Author: Thea Lape

"El alma que anda en amor, ni cansa ni se cansa." || The soul that is filled by love neither tires others nor grows tired.

Is that what you really want?

When you spend every waking hour with 20+ other CFC-Youth members for a three- week period the normal conference high quadruples.  You never really come off the mountain experience you’re feeding off of each other’s vibes. We all came with different service backgrounds but what we shared was this search for God in a land foreign to us. Our pathways all merged into some sort of Lord of the Rings quest thus making the journey less tiring. So when the time came that I had to leave my tightly sealed and sheltered CFC-Youth pack to transition back to my regular Philippines environment, I really felt displaced.

Right after the two week World Great Adventure Tour, I went on a five day excursion with my childhood friends to Iloilo, Guimaras and Boracay. Halfway through our trip we stopped by this Trappist monastery. It was part of the day tour and to be honest with all the changes that kept happening I really needed to find myself in something familiar. A church seemed like the best option. Now I’ve entered dozens of churches here in the Philippines and the beauty each one holds always takes my breath away. But there was something different about this one.

As soon as I entered through the gates, my tear ducts hit some sort of overdrive. Something caught my throat and my chest tightened up. Something was tugging at my heartstrings, and it wasn’t being very gentle. All throughout the year I’ve felt God playing hide and seek with me. The moments that He decides to make His presence felt always catch me off guard and I can’t help but feel as if some hypothetical suckerpunch comes flying at me. Ultimate silence filled my head while my heart was being flooded with a million and one different emotions spurred by nothing.

Then out of nowhere, I felt God asking me in the most casual tone:

“What do you really want? I’m not asking you what you think I think you want. I’m asking you to tell me what the desires in your heart are. Of course I know them. I know what will bring you happiness, but I need you to vocalize what YOU want…what you FEEL you deserve to have in your life.”

It was probably one of the most humbling moments throughout this trip. There’s a difference between giving an answer because you know it’s the textbook sample, and giving an authentic, sincere heartfelt reply. He knows what I want, of course he does. Some of the things I’ve been asking for are more than a decade old. But there I was being asked to take centre stage. Would I ask for the same thing knowing that this time He was initiating instead? Was I really sure about what I wanted? I just pictured God smiling down at me, encouraging me to ask for my desires with full confidence.

Before walking back to join my friends for the rest of the tour, I walked over to where the candles for petition were. I took five candles and as I lit one for every prayer I felt myself getting lighter. It was an act of unpacking my emotional luggage. I realized that gaining peace through God would happen as a culmination of reaching different checkpoints. This was one of them. I looked at my five candles, let out an exasperated sigh and confidently muttered Psalm 37:4……

“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

Prayer, Patience, Perseverance

per·se·ver·ance [pur-suh-veer-uhns]
noun

  • steady. persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.
  • Theology . continuance in a state of grace to the end, leading to eternal salvation.

I’ve tried to live by three P’s: prayer, patience, perseverance. We have to be constant in our prayer life, always seeking out God’s guidance in the things we hope for. We have to be patient and sensitive to the spirit so that we can discover what it is the Lord is asking of us or telling us. We have to persevere in our faith, especially as young people because this world seeks to destroy our relationship with God. A sister from Australia, who I just met this year, put it in the simplest way: when you go through dryness, the next thing that comes after is thirst. So it is with Christ, that when we experience a spiritual desert of sorts, we should be so thirsty for God that we will do what it takes to find His oasis of abounding grace.

With that said, I know that as a person I can be pretty persistent, especially with the things I want. How fitting is it, that about a week and a half ago I came across a saint who lived through perseverance. I purchased this rosary at a St. Paul’s in Gateway after the Global Leaders Summit. Ever since discovering my roots with St. Therese of Lisieux last year, roses have been a very significant aspect of my faith journey with the Lord. I saw a silver rosary covered in roses, and I didn’t even think twice about buying it.

That same week, some pretty heavy news reached me. It involved someone very close to my heart and the severity of the situation really shook me. I was in the middle of a 2 week pilgrimage all across the Philippines and my travel itinerary left little room for flexibility. This was someone who was a big part of my life. I felt so vulnerable, so helpless and so stuck. Words were all I could offer. I couldn’t physically give them the comfort they needed nor could I do anything to take away the pain or the burden that this person felt. It was beyond any of my abilities.

My heart shared in the pain, and I couldn’t help but cry out of helplessness. What else could I do at this moment but pray? Pray for this person and pray that the Lord would give me the strength to deal with this person’s struggles.

Truthfully, I can tell you that never have I ever prayed the rosary with such sincerity. As I recited the words muffled by my tears, I could just sense Mother Mary embracing me and holding me in her arms. Her presence was so strong that I knew she was interceding for me right at that very moment. Two voices speaking the same prayer work wonders, because eventually the situation became less turbulent and less urgent. It was then that I realized that it wasn’t my love for this person that could save them, rather it is my love for God and my belief in his love for me that will bring that person the peace and comfort they seek.

“The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still.”- Exodus 14:14

I looked closer at my new rosary and discovered the mark of St. Rita. Her arrival in my life speaks of nothing but God’s great timing.

At a very young age, St. Rita was forced into an arranged marriage to a man who was never good to her. She endured his insults, physical abuse and infidelities for many years, but was persistent in her marriage. She continued to pray for for him for the next eighteen years. Eventually her husband experienced conversion and sought forgiveness through the Church. He was murdered shortly after. Her two sons wanted to avenge their father’s brutal death and vowed never to stop until they brought justice to their family. St. Rita was scared of what her sons were plotting to do, so she lifted up their lives to God. Both sons died later that year due to natural causes. She wanted to enter the convent late in life and was denied multiple times. Eventually, she was accepted, but as a test of her faith and loyalty to the monastic life, her mother superior asked her to tend a dead stick and plant it. Out of obedience she did just that, and after one year of nurturing it the stick grew leaves and became a bountiful grape vine. It has almost been 600 years since St. Rita plated that stick, yet it remains fruitful! So much so that it even produces wine for the Pope.

There is no doubt in my mind that God brought St. Rita, the Patroness of Hopeless Cases, to me at this time of my life. The situation I was presented with before seemed so impossible and so out of my reach that I almost gave up. If anyone could understand what it’s like to pray for something so fervently and with so much intensity, it’s her. She is my role model; she affirms me that the time and effort I’ve been putting in my prayer for someone’s conversion will not go to waste. I should remain faithful to His promise and believe the Lord’s presence is very much alive in my relationship. So it is with the love I carry in my heart that I remain hopeful in prayer, patient in affliction, and persistent in my petitions.