, I will just focus on these for the sake of keeping this post as short as possible. The reason I’m curious about something like that is  because it let’s me know two things about this person: 1) You can tell a lot about a person by knowing what scenery they find peace in seeing. 2) You can see how that person’s relationship with God is. Let me explain.

I can tell a lot about a person by knowing where they find peace. For example, if a person tells me they like to look at the ocean, I can tell that that person loves the sense of freedom, and is a calm, care free person. Or for those that loves to look at mountains, they are usually ambitious and strive to conquer the peaks of daily life. And for those that loves nature and forests, they tend to be adventurous, and loves to be out and about, experiencing new things. Now I’m not saying that every single person is like this, but this is how I see it when people tell me their favourite scenery. You may be a mixture of all of them or none of them, but nevertheless, it gives me a sense of the kind of person you are.

Secondly, just like how I can get the sense of who a person is by their favourite scenery, I can see how they view their relationship with God. An ocean lover sees God more in the peaceful and serene. The mountain lovers sees more of the greatness and power of the Lord. And a nature lover sees the playful and adventurous side of God. Once again, every person is different, and I’m not saying that this applies to every single person, but that I only use this as a starting point to get to know a person’s relationship with the Lord.

For me? I’ve always loved the grandeur and the extravagant. This translate into magnificent churches, or beauty of the universe. And I see God in all of this. As I write this I am taking in the simultaneous occurrence of the super moon and lunar eclipse. A rare sight to see. But when I stare at the immense magnitude of this celestial light show, I cannot help but hear the Lord say to me: Rocky, My son. I love you. Look at the moon and sun, how I move them for you. I will move heaven and earth to show you my love. 

As I sit and reflect on this, I cannot help but feel so loved, as if God Himself is courting me, trying to draw me to Him. You might think that it is weird for a man to allow himself to be courted, but this is how it must be. A man must let himself be courted by the Lord, in order to know the kind of love he must imitate when he goes on to court a woman. A man will never know how to show a woman the love of Christ if he does not allow himself to experience the love of our God.

The same would go for our women counterparts as well. Women, allow yourself to be courted by the Lord, so that you may know what kind of love you are to expect from a man. And once you’ve experienced it, do not settle for a love less than that. Because you deserve exactly that, the love of Christ.

Now I ask you to reflect on this: what kind of scenery do you love to behold? Where do you see God in this? Once you find that place where you see God, I urge you to allow our God work through it to court you to your hearts desire.

All the glory to God.

Ever since I started working at my family’s restaurant, I’ve realized something; Everyone has a need to connect. Many of us go to restaurants with people to do just that, connect with them. But more and more often as I continue to work there even more, I began to realize something that contradicts that deep need to connect; People try to find connection in the wrong places. Let me explain.

Every week I see the same things over and over again. A pair or group of people walk in and gets seated, and their first instinct is to… you guessed it, pull out their phone. What is the next thing you may ask? They would ask me for the Wifi password. Then for the next five minutes, instead of looking over the menu or engaging in conversation with the people they are with, they would scroll through their phones looking at the latest status updates or photo posts on their favourite social media website. Then when I come to ask what they would like to order, they would reply with a “Sorry, please give us another 2 minutes to decide”, because they have not even opened the menu yet. As I stand there waiting for them to make up their minds, the people still do not speak to each other, but rather they would hastily skim through the menu knowing I will be returning soon to take their order. Once I return to do just that, I would leave the table to hear silence as they continue scrolling through their phones. Here and there I would hear a little chatter between the people as they discuss what so and so said on Twitter or that funny video that they saw the day before. Then once the food comes, it is once again silent as they sip their soup and focus on filling themselves. Once they finish eating, they would once again scroll through their phones one last time before they leave the comfort of a Wifi hotspot.

Now I’m not complaining, but just painting a picture of what I see on a weekly basis. Does this sound familiar? I know that not everyone has been to that extreme of a situation, but I know that at this day in age, every one of us has experienced that in some degree, and this bothers me.

Nowadays, everyone thinks that looking through a screen opens the world to them, when in reality they are only shutting out the world around them. They feel this need to connect to every one of their 1500 friends that they forget about the ones in front of them. How ironic is it that through a sincere desire to be connected, they only end up becoming more disconnected.

Now it’s true, I feel that there is this sincere desire in everyone to have a connection to those around them. And this is a good desire, because God gave us other people to journey with us on this faith journey. However, this desire is just twisted and bent into something that no longer represents what it means to be connected, just like every other work of the devil. Yes, work of the devil. He knows that we have a desire for connection with others, so he twists it into a way that it seems like we are connecting, when it fact we are alone, just the way he wants for us to be. He doesn’t want us around other people building genuine relationships that lead to Christ. He wants us to be alone and vulnerable to his works.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not perfect, I often fail at this too. Too often I pull out my phone and look for a Wifi to connect to, or scroll through my feed when I am with another person. But I believe it is time for a change. It is time to begin building real relationships, ones that make me a better person, that ultimately lead me to Christ. I challenge you all to join me, that next time you are in the company of another person, don’ try to pull out your phones. Maybe leave it in the car (if you live is Surrey though then maybe not), or on silent in your pocket. But try and work on building your relationship with that person, because ultimately that relationship could connect you to the only real, unbroken connection; Your connection to Christ.

All the glory to God.

How many of us have been guilty of this? Complaining about how we hate this, or that, just because it was a little inconvenient for us?

