hope – Page 3 – True North Missionaries Journal

The Zombie In Us

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

The original cast of warm bodies. Saints Peter and Paul. — The original cast of warm bodies

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Reminded.

Today ends my 5 day trip to New York City. Time well spent with family. It’s been years, eight to be exact, since I last saw my aunt’s family who lives in New York City. This was planned way before I actually went for Full TIme Pastoral Work, that my family already booked their work off since last year.

Right before the trip, I already had doubts concerning its timing considering its right in the middle of the True North Conference season preparation. But now as I travel back to GTA and catch up with all the things that have been happening since I left, I am reminded of that this trip was the reason why I am in the mission in the first place.

I am called to be a missionary – a family evangelizer – through the community of Couples for a serving in its youth ministry, CFC-Youth. God called me to answering the call of the vision of CFC of families in the Holy Spirit renewing the face of the earth and take a very active part in it. While my calling takes me far away from my own family who lives in Calgary, and I am based in the Greater Toronto Area. I must never lose sight that the mission of building the Church of the home always starts and ends in my own home. It is through them that God called me to mission work, it is through them that I draw strength in mission, it is through them that my own intentions are purified, it is through them that my inspiration is placed upon. It is through them that my missionary zeal and passion is tested. It is through them that my faith, hope, and joy is tested; and more importantly affirmed.

As I go back to Canada, which is a few hours away, I take away with me a renewed conviction and affirmation that I am in the right path. When I said YES to the Lord, I did not only say yes to the renewal of families I will be serving – but more importantly, I also said to the renewal of my own family.

Come Holy Spirit, renew the face of the earth. Come Holy Spirit.

Happy 32nd Anniversary Couples For Christ!

Extremely Favoured

Thirty minutes after my shift ended today, I walked into my director’s office with a heavy cloud looming over me, and no it wasn’t the one outside that’s been causing all this crazy rain here in the GTA. Approximately 23 days from today I will be hopping on a plane (again) but this time with my family.

I was sure that I’d be coming home with bad news today- that our upcoming family trip would cost me my job. We will be gone all of July which means that I’ll be missing out on my service for the Eastern True North Conference. Since I didn’t feel too comfortable with that, I started a novena for the Western True North Conference in Calgary that’s happening Mid-Aug. I’d be back just in time for that. I don’t know how it would be possible financially, but God has provided for me under worse conditions before. It doesn’t hurt to ask.

To put things in perspective, I was just granted a two month leave (MAR-MAY) even though I only started in September of last year. I’m only five weeks back in my classroom and here I was expecting my director to approve another sudden leave of absence. How was I going to explain to her that I needed 2 months….again?

———

I knew I had to call on Mama Mary so I did the rosary during my lunch break hoping that she’d send an extra serving of peace. She gave me that and a spoonful extra. Knowing how I am, I knew I’d find every excuse not to ask permission today. So I walked into the staff room, had a quick convo with God and He reassured me that no matter what the outcome would be, there was already a victory. Even if I was to lose my job, I would still have my family vacation.

In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths || Proverbs 3:6

Brothers & sisters, I walked out of that room not with storm clouds, but with sunshine and a double rainbow. I am extremely and irrevocably favoured by God. Not only did my director tell me that my leave would be approved, she made it very clear to me that she would ignore any talk of resignation. My classroom is secured. AGAIN. My job as a preschool teacher is on reserve.

That’s not all.

I will be receiving paid vacation time, which means that there’s an extra paycheque coming in while I’m gone. That amount is enough for a round trip ticket to Calgary.

“It’s never about whether or not YOU can provide for yourself. Faith is knowing that you have a God who can do wonders for you. Faith is knowing that He is of divine providence. It was never about you to begin with! So the next time you consider whether or not you can go, take your question to God first, and don’t let it just die with you. That’s the beauty about our relationship with the Lord. Sometimes we don’t even do anything yet he still showers us with abundant blessings. He still wants to keep capturing our hearts. He still wants to reach out to us. But first you have to allow yourself to see the ways in which he tries to reach out to you. All he needs is your Yes.” (July 19, 2012)

The Lord hasn’t stopped showing me how extremely favoured and extremely loved I am. He affirmed me just now by allowing me to reread that old blog post. Little did I know that the “yes” I gave 500 days ago would lead me here, walking on a path made wonderfully and beautifully paved straight for me.

Evangelizing by any Means Necessary

The other day my phone got stolen.

I was walking around downtown Vancouver and someone reached into my pocket and took it. Don’t ask me what happened, I obviously did not see it. But, to be honest, although I’m sad about losing such an expensive phone (whyyy are Apple products sooo expensive?!), I’m more upset about losing the things in the phone. All my old messages, all the photos I hadn’t uploaded yet, all the apps that keep me close to my brothers and sisters.

And though I’m upset with whoever stole it, I do pray that they take a few minutes and look through my phone. As invasive as it is, my phone is filled with encouragement from my brothers and sisters. My photo albums are filled with Bible verses and pictures of our Christ, our mother, and the saints. I hope they open up all my Catholic apps. I pray that they see the lock screen and God uses that to touch them.

God works in mysterious ways. And maybe He needed my phone more than I did, to reach out to others.

Praise God

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.”

Our Resurrection

It’s amazing how much pride can make us blind, deaf, and paralyzed. Causes us to sin gravely, die spiritually, and we become like one of the carcasses in the valley of dry bones (Ez 37). However, there is Good News: God is merciful and He loves us, He forgives us, and through the Sacrament of Confession, we are resurrected and brought back to life. He makes all things new. Praise God!

My Interior Castle

Continuing my journey as an MV, I ask the Lord where am I in my discernment, where am I spiritually, and how is my relationship with Him. I desire to know more and more about Him. After the first few moments reading Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila, I could not help but smile to see exactly where I am in my journey.

THIRD MANSIONS. The description of these Manions of Exemplary Life beings with stern exhortations on the dangers of trusting to one’s own strength and to the virtues one has already acquired, which must still of necessity be very weak. Yet, although the soul which reaches the Third Mansions may still fall back, it has attained a high standard of virtue. Controlled by discipline and penance and disposed to performing acts of charity toward others, it has acquired prudence and discretion and orders its life well. Its limitations are those of vision: it has not yet experienced to the full inspiring force of love. It has not made a full self-oblation, a total self-surrender. Its love is still governed by reason, and so its progress is slow. It suffers from aridity, and is given only occasional glimpses into the Mansions beyond.

The first thing to humble me is that passing through these Mansions is not a race, but another reason to come closer to Him. If my faith in Him is weak then it is my call to have stronger faith through my relationships. If I have not fully surrendered then I must learn to trust and have more hope. If I continue to sin then I must stay away from these temptations. If I have not experienced a full force of love, then it probably means that I haven’t loved my neighbour as myself. These are such perfect goals for my year and to help me with my discernment. I ask for your prayers to help me reach these goals.

@itsmetimmm