Tag: Sin

Trinity Run

Winter is fast approaching, and I can already feel my body starting to switch over to hibernation mode. Soon enough it’ll be too hard to get up out of bed, nearly impossible to escape out of those double duvets. Tis the season for excusing our way out of health habits.

I used to run regularly to maintain some sort of physical activity but that died down since who knows when. Spring is always difficult to face after long winters because of the three month break. I personally loathe treadmills and will refuse to get on one. I’d rather wait. I much rather prefer the great outdoors, but Toronto winter weather does very little to help with that. Daylight savings mean shorter days and longer nights. It takes approximately two weeks to adjust. My body is definitely losing on this front.

Our spiritual health suffers from the same changes. We have cycles where we’re going  strong- we’ve found some sort of groove with our prayer time and involvement with the sacraments. At these moments, our relationship with Christ is toned and trimmed. Excess weight cut off. The closer we get to Christ the less baggage we carry- our material and worldly desires no longer necessary. We are tied down to less.

But then, at some point, we face an itch of sorts. An itch that just needs to be scratched. A craving that just needs to be satisfied. A thirst that needs to be quenched. But instead of reaching for the healthy & obvious choice of water we go for the Coke. Pepsi. Ginger Ale. Root Beer.  And just like that, our impenetrable fortress comes crashing down. Why? Because we foolishly ignored that cracked wooden frame that started to break- little by little. It was easier to feign ignorance to something that needed fixing. It’s easier to give in and let our human needs win.

“I’m only doing it once.” I still exercise anyway. Cheating won’t hurt.” 

That’s what I realize happened to me. And for some reason or another, I kept making excuses and reasoned my way out of a very fruitful, beautiful prayer habit. It only took one small “set back”. I cut down my prayer time, my weekday church dates, and adoration drop ins so that I could bulk up on old habits which I knew were only going to get me in worse (spiritual) shape.

Negative thoughts filled my head. I became impatient, moody, and lethargic. Two weeks passed since my last confession, and although I knew I needed it PRONTO …my body would magically (temporarily) shake off the anxiety. It made me think I could keep going. Nyeh, it can wait.

Nope.

Confession is our detox. Our body needs to get rid of built up toxins the same way our soul needs to get rid of impurities. Getting through it is tough, but we always come out healthier afterwards. Praise God, for God because I finally went for that detox round. He knew I needed it. And I knew I needed it. The hardest step is always the first, the hardest run is always the most dreadful.

Our prayer life can be a long outstretched summer. However if we trip and fall into the darkness of winter, we shouldn’t despair. We don’t have to endure three months of waiting. We can choose to fast forward to spring.  My winter lasted 8 days too long, but today’s TRINITY RUN (adoration, confession and Holy Eucharist) allowed me to see the Son rise gloriously. Thankfully, our salvation and redemption is not bound by time, because we are loved by a God whose love is endless and timeless. 

 “A clean heart is a free heart. A free heart can love Christ with an undivided love in chastity, convinced that nothing and nobody will separate it from His love.”
-Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

Home.

With the amount of times that I’ve had to travel within an eighteen month time frame, most people would assume that I no longer suffer from homesickness. The past three trips (2009, 2012, 2013a) have been by myself; the shortest trip lasting 8 weeks and the longest lasting 6 months. Most people base their judgement on my social media posts and are probably thinking, “Dang, she is living the life.”

Well, reality check: I still suffer from homesickness. I still feel somewhat lost even though I’ve revisited Place A, B and C more than a handful of times. I still feel out of place in a room full of old friends and the nausea that accompanies displacement is very much real.

All those things still exist. Even now. Even when my family is here with me. We all haven’t been together in a very, very long time. Dad’s had to work out of town for the past 2 years and my brother’s had to live away at Waterloo ever since he started his Undergrad. And me, well…..I’ve been traveling to PH.

A few days into our family trip here, I was still feeling so bothered. My temper kept getting the best of me. I grew impatient and volatile. I couldn’t understand it. Shouldn’t my family have cushioned the hypothetical “emotional blow” that always hit me during my trips? Shouldn’t the weird jumble of emotions have stopped because I was with my loved ones? The anger and frustration drained me so much that one night, I decided to just leave the group. The innermost depths of me was craving for something. I didn’t know what that something was, but what I did know was that going to God wouldn’t leave me any more desolate than I already was. So I looked for a church.

I ended up at Sto. Rosario. I got through confession. I kneeled at the Adoration Chapel. I sat through Mass and received Holy Eucharist. And you know what? For the first time I felt good. Not just ice-cream-on-a-hot-sunny-day good, but ‘passing my final exam with flying colours and making the honour roll’ kinda good. I was a fish out of water that suddenly found my way back to the water. I could breathe again.

As I contemplated at the Adoration Chapel I was reminded of a promise I made to Him during the SFC precon praisefest. It just so happened to my birthday too. I told God that I was willing to finally give Him the one part of me that I hadn’t let go of yet- a very specific piece of my heart that was put on reserve. I didn’t have the strength to fight that fourteen year battle any more. It took me that long to surrender. That day He said to me, “Exodus 14:14, my beloved. Do not forget. I will fight for you, you need only to be still.

