True North Missionaries Journal

“You know there’s growth when God allows you to step back and feel blessed”

I’ve been pondering on a few questions:
Why should I still serve the community? Why do I agree to abide on the teachings of the Church if they’re simply made up? Why do I continue to serve the community if there are practices that I do not fully agree or comprehend?

Today I attended the Covenant Orientation in Montreal where 22 new members were present from our previous Montreal camp and from our Akwesasne Camp. It was one of the most affirming and refreshing events I’ve attended. As I sat there amongst the 22 plus people, I watched the service team pour their hearts out and listened to the sharers testify on how this community has been an instrument in their growth. What really touched me was the fact that the service team, which consisted of our new leaders…became great leaders, not because of their already acquired skill…but because they are brothers and sisters in Christ first to the members. They were changing lives and empowering others solely because of their new found love story with God and His people.

This was a powerful realization and a timely reminder.

As I watched them with water in my eyes, it allowed me to truly soak everything in and to witness the very growth that has been happening under my nose.

It was beautiful.

At that very moment I realized that, those questions I asked myself earlier are merely questions…and questions that may be answered from various perspectives, from different backgrounds, and for different reasons. Though there are times where I still ask myself, “Why do I still serve the community?” Or “Why do I agree to abide on the teachings of the Church ?” Or “Why do I continue to serve the community if there are practices that I do not fully agree or comprehend?”

These questions…they don’t really matter in the end, because the answers to these questions may be subjective.

In the end, what matters are the things that we do, the actions that we make, the practices we choose to do, those seven identities that we encompass, the one on ones that we conduct, the households that we attend, that we go to mass every Sunday, that we choose to receive the Holy Eucharist, and that we go to confession.

What matters is that through the actions that we choose to do and the practices that we encourage…I cannot deny the fact that people are able to experience God.

I cannot deny that I am able to experience God.

I cannot deny that this community has allowed others to grow closer to God.

I cannot deny that the Catholic Church has allowed others to grow closer to God.

I cannot deny that I have become closer to God.

God calls me to be honest with Him.
God calls me to be honest with myself.
I admit that I continuously experience those questions and various derivatives of them.

He challenges me infinitely.
Therefore I am able to grow exponentially.

Amen 🙂

After graduation, I had taken a job for a non-profit organization here in Ottawa. When I received the call for the interview, I did some research on the organization and was overjoyed to find out that their mission statement was almost identical to that of my own:

“Our belief in the power of love and prayer guide all our actions.”

I was ecstatic to be serving God through the less fortunate and with great fervor, I took to this job, ready to serve Him in the secular world. I went into my first day thinking that I would be placed to work in the shelter program for women, but to my surprise, I was walked down to an apartment complex several blocks away. I was then introduced to the program of St. Andrew’s, which was a supportive living program for adults with concurrent disorders (mental illness and addictions). After over four months in this program, I have grown to genuinely love and care for the tenants and take great interest in their lives. I found myself kneeling and lifting them up in my prayers, counting their problems and intentions on my fingers. Just some background on the tenants: many of them have suffered from chronic homelessness, and some of them from past abuse. I saw beauty in their daily struggles; some coming to me to speak of the seemingly endless abyss of their depression, their extreme anxiety that prevents them from forming normal relationships, their losses; of family, of children, of home.

It is so endearing to have them come in with their smiles and their stories..these men and women who have lived truly difficult lives. Who have splinters and bruises from the crosses they’ve carried and continue to carry. Yet I watch them as they wave at me from the office window and greet me with joyful smiles.

In this small building, tucked away just outside of the hustle and bustle of the downtown streets, there is a small handful of gems of people who God tucked away. Their situations have truly inspired me. I see their crosses, and there are many times when I feel helpless and unable to alleviate any of their pain, but in these moments, I find myself instinctively closing my eyes while I listen to them speak and I tell God that I know He is hearing what I’m hearing, and I pray for them.

Let us remember the crosses others bear, and may we find ourselves as beacons of hope and love to them. And may we, in turn, bear our crosses with joyfulness, as we look to the promises of eternity.