I hate when I ask for no pickles, but they still give me pickles
I hate it when my house is so big, I need two wireless routers.

Those are just examples from the video above that puts into perspective how insignificant our problems are when we put them side by side with the real problems in the world. Insignificant is an over statement. Those First World Problems we experience are not even problems at all. They are only slight inconveniences in our days. Even those inconveniences are privileged inconveniences, that privileged people claim.

For almost 4 years now, I have been serving in ANCOP and RevUP, and I have never really sat down and thought about how much I complain about all these little problems. For half of my time in CFC-Youth, I have been actively serving, loving, and interacting with the poor, without even realizing that when I am not with them, I would complain about those slight inconveniences that the people I serve would fight tooth and nail to have. How inconsiderate of me. How selfish of me to think that my problems are bigger than those of the poor, marginalized, and neglected.

This is a reminder to me, and to all of you whom may read this, that our sufferings are nothing, compared to millions of others around the world. If you are reading this on your computer/laptop/cellphone, you are already more privileged than half of the people in this world. You are blessed.

I challenge you all, to be mindful the next time you are about to complain. Are the things you are complaining about, really worth complaining for?

All the glory to God

Recently, I had a friend move far away (California) to a secluded town (Tehachapi) to pursue a beautiful vocation. I’m overjoyed to say that my friend will be entering St. Joseph’s Priory to become a Norbertine Sister. I am filled with so many different emotions, from regret that I didn’t spend more time being her friend, to immense joy for knowing such an amazing sister whom has taught me to love the Lord more just by being herself. Nevertheless, her departure is my wake-up call to actively discern my vocation. The fearlessness it takes to pursue my vocation is something I still need to attain, but I remember she told me that listening to this song helped her in her discernment, in building up her fearlessness. I now listen to this song every day, because it reminds me that I have decided to follow Jesus, and there is no turning back. She has helped me realize the importance of seeking my vocation. Because as I seek, I would not only find my vocation, but I will find God.

My Lord and my God, help me find the beauty in my vocation just as you have done for my friend. Help me to love more, pray more, and search more for Your calling. I pray for my friend, that You may continue to make her fall in love with You with every living moment of her life. Although we may be far away from each other, and communication is extremely minimal, I pray that we are united in You. 

My friend, you won’t ever see this, but thank you. I can’t thank you enough.

All the glory to God

Just this weekend I celebrated my 7^th year anniversary in this CFC-Youth community. From where I started out to where I am now, it is hard to believe how far I’ve come. Fifteen year old me could never have guessed that I would be a Mission Volunteer. Even now, it is still hard for me to fully grasp the idea of being a Missionary. So as a reminder to myself, and as a way to share a part of my discernment to join the MV program with you all, I want to share with you an excerpt from my application to the MV Program. I pray that when you read this, you look at your own vocation, and pray deeply and actively about where you are called.

I write this letter to you to express my willingness to enter the Mission Volunteer Program. I have been praying about this for the past couple months and I feel that the Lord is pulling me towards the Mission Volunteer program. It is definitely what I need in my life at the moment.

At this time in my life, I am nearly graduated from BCIT as an Architectural and Building Technology student with a 2-year diploma. January-May 2015 will be my last semester. This is where the discernment is needed. I honestly do not know what to do after I graduate. There are many, many, paths that I can take, but I do not know how to properly discern for each path. Listed below are each:

1. The most practical path that I can choose is to graduate, find a job here close to home, work to pay off student loans, help family with bills etc… However, I do not find fulfillment in my life in just doing that.
2. Another option is to work abroad over in the Middle East. This way I am able to travel and see different places of the world. However I feel this is a selfish option because it caters to my own wants of travelling and does not really benefit me in any ways.
3. This option is for me to go off and do mission work. This is whether as a Full-Time Pastoral worker or a Salesian Lay Missionary. I have always felt the call from the Lord to be a missionary and have lived it out as best I could. This is from my work with the poor to my evangelizing to others. However my concern with this is financially. I may feel fulfilled becoming a missionary, but a part of me knows that I need to be able to financially support my parents. They put me through school hoping that I would be able to graduate and help them out in their old age. I just wouldn’t feel right leaving to do missionary work and fulfilling myself while my family is back home still working as hard as they do to provide for themselves.
4. This last option has only become more evident to me that I need to really discern for during a recent trip that I took to visit my friend frater Emmanuel in St. Michael’s Abbey in California. During this trip, frater gave me a hint of advice for my discernment to the Priesthood by saying “How will you know unless you give God the chance to work? What ever you give up for Him, He will give back ten folds. He is not outdone in generosity.” With this, it led me to discern the religious life, namely the Priesthood. However, once again, the problem with this is that I will not be able to help my parents financially. Because of that, I do not feel comfortable in entering at this time.

As you can see, I have much to discern for in my life. At first I planned to discern this on my own, and try to figure it out with my own understanding. However, the Lord drew me towards the Mission Volunteer program. With this program, I will have a concrete and proven way of discerning. Also, most importantly, I will have people guiding me and mentoring me on my spiritual journey in discernment. If I am able to receive help and guidance from those before me that has been through this discernment process and know what it is like, it would help ten folds.

With this letter, I pray that you consider my application to the Mission Volunteer Program. I hope that it was able to give you a glimpse into my life and how much the Lord really calls me toward better discernment. Please pray for me and my discernment.

May God be praised