Tag: Prayer

Here In Your Presence

prayer

To pray for someone is the least you can do for someone and it is also the most you can do for them.

     Recently, I have found so much peace in prayer. Without prayer, I would not be able to love as I do (still working on it), be as generous as I can sometimes be (also a work in progress), and as compassionate as I try to be. It’s an amazing gift we have, to have a constant line of communication with our Almighty Father, at all times. We are called to be saints and one of the best ways to purify our hearts is through prayer.

     I make it a point to supplicate the lives of each of my family members and each individual brother or sister in my household. I know I don’t know how to love, especially to the extent that our Merciful Father loves us. It would be foolish to not go to Love Himself in order to learn how to love. I am usually quick to see faults in others, but when I lift up each brother or sister to the Lord, He not only sheds light to purify the hurts, faults, and wrongdoings, but His light magnifies the greatness of Himself within each and every person in my life.

How amazing is our God to turn our affliction into love and joy!

     When I reflect on my own life, the Lord never fails to reveal to me how small I am compared to Him. How great it is to be so humbled at the foot of His cross! My life is of such insignificance but You Lord have breathed a purpose in me. I would be lying if I claimed that my best characteristics were my own. It is because of my Saviour that I am compassionate. It is because of Him that I can be generous. It is His overflowing and endless love that allows me the privilege and honour to love others.

     I will always remember when one of my past counterparts corrected me and said, “Never joke about prayer, it is sacred.” Our prayer time must be safeguarded; Whenever we approach the throne of His Grace, it will always be a profound and life changing experience. It is through prayer that my love for my family and my household transcends to heights I could not have reached on my own. It is through prayer that I am able to experience the Holy Spirit flowing through others. It is through prayer that I am constantly being broken down and built back up.

     Honestly, I cannot even bring justice to my experiences in prayer. Thank You Lord for allowing me to be vulnerable, broken, and empty in Your presence.

How can I not be moved, Lord here with You, so have Your way in me. Lord there is just one thing that I will seek. This is my cry, my one desire. Just to be where You are Lord, now and forever. It’s more than a song, my one desire is to be with You, Jesus.

The light that leads

“If you haven’t surrendered it to God, then you’ve surrendered it to someone else.”

I recently attended the GTA Area Core SHouT this past weekend and there are not enough words in the dictionary to describe the plethora of events that happened within those 5 days. So I’ll just use one: enlightened.

You know when you’re at a sleepover and everyone’s already passed out cold on the beds and floors. The morning after is hard to get through. You’re tired and exhausted. You have some sort of consciousness- awake but not really. It’s not until someone draws the blinds or curtains to expose the harsh sunlight rays that you feel the urgency to get up. It’s already half past noon and you’ve just wasted half the day away.

That’s how my recent experience with Christ was at SHouT. He turned on the lights. The light allowed me to see everything that was in that room, rather…my life. Enlightened- one’s ability to be spiritually aware. The Lord allowed me to see His plans for me that much clearer.

But see, when you turn on the lights EVERYTHING gets exposed, not just the good stuff. You don’t have a choice. But God is a god of light and peace- The truth, His truth is exposed in all its glory.

I’m facing the skeletons in my closet right now, some I thought I buried a long time ago but really just put a drape over. God’s light drew me to these areas, the crevices and corners, the edges and cracks. The small things count, because to God everything matters. As much as it hurts me to pull out long overdue band aids, I know that with His love I’ll finally be able to heal properly.

“Ate, it’s like when you make a paper boat and then you put it in the water. That’s how you’ll know if your boat is good or not. It might start to sink because of a hole, but all you have to do is just take it out and then patch up whatever holes exist.”

It had to happen this way for me. This was God’s way of telling me to patch up those holes so that my boat could float. How else can I be a better person or leader if I don’t allow God to shine His light on every single area of my life, even the dark sides- the ones I don’t want to look at. In this way, I can confidently go out and allow the God in me to shine.

