Christianity

 

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else" (C.S. Lewis)

What does believing in Jesus mean to me? It is an adherence of my whole being to Jesus Christ. Saying that I am a Christian means that I believe in Jesus' message, accept Jesus' covenant of love with me, and follow Jesus' teaching and example.

So many people use religion as an excuse to do things that shouldn't even be allowed by a modicum of good manners. It really is so sad. 

Jesus who, more than two thousand years ago had to escape tyranny as a newborn child, continues to be in exile even in so-called Christian and educated/developed countries, perhaps an exile also in churches and communities that shout out His name and follow Him.

"No one who fails to act in righteousness belongs to God, nor anyone who does not love his brother" (1 Jn 3:10).

This coming year, may our contribution to the healing of our world be our seriously living what we profess as Christians.

We love God because God first loved us

This is not like the-chicken-and-the-egg thing. We do, can only love God because God loved us first, that is, unconditionally. There is nothing we can do that can diminish God's love for us and nothing we can do to increase it. What God gives us is His love that is uniquely for us.
When we correspond to God's love, His love doesn't increase, but we increase our capacity to receive it and to be filled by it.

Salvation

"Lord, will only a few people be saved?" (Lk 13:23), a question addressed to Jesus. Wrong question. It shows a mindset that is non-inclusive, a competitive tendency.
Salvation is a gift. It is not based on our merits or our worthiness.
Does it mean an upright life is not necessary?
Again, wrong logic.
Salvation is a gift. As with other gifts, it is useless unless we accept it. Accepting salvation is not a matter of words; rather, it is conforming our lives to Jesus: loving people and doing good to others.
We don't pay for our salvation. Someone has already done that for us. We are truly saved when we begin to look at others as brothers and sisters; when we realize that life is not about enjoying it but of finding its purpose.
We have only one life, let us make it worth living.

Do you love me?

In today's Gospel, Jesus asks Peter three times, "Do you love me?"
This is more than a rhetorical question. For me, the repetition indicates seriousness and a call to go deeper, and at the same time, an effort to make oneself understood by taking the other's perspective. Jesus wanted Peter to respond in a way that goes beyond a mere yes or no; certainly, it will be a response that would impact Peter's life.
Since this took place after Jesus' resurrection, I think it emphasizes that this love should be seen as more than just an intimate you-and-I relationship with Jesus.
To love Jesus is to assume His cause, to feed His sheep.
To love Jesus is to assume His mind and His heart, that is, to be in total availability to the Father's will.

True love of self

Unhealthy love of self is fatal. A person who only focuses on himself is on a road to self-destruction. It is in the human person's very identity to long for communion with others, and this desire for communion helps us to rein in our never-ending desire for self-fulfillment, addressing it in a healthier direction.

Radiating God's light

We pray for all Consecrated women and men.
May the problems of the world not overwhelm us and turn us into angry reformists or complacent conformists.
May Jesus Christ be the Light from whom we draw the small and flickering lights that we carry to the world, offering joy and hope.
May love for God and neighbor be the only reason that motivates us and gives us the courage to sow seeds even when we do not see results, knowing that it is God who makes things grow in His own time.

Blessed

I am blessed with a love that never gives up, a long and lasting love, a love that is just constant and faithful it doesn't even depend on my response.
It is this love that makes me able to love.
Yes, I am blessed to be loved by God.

He loved me first

I am a nun, and have been one for 23 years now. If you add the four years of preparation before the official start of my being a "nun", then it is like a lifetime.
It is a choice that I have never regretted,
After the sixth year, the year when I made my perpetual profession, I just stopped counting.
At this juncture, I feel like I am caught up in the vicious cycle of routine and of settling down, which happens in most relationships. After all, being a nun is more than a profession. It is a relationship: with God, with my fellow nuns, with the people I deal with daily, etc.
I feel like I am in a limbo. Days pass by without any feeling that I have done something special or that I have made a difference. What is sad is, a lot of times, I don't even care. I feel as if life is just passing me by, that I am just moving on pushed by the crowd.
I feel a certain repulsion over the state of my life, but I feel powerless to do anything.
The Gospel of today helped me to remember that time, so very long ago, when I gave up everything, my present and my future, in order to follow Jesus. But I also remembered that before it was my turn, it was first Jesus who loved me and captured my heart. It was he, it is always Jesus, who loves us first.

The cross

Looking at the cross, Jesus seems to tell me:
   I did this for you,
   but I did this for them, too,
   so that you may learn to love
   whether they deserve it or not.

Unconditional love

To love someone not because that person deserves to be loved shows true love. This kind of love is possible when we allow God to love us. God's love is sufficient for us that we are able to love others without condition.

To a lovely friend

You are beautiful. 

And you are proof that beauty does not lie in a life that is unscathed.

For indeed, it is the struggles that we face head-on that make us discover the depths of our strength.

It is the tears that we’ve shed that give our eyes a sense of mystery.

It is the heart that has been hurt, yet not refuses to give up on love, that is finally rewarded by true love in the most unexpected place.

Giving all

To give to people we love is not difficult. It may ask us to exert effort or to divest ourselves of something, but this giving has its own reward. We give to someone we love and that love itself is the reward.

When does giving really hurt? It is when we are asked to totally divest ourselves of any sensible reward: a love that is not reciprocated, total uncertainty and insecurity. But such is love.

Love calls for total giving. The less sensible compensation there is, the more we journey and  enter into the realm of pure love.

Daring to love

But I'd rather suffer these goodbyes than live a superficial life with no deep bonds with anybody. What a sad life. To refuse to love is to waste away and to slowly die.

Pray at all times

To pray is to allow God to transform our being so that we may contemplate the world with God's eyes and love everything with God's own heart.

My own take on why Jesus chose to die on the cross

I really feel uncomfortable with the phrase "through the cross Jesus won pardon for our sins" because it seems to show a tyrannical God whose wrath has to be appeased in such a violent way.
Rather I'd like to believe that the cross shows to us the extent to which God loves us.
With Jesus assuming the lowest of conditions a human being can ever reach, the shameful death on the cross, God shows us that there is no sin that is unpardonable, that everything and all time are included in God's big embrace.

A mother's love

After God's, a mother's love is the most unconditional love.

Honor your father and your mother

To honor our father and our mother is to love them. We don’t love people because they deserve to be loved. That is not love. That is barter.

To love people because they love us is not love. That is negotiation.

Love is a higher calling. It doesn’t depend on a person’s worthiness or on our feelings. Jesus tells us the real measure of love: our Father in heaven who lets the his sun rise on both the good and the bad alike. Can anybody beat that? I don’t think so, but that is the standard. So when our love is selective, perhaps we shouldn’t call it love.

To love our father and mother is to reconcile ourselves to our personal history and to the imperfections of life.

It isn’t easy. Who says it is? But it is the only way to find peace, healing, a way to move forward in life.

Create life

When we look at it with our own criteria, life is not fair. But the truth is, there is goodness, kindness, love and loyalty around us. When we don't see them, perhaps it is a call for us to create them for ourselves, for the people we love, for whoever crosses our path. For though life is a gift, life is also what we make it happen.

When ...

When I can see that everything is a gift, I become humble.
When I can understand that no one in his right mind deliberately chooses to do wrong, I can forgive.
When I realize that between the black and the white is a bigger shade of gray, I begin to understand.
When I remember that I am God's image and likeness, I learn to respect myself.
When I look up to the cross and see the way of Jesus, I can truly love, without ifs and buts.

Change

Fidelity is not about immobility. In fact, to refuse to change is to be unfaithful to God because God's is a love that is ever ancient and ever new.