Last Saturday, my parents decided to throw a surprise graduation party for my little brother (Edward) and his bestfriend (Dominic). It was very small… only my family and Dom’s mom.
Earlier that day I had come home from a camping trip with the CFCs and some of the youth and without even changing, I flopped onto my bed and passed out. When I woke up, my mom told me that Father Tim was there for dinner and was looking for me. I became nervous, for Father Tim was the priest of a large parish here in Ottawa and although I met him a few times before, I felt unprepared to have him at our small house. I was unsure what points of conversation to touch on or which questions I should pose. Father Tim is blind, so I didn’t have to straighten my skirt or fix my hair, but I felt that I had to do that internally… if that makes sense?
To my absolute surprise, I took my seat next to father at the table and our conversation was so simple and free-flowing. He asked me about my camping trip, and we started talking about super hero movies (Marvel and DC; I’m a huge fan and so is he!), his band when he was younger, what his schedule looks like on most days, the population I work with and want to work with (criminalized women, women with addictions, adults with mental illness and at-risk youth)… We fluttered from topic to topic with great ease. With a huge smile father told me he loved the “Kare-Kare,” and he held up his Mountain Dew and exclaimed that he and Andy (my youngest brother) were doing a challenge; to try and drink each flavour of Mountain Dew. At the end of the evening he cheerfully called my little brother over and told him that they had one more challenge… to mix all of the Mountain Dews together and drink it! I watched in awe and amazement as this man of faith I watched from my small seat at church, lift up a glowing pink concoction of soda and drink it as he laughed.
I have a huge smile on my face as I write this here.
God, much like Father Tim, is completely and totally relatable. We can talk to Him about action movies, describe the countless mosquito bites we got during our camping trip, tell him stories about how quickly the youth are growing (God, you need to see them!). We don’t need to limit our conversations with God to only the things we think God wants to talk about or what we think are relevant to Him. He knows what it’s like to hurt, to laugh at jokes, to taste good food, to be tempted.. He is a God who, after all, came down and became one of us. If that’s not a father trying to relate to his children, I don’t know what is!
The words from the song “Sure Foundation’ goes like this, “when the storm comes, we will not be shaken”.
I am a chronic worrier, I worry about tomorrow, I feel anxious when I have to give a talk or lead a meeting, I worry about finances, I worry about almost everything.
But there’s no real need to worry because the surest thing ever in this world, is that the Lord will always be there for us. He has sustained me in my darkest hour, in the lowest points in my life. And even though, my faith has been shaken at times, He constantly assures me of His presence.
I see Jesus in the good times that happen in my life, but Lord, help me to see you even in the midst of a storm.
A lot of early philosophers (I forget exactly who :p) developed the concept that the most accurate representation of anything that we consider to be real, can never be truly expressed through our subjective view on any given object or thing. Since we’re limited by our senses and our own subjective understanding on what we observe, we are unable to accurately experience anything in its purest form, which is simply any given object or things idea of itself.
Put simply, if we consider a chair to be real because we observe it with our senses, it is still not the purest representation of that chair. The purest representation of that chair would be the idea of the chair itself.
The idea of something is what makes it real, not our ability to perceive it in our subjective reality.
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I firmly believe that God’s ultimate expression of love for us is given in the form of free will. What’s interesting about free will is that just because we experience the ability to think and choose, we are still limited by the potential of human understanding and capability. If we didn’t have this limitation then we would be all knowing and all powerful just like the Lord.
So although we’ve been granted free will, it has been given to us within a closed system of human understanding and capability. Closed systems can be consistent, yet never complete.
The beauty of God’s gift of free will is that He allowed for us, within human understanding and capability, to have the ability to imagine. Our imagination is something that we seem to severely take for granted. If reality is based on the idea or concept of an object or thing, rather than our ability to perceive it within our subjective reality, then God has essentially granted us the power to create new realities through our imagination.
This is why having vision in this community is so important.
When we’re called to lead, when we’re called to serve the Lord, He’s basically asking us to dream.
