The solitude of celibacy

The emotions of these past days have made me once again experience the solitude of celibacy.
The human person is truly created for union and communion. The human heart looks for this.
As I grow older, hopefully enriched by my experiences, more and more I come to realize that union and communion have nothing to do with clinging or possession.
At certain points of our life we have to let go of persons, events and memories. This would make us intensely feel solitude. We come face to face with our vulnerability; that, indeed, we are never self-sufficient.
The experience of solitude can either lead us to despair or skepticism; but it can also lead us to surrender to God.
The choice is up to us. Whatever our choice is, it will determine our life.

New life

It is one of the great paradoxes that in order to have life one must die. And what is death if not the cutting off of everything that is familiar!
When we were born we had to leave the security of our mother's womb. This deatchment is rendered more clearly by the cutting of the umbilical cord.
Then we pass on from the safety of our home to something bigger. On our first day in school we had to struggle, holding on to mommy's hand. It wasn't easy to let go of that familiar hand but we knew that we cannot go and run around with the other kids unless we let go of that hand.
And so our life is marked by different kinds of dying; some of them more painful and more permanent than the others. There is always the resistance to enter into the unknown, to let go of the present state of things since, for all its imperfections, the present state gives us a sense of security.
But you know, deep in your heart, that you have to make a choice. You may either let go of the present and enter into the unknown, armed only with the certainty that the One who has been with you through your many deaths will continue to be with you; or you may choose to resist, to wallow in bitterness and disappointment or to live in a dream world that is only in your mind .
We were born without our permission, but our birth into new life is a choice only we can make.

My prayer for today

Lord, I don't ask for easy answers. I ask for the courage to grapple with my doubts and uncertainties. I ask for hope to see the shafts of light in the midst of my struggles.

The wine of our lives

Today is the feast of Mary Help of Christians. It is also the anniversary of my religious profession. I've been a nun for twenty years. Wow.
Looking back I can say that it hasn't been a flatline journey, as any life's journey is. There are the highs and the lows. There were mountains to climb and depths to be probed. There were temptations to change course whenever I saw that the grass was greener on other paths.
Despite my best intentions, life wasn't always 100 percent okay. There were failures, but successes too. The failures hurt, but the hurt passed too. Strangely enough, even the successes didn't give me a lasting euphoria.
Today's Gospel was about the wedding in Cana, where Mary interceded to Jesus on behalf of the newlyweds who didn't have enough wine to celebrate their wedding. At first Jesus seemed uninterested, falling short of saying that it was none of his business. But the Mother had the upperhand. "Do whatever Jesus tells you", she tells the servants. Jesus tells them to fill the jars with water and bring them to the head waiter  for testing. And lo and behold, what the waiter tasted was high quality wine, even better than the earlier servings.
In life we tend to do everything we can, we invest all our resources when we believe in something. After all, that is what our society tells us: do your best because nobody will stand up for you. And so we enter into the lie that if we just do our best our success will be tastier. And we see people running around like morons, doing great things and doing them just because they want to be successful, to be the best. And with all the good that we do, even with the praise that the world heaps on us, we cannot fool ourselves and we know, we just know when we are exhausted, when things, when life itself doesn't make sense anymore.
We've done our best, we've exhausted our options. We have tried to follow the world's creed: Be the best. Help yourself because no one is going to stand up for you.
We are at the end of our ropes. And as a line in one of my favorite Kids' praise songs says: "The Lord reminds us once again, in me you'll find your hope."
Jesus doesn't really solve our problems for us. But He gives us perspective, meaning, energy, motivation, strength, etc. I guess He can never be everything for us as long as we still hold on to something. The moment He becomes our only Lord, the sole master of our lives, even the little that we give like "filling up the jars with water" can produce the wine of rejoicing.

The paradox

This is the paradox: It is only when we have nothing that God can be our everything. But we have to make the choice.

Magic

Today was my turn to get up early and open the gates. As I was opening the windows, a beautiful surprise awaited me: the whole view ahead of me was white. I felt like I was in wonderland, or in front of a life-size Christmas card.
When it snowed yesterday, I didn't think it would last. I have been here in Rome for eleven years already and it is only the third time that it snowed. But this one is different. It has already lasted for hours.
As I was looking at the sky, I was mesmerized by the color, the silence, the cool and pure air. It is my first time to have this experience and the only word I can use to describe it is: MAGIC.
It is so new that I wanted to capture it and perhaps hold on to it longer. I wanted to run and get my camera. But then I realized that the best thing I can do in order to capture the moment is to be there and just let it sink through me. So I stayed out in the cold, closing my eyes for a time so I can just feel the cold air caressing my body, then just staring at the sky, immaculate white with the snowflakes that still continued to fall.
I don't have a photo that captured that moment, but I delighted in that moment. I don't need to hold on to that moment through a photo.
I realize, as I go through life, that having a photo doesn't prolong the experience. It may make me remember that an important experience has happened, but that's all there is to it.
So I will honor my experiences by being totally present in them. Then I will let them go, knowing that I will always have other experiences that will enrich me. They will come at the proper time. That is life's magic.

Let God be God

To think that we understand God is an illusion. If we can put boundaries and imprison God in our ideas and feelings, He is no God at all.
Instead, God invites us just to delight in being in this immense ocean of His presence that is always Love.

Greater peace

I experience greater peace in letting myself be disturbed than in the comfort of my self-defined boundaries.