Send out your light and your truth; let them guide me.- Psalm 43:3

Random Thoughts I

While I was seated at a coffee shop waiting for our meeting to start, these random realizations just came:

  • Being in love is being in Christ.
  • Living Love is Living Christ
  • The moment I start to stop caring and become indifferent is the start of not loving, not recognizing God.
  • Because God is omniscient, Love knows everything.
  • Because God is omnipotent, Love makes things happen.
  • Because God is omnipresence, Love resides everywhere.
  • Forgiveness is an expression of Love.
  • Love is all-inclusive and complete and when I am a little less in any of 1Corinthians 13, I am not loving.
  • Waiting for Love is the same as saying Waiting for God – But God is beyond time and space!
  • God knows when I am scared, embarrassed, unsure, and weak. He knows my limit and he doesn’t stop when I reached my limit He goes beyond it so I will go to Him and not just trust myself.
  • When I start to trust myself, that’s the start of pushing God away.
  • The fullness of the cross is Christ.
  • Love is always full!
  • First option: Prayer
  • Prayer is an encounter of God.
  • Prayer heals. Prayer comforts. Prayer moves.

 

“Lord God, You are all knowing and excellent in all things. You are full of love in all Your ways. I thank you for all these revelations. Teach me to see you more in every detail of my life. May I always have an expectant posture so I will be reminded of you.”

 

Candy (Philippians 1:29)

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.”

Reminders

“The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” -James 5:16

I find it hard sometimes to simply type what goes on my mind sometimes. But at least one thing is for certain, most especially with this verse I’ve been reflecting on is this:

Praise God that He hears our every word, every thought. Without prayer, honestly just think to yourself, how could you live life without it?

Common Answer: I couldn’t imagine it. (Continues with non-existent daily prayer)

Its a nice reminder. I myself have a common daily prayer time. But I feel as if God is trying to tell us something ALL the time. So what’s next? The answer though simple, needs to be done now.

Replace ___________ with prayer.

Lord, I am listening. I offer my life to You, take over.

Cristi Crux Est Mea Lux

Simple Distractions

I was on the Facebook page of Fr. James Martin SJ and I saw him promoting his new book by giving an excerpt on being distracted in prayer.  Automatically I smirked and said to myself, “yeah thats me.” Often enough during my prayer time I am easily distracted by my own thoughts.  I’m always thinking about other things.  Or when I’m in prayer and something good pops up, I write it down right way so I don’t forget.

At one silent retreat I attended, my spiritual director asked me how was my prayer time and I said, “I don’t know, its seems a little dull, I get distracted easily, but most of all I’m just there sitting in prayer getting nowhere, I can’t hear him.” He laughed and replied, “Well what’s wrong with that? You’re there praying to him.”  I learned from my director when I get distracted, I should repeat my prayer over and over again until I begin to remove my distractions.  Simply these distractions go away.

Remember prayer is a gift from God.  Often enough we will learn to know what to pay attention to and what not too.  Not all prayers will have desirable results.  When prayer seems dull or when we feel he isn’t present, maybe he’s asking us to pray in a different way or turn the page maybe to another scripture.  This is because maybe God wants to meet you somewhere else.  God is always there, He’s everywhere and be open.  Together let’s learn to take away these distractions and spend more time in prayer!

@itsmetimmm

The Vine

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
—John 15:5

The community is not the one true source of the grace of God. The only one true source is Jesus through Mary, and we receive that grace in abundance through the Church and her Sacraments that Jesus instituted Himself. The common misconception for the youth in our community is that they might think that Jesus is only found in the community and once one leaves the community, he/she leaves Jesus. We definitely experience the presence of Jesus in each other in a community in our brothers and sisters, but one cannot bank one’s entire faith in the community alone. We must be rooted in the Church first and foremost.

Community life is an extension of the life in the Church. It is an extension of the life and love in our families. A community can only truly thrive if its members are thriving in the Eucharist. A community will only truly grow if its members are growing in their interior life with God.

As a community, let us pray that we always encourage one another to thrive in the Sacraments, especially in the Holy Eucharist and Reconciliation. Let us inspire one another to abide in Him so that we can all truly bear fruit—fruit that will last.

Truly we can do nothing apart from Him, so let’s remain and abide in Him, The Vine, always.

May God grant us the grace to make a daily resolve to abide in Him. Amen.