When God turns your plans upside-down

Today is the feast of the Annunciation of the birth of Our Lord. It is also known as the feast of Mary’s yes to be the mother of the “Son of the Most High”.

Gabriel’s news must have taken the young maiden Mary by surprise. It was totally out of the everyday experience of anybody, least of all a teen-ager, that it must have scared her. But I like it that Mary had poise and presence of mind and engaged Gabriel in a serious dialogue.

However, in life we have to make choices. We cannot remain forever in a status of dialogue and reflection. We have to arrive at a “therefore”. And Mary proves that, indeed, she is a mature woman.

I don’t know when was the exact time that Mary has made up her mind to say yes to God’s plan. But I have a hunch, I think it was when Gabriel said, “nothing is impossible to God” because immediately after this, Mary says her yes, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

We, too, have our own "annunciation" moments when our best laid plans seem to turn upside-down. We have a choice. We can either cry over the "what has been", or we can embrace the "what can be". The choice is ours to make. The choice depends on whether we believe in the God who writes straight with crooked lines.

In the suffering face of Jesus

Moments of suffering, pain and solitude come in every person's life. Most of the time they come unexpectedly, without asking permission.
When they come so strongly that they seem to tear your heart and soul apart, you find that all your long-held securities and convictions are like ashes in your mouth. They cannot make the pain go away. In fact, they seem to taunt you of your naivete in your views about life, about people.
When experiences like this happen, the greatest tendency is to turn inward. So you appraise your values and convictions. You appraise and reappraise, and the more you do so, the more confused you become.
It is like a cyclone that sucks you.
I don't say that turning inward is not good. In fact, it is necessary if we want to pass from adolescence to adulthood. But there comes a time that we have to look up to someone who can help us make sense of this experience.
We Christians are very fortunate because our God has a face - Jesus. In the suffering face of Jesus we see that pain, sorrow, rejection are all very real, but they don't have the last voice.
Suffering can either make me bitter or better.
Suffering is the school that transforms me into the image and likeness of God ...
but I have to make the choice to let it be so.

Singing my prayer

Yesterday I went to a Filipino Mass. It's been a long time since I've participated in a Filipino Mass and after yesterday's experience, I must say that I miss it.
We have so many beautiful liturgical songs in English, in our own national language and in our dialects. And it is really different when I pray in Filipino. The words of the songs are not the normal words we use in everyday conversations. The words of the songs just seem to express what is most profound in us. It's like having a glimpse of heaven and describing it in our own terms.
And our melodies are so sweet that they just make you forget for a while the struggles of life or you see them from the perspective of sweet chivalry of days past.
I am grateful for that experience. It was a special encounter with God that has touched my Filipino heart and soul.

Praying

Today's Gospel presents us once again Jesus' parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector who both came to the Temple to pray (Luke 18:9-14).
The Pharisee actually starts His prayer on the right tone but immediately goes awry. He begins by saying, "O God, I thank you". That is a very good thing. Prayer is a time to be grateful, to recognize that everything is God's grace.
But then immediately afterwards he goes on to say "... that I am not like the rest of humanity -greedy, dishonest, adulterous- or even like this tax collector ...". From being a prayer, his discourse turns to a self-righteous condemnation of the rest of the world.
On the other hand, we understand why the tax collector's prayer was pleasing to God: because of his acknowledgment of God as the Other one.
Prayer is placing ourselves before God, the Other one. Jesus taught us to call God our Father, but this doesn't take away the immense difference between us and God.
This difference shouldn't be a cause of despair or inferiority. Rather, it should lead to gratitude because, in reality, when we pray, it is God Himself who crosses the boundaries and distance between us.
It is gratitude and humility that enable me to see God's great act of crossing over.
Only grateful and humble people pray.

Virtue

It isn't virtue until it is put to the test.

Accounting

God is not an accountant. Ouch. I was an accountant, so I have a great respect and affection for accountants.
Anyway, the phrase "God is not an accountant" is part of a comment on today's Gospel where Jesus declares that He did not come to abolish the law but to bring it to fulfillment.
Accounting is the art of recording and classifying transactions for the purpose of preparing an adequate report which is called "financial statements". Oh, I've got to repeat here that I used to be an accountant but I haven't been on this field for more than ten years already and I am sure that there have been so many changes to date. What we used to call "financial statements" may be called by another name now.
Going back to today's Gospel comment, when it said that God isn't an accountant, it meant that God doesn't keep a ledger, an index card, or whatever record to "keep track of our progress" by jotting down as plus points the accomplishments and adherence to the law, or as minus points our transgressions. God isn't that small-hearted and trivial.
But there is another thing accountants do which I believe we can do well to imitate: they go deeper into facts, trying to analyze the different factors and their inter-relations...
Socrates put it this way: "The unexamined life is not worth living".

Made for the heights

Yesterday I read an article on how to resist temptation. It gave several practical tips culled from two biblical figures: Joseph (he of the technicolor robe) and Job. What has struck me most was one tip that says that we must remember our dignity as God's children, His image and likeness.
Of course, in life falling into sin is something normal. That is why Jesus exhorts us to be merciful. That is why Jesus talks to us about sick people needing doctors. That is why Jesus narrated the stories of the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son. That is why we have the sacrament of Confession.
But I believe that it would do us well to focus on this positive thing: We are not chicken meant to pick on food that we find on the ground. We are eagles. We are meant for the heights. I guess this is one secret the saints have discovered and have staked their lives on.
We are meant for the stars, not the heights of fame, success and fortune.
We are meant for God, all the rest are passing. After all, holiness is not about our perfection. It's all about turning my life towards God.

Principles

To decide based on expediency and practicality is a short cut to self-destruction.

Kind words

Kind words spring from a peaceful heart.