My first love

Today is Don Bosco's feast day. I have a confession to make. Don Bosco is my first love. I can still remember when I was a child, I loved reading a short book about his life. I would read the last part over and over again where his last words are "Tell my boys that I will see them in paradise". Funny how when one grows older, things done in childhood just come back. Never did it even enter my mind when I was younger that I would one day be a member of a religious congregation founded by Don Bosco.

Remember

Litany of Humility

Gospel-inspired poverty

Find joy in a radical lifestyle. Continue seeking to do more, to give more, to serve more, to share more, and learn to do without many things so that you will be generous in living your vocation. Reduce your egotistical needs. Be more attentive to the calls that come from those who hunger for attention, encouragement, and stability. Put these before your need for comfort. As educators, you have to use many more things with respect to those foreseen for living the evangelical promise in simplicity. Remain detached. Do not allow the apostolic efficacy of the community to become an obstacle for living the challenges of the Word of God personally and in a shared manner.
And lastly, do not limit the concept of poverty only to "things" to have or not to have. Measure it against the evangelical radicality, living an intense life of absolute commitment in full joy. May your life be a living sacrifice. May it be a candle that is consumed in the service of the Lord for His people.

Bishop Thomas Menamparampil SDB

(Source: DMA Magazine, January-February 2010)

The Wine of our life

John's story of the wedding at Cana invites us to consider seriously whether we think that the master of the feast who gives the command: "Fill the jars with water" can make all things new in our own lives. One's hour comes -- the kairos moment itself -- at the intersection of frustrated plans and openness to the Divine. Cana teaches us that the Messiah of the world had to adjust his schedule when events took a surprising turn. The story of Jesus' coming-out event as told by John demonstrates his spiritual flexibility. How can our "cronos" time be transformed into "kairos" -- a real moment of breakthrough and hope, of promise and new possibility?

Today let us beg the Lord and his Mother to make us faithful stewards, ready to do whatever Jesus tells us and eager to share with others the wine he provides. When we listen to the Lord and do whatever he tells us, the ordinariness of our lives becomes extraordinary, the empty jugs of water become filled with new wine, our cronos moments are transformed into kairos moments, and we become the feast for one another.

(Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB)

Faced with suffering

How do I make sense of a tragedy? My limited mind cannot fathom the depth of events. Explanations and excuses are futile in front of suffering.
I can only trust that God is present, somehow...
When I look at the cross, I come face-to-face with a God who understands what suffering is because He experienced the depths of it.
Lord, help us to feel that you carry us in your arms in this most difficult time. Amen.

Seeking the face of God

The true believer seeks the living and true God, the Origin and End of all things, God, not made according to one's own image and likeness, but the God who has made the human person according to His own image and likeness.
God is God; I remain a creature. No matter how I try I can never fully grasp Him. But I try, each moment, each day, hoping that in trying to seek His face, He will transform mine into His own.

Life is not a series of check marks

I was an accountant, but I haven't been doing accounting work for more than ten years already. However, some old habits never die.
Everyday I have my list of to-do things. I meticulously make a list of each and everything I want to do and put a red check mark once I've done it. I don't know why, but seeing many red check marks gives me a sort of high, like I have accomplished a lot. Some days, too, just seeing those check marks gives me a feeling of being in control of the situation, especially when I have to juggle a lot of things to do. So my day is like running from the starting line and, hopefully, arriving at the finish line, at least for that day. Very linear, isn't it?
I am growing into the realization that life is not at all linear. It is not a race to the finish line. In fact, who knows whether there is a finish line at all? I may do the same thing, but it isn't really the same, since I am a different person. Circumstances are different, and hey, even the weather and the time could be different.
I wish I will be attentive enough to realize that as I do the same things over and over again, the call is to go deeper and to discover always something new.

Dancing in the rain

I love tomorrow's first reading. It is actually one of my favorite scriptural texts. It is from the book of Isaiah and it describes the Suffering Servant of Yahweh. In Matthew's gospel, the same description is used for Jesus:

He will not brawl or cry out, his voice is not heard in the streets, he will not break the crushed reed, or snuff the faltering wick.

The second part about not breaking the crushed reed or quenching the smoldering wick is for me a message so full of hope. Others may bail out on me, I may even be too harsh on myself, but there is certainly one who loves me as I am, warts and all, Jesus. It is this experience of His pure and gratuitous love that, after a long journey of self-acceptance, gives me a desire, first just to hang on, then to graciously dance in the storm.

Pope Benedict XVI's Angelus message (Jan. 6, 2010)

There is a morning after

I am seeing a flicker of light.
The night was so long. The waiting was terrible.
Bereft of my securities, stripped of even my pride, the long-held convictions and certainties suddenly in question, it was a desert time.
The silence was deafening, the solitude so oppressing.
When will I come to the end of this pilgrimage?
I just held on and allowed myself to toss and turn, to be like a bruised reed at the mercy of the harsh and unpredictable wind.
Somehow I have survived, and graciously at that.
I have found my smile. I am singing again.
Hark! Morning has come.

Mother Mary's gift

The joy of that night when I first held Jesus in my arms transcended all the pain and suffering that was to come. For I was never without that joy - it is a special gift the Child brings to those who open their hearts to Him. May the gift be yours.

(From the Book "God's Crooked Lines" by James F. Donelan SJ)


May this joy be with us always!