In the presence of the Eucharist and in front of the altar, I felt God whisper me to me, “Therese, my dearest Therese. You silly stubborn girl. Remember what you offered at the foot of my cross weeks ago? Remember that you promised me you’d finally give that last piece to me? Home is where the heart is and yours just so happens to be with me. It’s safe. It’s in my hands now. I’m happy that you finally found your back. My child, right now at this very moment …you are home. I’ve been waiting.”

All the puzzle pieces fit.
It all made sense.
I felt this sudden rush of peace, of final certainty.

Everything in this world is temporary. Even my family. But God, God is infinite. God is timeless, boundless and endless. I am made to stand in His presence, to bask in the love that is always present in His house.

 

Father, I’m coming home.
Amen. 

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

To Die Is Gain

Self-mortification. Every time I’ve heard of this term in the past I would always think of people that physically hurt themselves and that’s it. I’ve learned that that’s just one form of self-mortification.

When temptation comes along, it starts as a simple thought—a suggestion. When we entertain that thought or suggestion, we start to use our imagination to delve deeper into it. Suddenly, we are committing sin and acting upon entertained thoughts. How important it is to cast the first slightest thought of temptation! If we don’t nip it when it starts, we put ourselves on a very dangerous path to spiritual death.

In the heat of temptation it is very hard to follow our intellect that tells us that what we are about to do is a sin and that it’s wrong. Our carnal cravings can easily get the best of us. Redemptive self-mortification is when we prefer to be crucified rather than sin. In the pinnacle of temptation, we truly suffer. We experience an ultimatum: commit sin or die to self. That dying to self entails great suffering. However, we must remember that the Lord always provides a way out of sin. We only need to rely on His grace. If we end up choosing to deny ourselves and to take up our cross, then we truly follow Jesus.

Temptations will never stop on this journey to holiness. This is why we need so much grace. If it were not for the grace of God, we are truly dead. Spiritually dead. God’s grace helps us to know His will and gives us the strength to follow Him and carry our cross.

When we die to self, we lose the fleeting pleasures of the world and the flesh, but what we gain is eternal life in Christ.

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” —Philippians 1:21

Point of Redemption

Out of all the people within the inner circle of Jesus Christ, the person I most identify with is Peter. Peter was the most human. He was called, and he answered. He believed and followed. Yet when the times were getting tough, he fled as soon as he could. When things mattered, he failed to stand up for the one he loved – Jesus.

What haunted him was his denial of Christ because he feared for his life. It’s understandable, your Master is captured, tortured and would be put to death – if that happened to Christ, how much more to Peter, a follower.

How many times have we denied Christ? When we cheated in class? Lied about something? Stopped listening to our parents? Live sinful and selfish lives? These are the times that we deny Christ like Peter denied Him.

But like Peter, we do love Him, we still love Him. Yet the world judges us. That who are we to say that we are followers of Christ yet stumble every step of the way. Our love fails. We stop following Him.

Yet the Lord doesn’t stop. He never did. In fact, what causes us to stumble is what He uses for our own redemption. What reminds us of our past and hinders us from following Him – is what He uses to embrace us. Jesus asks Peter three times, the same number of times that Peter denied Christ. The times we fail Him is the same number of times He uses that to redeem us.

Our point of failure is our point of redemption.

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!

March 4, 2013

Witnessing naturally follows obedience, just as charity naturally follows faith. The obedience of faith leads to the witnessing of charity. To be obedient in faith is to put ourself in the position to be found, to be entered into, to be pursued, to be embraced, to be encountered and loved by Jesus Christ. To be obedient to God is to allow His Holy Spirit to dwell, transform, and animate us. The Blessed Virgin Mary is the perfect example of this. Through her obedience, Jesus Christ was conceived in her by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus literally came to her. Mary truly loves us because of how present the Lord is in her.

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In a very real and mystical way, when we are obedient to God, Jesus comes to us and the Holy Spirit dwells, transforms, and animates us. We become more like Him. We can only pray that we may love our neighbour with Christ in us, just as Mary does.

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True obedience is the dying to one’s self (Phil. 2:8). This is why it’s the hardest thing for me to do. The more I reflect on obedience, the more I realize how disobedient I actually am because of my refusal to die to self. I am very selfish and of little faith and in many areas of my life I am blind and ignorant.

Maybe I am blind and ignorant because a part of me wants to stay this way. Maybe a part of me is scared of the light because it would reveal the true darkness in my life. This journey towards holiness is very illuminating. I mean, this journey has definitely illuminated by mind and my knowledge has increased about the faith, but more so, it has made clearer to me my sinfulness.

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Lord, I am a sinner. My sins are as numerous as the stars. Daily, I sin because of my thoughts and words, in what I’ve done, and what I’ve failed to do. Lord, have mercy!

As I continue my lenten journey, oh Lord, please be gracious and merciful to me. Please give me the grace to have true sorrow for my sins and the resolve to sin no more. Increase my faith in You oh God, help me to be obedient so that You can simply do Your will through me. Help me to let go and to lose my life for Your sake. Come to me, Jesus, make haste to help me. Amen.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, pray for us.