Video reflection: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GwIi5JGn0HA

Many times when we are stressed, pre-occupied and all over the place, we lose sight of Christ. We are taken over by stress and emotions that we forget to pause and listen.

Don’t be scared to ask Christ to stay and be with you. Allow Him to manifest in the things you’re working on especially in work you’re struggling in the most. Find joy and happiness in everything you do po 🙂 hehe

God bless to all the students writing exams po 🙂 Fighting! hehe

Two weekends ago, I had the opportunity to spend a wonderful and truly blessed weekend with our brothers and sisters in Singles for Christ. It was the “Covenant Orientation Weekend”. I am ever thankful to the Lord that He allowed my weekend to be free and be able to attend and do my SFC CO (finally!). I was then invited to speak about our calling as “Champions of the Poor”; on how to love and serve our less fortunate brothers and sisters. It was a truly humbling experience for myself to be reminded on what it is that we are called to do.

During the session, I shared about an incident that had happened to me a couple of weeks back. I was on my way home, waiting for my metro to arrive, when there was this sister, unhesitant in asking each person if they had some change to give. I was eating an orange, she looked at me, I just smiled at her, nodded, and that was it. It was about one minute until my metro arrived. The few seconds of what just happened flashed before my eyes. “She was looking at my orange. She was looking at my orange.” It might sound funny but this was all I could think of. My metro came and I froze. I couldn’t move. “My metro’s here!” I told myself. But then, I stayed. My metro left. I looked around if the sister was still there. I saw her by the escalators, and then I decided to come up to her and I asked her, “Are you hungry?”. Her face lit up, and she said “Yes”. I told her that I didn’t have any change with me but we can go to the café just upstairs. She then asked me, “Can I get a sandwich?” I told her “You can have anything that you want”. She was almost running heading to the café. She went ahead to the sandwich corner. She then asked me, “Can I have this?” Showing me her turkey sandwich wrap and a can of coke. (I wanted to tell her to maybe just get water because it’s healthier hehe) But all jokes aside, she showed me once again if I what she had in her hands were okay. She wanted to get my approval for the food that she was about to eat. I paid for her food, she took them and told me, “Thank you. Merci. Bonne journée. Have a good day”. I went back to where I was to wait for my metro and I saw the sister again. She was showing the metro performers the food that she had on her hands and started eating with a smile.

My metro came at once but as fast as the speed that the metro was travelling, the memory of what just happened did not leave my thoughts that fast. I had to process what had happened. This truly struck me straight to the heart. As a student, I may not have a lot but I know that I have more than enough. (No one is too poor to not share. No one is too rich to not care.) It hurts to know that the sister in the metro had to ask permission if she could even eat. She even had to ask permission on what she was allowed to eat. She was willing to eat scraps and on the other hand, we are willing to give her scraps. This is simply unjust. We are called to bring humanity and self-respect to our brothers and sisters from all walks of life. We shall do it with much joy and great hope in our hearts. As Mother Teresa had said “God loves a cheerful giver. If you don’t go to the people with a cheerful face, you only increase their darkness and their miseries and their sorrows”. We are called to remind each other of the majestic masterpiece within us. I recalled the moments that I may have neglected my brothers and sisters in Christ, purposely or not. We are called for a mission to love but I am guilty that there may have been moments in my life that what I did may have been an act of omission of love. Each moment of our lives, we may have passed our less fortunate brothers and sisters. We are called to be more than just passers by. We are called to do, to share, to love, to live and give life. This sister reminded me of my calling as a daughter of God, a sister in Christ. We are called to pray for each other, acknowledge each other, love each other, to bring life to one another. Let us not let any time pass. Let us do the work and claim and proclaim His glory. Let us remind each other constantly and incessantly of our worth as God’s beautiful masterpieces.
We are called to be and bring Christ wherever we are.

One of Mother Teresa’s colleagues shared, “She didn’t look at the masses of people, she looked at one face, one smile, one heart, one person at time.” Let us do the same!

God bless us always.
Peace and Love.

Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen

I frequent a website called reddit, which is basically a large forum where people of the internets gather to share funny pictures, short stories, links to other publications and so much more. The site is divided into sub-reddits, which help classify the myriad of daily posts. There exists a sub-reddit for Christianity which is identified simply as r/Christianity, and there is also a sub-reddit dedicated to atheism, labelled r/Atheism. If you search for r/Christianity+Atheism, both sub-reddits are congregated into a page that is so widely opposing that it’s actually quite disorienting. One post will be speaking of Jesus’ divinity, while the next post is a comic about zombie Jesus hunting people. Although this seems like a strange place to venture, it’s where the Lord has allowed me to grow in my faith.

—

A few months ago, CFC-Youth Montreal was present in a meeting with Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Dowd. I forget the exact circumstances, but it came to a point where Bishop Tom felt compelled to share with us an experience which helped in understanding why he has chosen to be man of God. The story goes that Bishop Tom was away at a retreat of sorts, where he experienced a very real and personal encounter with Jesus. It would be impossible for me to describe the encounter he had, but the effect on his life is so clearly reflected in how he speaks of his faith in Jesus. For Bishop Tom, to deny that Jesus is real and present in his life would be like denying the fact that any of us in that meeting were real. That firm belief is something I admire.

After I heard his short testimonial I reflected on whether or not I have ever had such an experience. Sadly, to this day, I can’t say that I have. To encounter Jesus in such a real way is something I greatly desire, and even though I’ve had amazing spiritual experiences in CFC-Youth over the past 10 years, I still cannot fairly make the claim that Jesus is unquestionably real in my life.

So, if I cannot make this claim then why am I still a practicing Catholic?
Because it’s what I choose to believe.

—

By exposing myself to places like r/Christianity+Atheism I’ve come to develop an attitude of skepticism when approaching any aspect of my faith. Most people generally frown upon skepticism, mostly because it can prevent someone from discovering the joys of other virtues, but I’ve somehow struck a healthy balance which enables my faith to grow in an informed and extremely personal way. It’s growth through inclusion rather than exclusion.

On r/Christianity+Atheism you’ll come across fundamentalist Christians, and conversely, atheists who are not afraid to step on people’s toes. Seeing daily posts that question Catholic truth is a struggle I willingly accept because I firmly believe, much like Pope Benedict XVI, that our generation must be even more firmly rooted in faith if we are to continue living out our faith in a world that is becoming increasingly faithless. What better way is there than being aware of the opposing questions, knowing the talking points, but most importantly, understanding how this information helps you be a good person.

Perhaps the Lord has demanded my lack of a real encounter as a necessary omission in my faith journey, which I suppose I’m thankful for because it has given me a reason to SEEK. I guess the common denominator that I share with my atheist brothers and sisters is that they’re simply individuals who are searching for something and have not yet found a satisfying answer, to which I applaud, for I would rather search and discover the truth behind Catholic Dogma rather than settling simply to what I’ve been told. Throughout this process I’ve developed a faith that is not 100% aligned with Catholicism, but has enabled a relationship with Jesus that goes beyond the fickle meaning of the word.

Lord, I want to meet you. Until then, I will continue to choose You.

– Jesse R.

P.S. For those brave enough to check out r/Christianity+Atheism, I’ve provided the link for you! http://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity+Atheism

Every year for the last 19 years, I’ve been giving up eating meat for Lent. For those who don’t know, I’m a carnivore which is why God brought me to Alberta, instead of BC.

My annual ritual on 12:01 am on Easter Sunday is to eat bacon with the family. This year, once again, it was so satisfying to have this treat after 40 days of sacrifice. But then, as I reflect on this, it was not really a sacrifice compared to what Christ went through for me.

Suffering and sacrifice is necessary to cleanse us and mold us into true servant hood. Jesus was so focused on His Father’s will even to the end when He said, “It is Finished”. When things get tough whether in service or in life, do I just give up and say, “that’s it I’m done”. I guess I do most of the time. Jesus did have a choice to give up on us but despite the most painful punishment, He continued on because we were worth it.

Father, thank you for loving us first and for showing us, through your Son, how much we mean to You. May the spirit of Lent live within us not just for 40 days of the year but in very second and minute of our lives. Amen!