Vision for yourself
Vision for your family
Vision for your household
Vision for your community
O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
Fromthe desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved…
From the desire of being extolled …
From the desire of being honored …
From the desire of being praised …
From the desire of being preferred to others…
From the desire of being consulted …
From the desire of being approved …
From the fear of being humiliated …
Fromthe fear of being despised…
From the fear of suffering rebukes …
From the fear of being calumniated …
From the fear of being forgotten …
From the fear of being ridiculed …
From the fear of being wronged …
From the fear of being suspected …
That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I …
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease …
That others may be chosen and I set aside …
That others may be praised and I unnoticed …
That others may be preferred to me in everything…
That others may become holier than I,provided that I may become as holy as I should…
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen
As I read the Gospel for today (Matthew 16: 13-16), I couldn’t help, but notice that it was very similar – almost identical – to the Gospel last Sunday. This made me remember the Contemplation that I had during the GTA household, and when I looked back to it, I was refreshed with what the Lord had to say…
(Contemplation on Luke 9: 18-24):
As I contemplated, I noticed that I was first the air. I was flowing around the scene… around Jesus as he spoke to the disciples, and even around the disciples themselves. Jesus knew I was there, but he did not say a word. It was as if he wanted me to just witness to what was happening. I read it another time and I found myself being a bird. I sat on a branch of tree nearby. Again, he knew I was there and so did the disciples, yet, they didn’t budge. It was only him who noticed who I really was… that I wasn’t just a bird… and he did not say a word. I decided to read it again, and found myself being led to the verse prior to the reading itself (Luke 9:17 – “And they took up what was left over, twelve baskets of broken pieces”) and found myself being one of the pieces of broken bread. I read it a fourth time and found His message:
We must witness in silence, and grow silently in Him in our own brokenness. Sometimes, it is in this humbled silence that His message is proclaimed strongest, and the loudness of our SELVES is the very thing that stops us from hearing this proclamation. (“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” – 2 Corinthians 12:9)
The fourth time I read this, I found myself being a “camera man”, almost. I didn’t really know what I was… I wasn’t a bird, or the air, or a piece of broken bread; I was just a presence, knowing what would happen. This then led me to think… maybe He wanted me to see all of this to see Him. He wanted me to see and understand that when He looks at us, it is neither past, present, or future. He is just that presence that we know. At all areas of our lives, when we are listening, watching, learning, speaking and even at the times when we are broken, He is always there. He already knows what is going to happen, so we need not to worry nor try to comprehend all, but trust.Every piece of our lives is a piece of our love story with God… a piece of the story that tells how we came to Him and how we, at our own pace, are made in His image and likeness. And in all the brokenness and simple events, it all becomes extravagant with the Lord.
No matter what identity we have, we are always made in Him. That’s probably why regardless of whether his name was Simon or Peter, he rejoiced because he knew that he was chosen by the Lord. And that is probably why no matter what he did in his past, Saint Paul loved and proclaimed, even to his death because he heard the Lord’s call and knew that out of unconditional love, He chose him. In one way or another, we are chosen.
“Upon this rock I will build my church.” – Matthew 16:18
In You, Lord, all is simple…
In You, Lord, all is perfect.
I spent the day celebrating the birthday of an old friend from high school. What a joyous occasion it was 🙂
In a nutshell, we spent the day catching up with friends, joking around, and just genuinely enjoying each other’s company.
This friend of mine happens to be a stroke victim. Two years ago, we were given the unfortunate news that my friend was rushed to the hospital and was completely unresponsive. Almost all the doctors had little to no hope of her completely recovering or even staying alive. Through all of this, her family continued to remain hopeful, and with it, came a large outpouring of prayers and support from the entire church community. Praise God for answering all our prayers because, as of today, she is responsive, has strong comprehension, and can communicate verbally.
I always felt uncomfortable and approached the situation with such a heavy heart. Every time I would visit her, I felt so much sadness and pity over the situation. Seeing her today, she was filled with so much joy and never failed to make it known that she was extremely grateful for every person there.
I saw so much of Christ and his infinite love and goodness. The Lord showed me someone who was able to genuinely delight in all the blessings of life. I thank The Lord for always allowing us to encounter him in such beautiful and intimate ways. God is truly a personal God.
Though she may not physically be the same, I will continue to hope for her and trust in The Lord. I hope you guys may keep her in your prayers too 🙂
Lord, thank you for showing me that, in you, our hope will never be in vain.
I have a thing for zombies! And that would still be an understatement.
I love watching zombie movies (I am Legend, Night of the Living Dead, Zombie Land, etc). Watching zombie series (The Walking Dead). Reading zombie comics (The Walking Dead). Playing zombie related games like Plant Vs. Zombies and Left For Dead. I actually bought Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 because of the zombie game.
I am fascinated by them. In fact, if the world ended, I’d prefer a zombie apocalypse more than anything.
So when Tito Melo Villaroman, one of my favorite speakers of all time, shared to us in our FTPW Trainee SHOUT that Warm Bodies was a good movie, I was intrigued to say the least. Since that time however, I never really had the chance to watch the movie until now.
If you haven’t watched the movie, go and watch it before you read this. I’m not sure how this will go but I may write some spoilers. I might. Don’t say I did not warn you.
In case you haven’t noticed, we live in a zombie world. People are so engrossed in their busy day-to-day lives that they go through life as – your guess is correct– zombies. We go from one place to the next, looking for something that we think may bring us life, money, fame, power, women, pleasure, etc – in zombie terms – brainz.Only to find out that our consumption of brainz follows the Law of Marginal Utility.
The Law of Marginal Utility states that the pleasure we derive from our consumption of a certain product (in this case: money, fame, power, glory, pleasure (drinking, drugs, and sex…etc)) is on a constant and significant decline. The cycle then becomes vicious, we consume more looking for that initial high, only to find out that it’s no longer there, so we consume it more. Hence the zombies, or in the movie’s term – turn from corpses to boneys.
Corpse-to-Boney. Doesn’t look too good.
The world likes to present to us that we are zombies that in fact we live only for the brainz.That without it we would die. Eventually we reach a point that it strips us of what we were meant to be – alive. We then become a legit boney.
Legit Boney.
Spoiler Alert – No seriously, this is not only a movie spoiler alert but a real life legit spoiler alert as well. In a good way!
But the movie, as it is in real life, shows us a beautiful inexplicable reality. That it is not about the brainz, that the world would like you to believe. There is something more. And that more is love.
The main character, R, yes it’s R, finds himself in the midst of his brains-eating-activity – love. He did not understand it at first, but he went through with it. Why, because he found something that did not make sense but it brought him true satisfaction – his restlessness of being a zombie for years found solace in something beyond him, something beyond his zombie-fied self. And that something was someone and that someone was love. That love eventually changed him enough to bring him back to life.
Real love bringing us back to life!
R’s insatiable hunger for brainz was made full by love. Real love. In the movies it was Julie. In real life it is Him.
Love.
The truth is, love, meets us right where we are, while we are eating brainz. When we are busy in our drunkenness, in the midst of our use of drugs, in our use of women (or men) for our sexual “needs”, in our hunger for power in the workplace, fame in our talents, our strategies of making money at the expense of others and the other countless “necessities” that we deem as brainz to keeps us alive.
Love meets us in the moment when somebody gently taps us and reminds us to go back to Church. Love meets us in the moment when somebody does a random act of kindness to us even if it was inconvenient for that person. Love meets us when at the times we are low and spends time with us. Love meets us and shakes us to wake us up from our brainz binge.
The world will tell you otherwise. It will say go back to whatever that made you “happy”. Go back to eating brainz. It will get angry and tell you you are wrong. That you need to ascribe to their standards. That you belong to them and they to you. That you are one with them. And it will be an uphill battle!
The World.
Sometimes it may seem that all is lost. But it’s not. Why, because love fights for us. Love, in fact, will journey with us until we are truly and fully converted back to who we are really meant to be! Alive! Love has triumphed and it will always triumph! So don’t be afraid to take the plunge, we are meant to live for so much more than brainz, we are meant to live for, in, and with love! We are meant to live! We are meant to love!
So for those who are actually already living, don’t be afraid to journey with us who are still trying to find love. Meet us where we are. Journey with us. Enflesh the Love that is Him, and incarnate what is true. Bring us back to life.
For those of us who have found love but is still leagues away from being truly alive, don’t worry. Like R, our journey with love will be an instrument for change in others like us. Our journey with love will become an invitation for others to journey with love as well. Our yes to the invitation to love becomes an act of witnessing. To be and bring love wherever we are.
Not yet there, but getting there.
May the lives of Saints Peter and Paul inspire us to say yes to love and be fully consumed by it. May their conversion to being fully alive from the death of Peter’s denial and Paul’s persecution give us hope that nothing and no one is truly far enough from love that they are lost forever. May the Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on us. Amen.
