God's mediation

In today's Gospel passage about the "Rich young man", I cannot help but see in him the face of many young people.
Young people have such great desire to find their life's purpose. They engage in pursuits that they think will help them find that greatly desired but seemingly elusive purpose, that "polar star" that will orient their life.
It is not easy to see the Polar star when there are other equally, or even brighter stars that catch our attention.
Perhaps, we adults, are also at fault. Young people don't, or rarely, see in us people who have found the Polar star, that purpose that drives us to embrace a journey that is often characterized by solitude and the leaving aside of all our securities.

The sound of solitude

It's biting me again: that deep ache, that feeling of being alone whilst surrounded by a crowd. Perhaps it is autumn, or perhaps it is because after a month in a community of Sisters whom I have grown to love I am on the move again. Yes, I am feeling the ache once again.

Yesterday the Pope gave a homily in which he talked about solitude. Among other things he mentioned:
"The drama of solitude is experienced by countless men and women in our own day. I think of the elderly, abandoned even by their loved ones and children; widows and widowers; the many men and women left by their spouses; all those who feel alone, misunderstood and unheard; migrants and refugees fleeing from war and persecution; and those many young people who are victims of the culture of consumerism, the culture of waste, the throwaway culture."

We do a lot things to run away from solitude. We listen to music, we watch videos, we play video games, we talk non-stop or we navigate the internet. We move on from one relationship to another, from one past time to another. We try out new food, we shop until we drop, or we window-shop. We talk about people, about the world, we engage ourselves in "important" causes. We do everything so as to stifle the voice of loneliness that just emerges so loudly at certain points of our lives.

But what if I just stop and really feel the pain seeping through my entire being? God calls me to make this courageous choice not to run away, not to have immediate answers, but to live the tension of being in a limbo, of having balls in the air.

At the end of the day, it is really to ourselves that we have to go home to. Even the people closest to us cannot enter inside the deepest sanctuary of our being. That sanctuary is only for me and my God. Solitude is a call to be at home with my God.

The price of growing up

Our personal journey is mysterious and we cannot compare ours with another's, nor have easy recipes or prescriptions. There are common elements, but each one of us must grope in the dark. We make our journey and pay for it with our own blood, sweat and tears. This is the price of growth, and growth is a sign of life.

Stripped

In today's Gospel from St. Mark, Jesus goes to the desert and stays there for forty days, and he is tempted by Satan.
To stay in the desert is to stay before God, free from distractions and bereft of our securities. We remain by ourselves with God. And it is only then that we recognize the lures of the tempter. We see clearly the essentials and how the journey to disillusionment is always sugarcoated, passing off as desirable to our senses. We are called to make a choice.

Touched and healed

When Jesus touched the leper, the leper was healed. This healing was more than physical. In fact, Jesus healed the leper of a deeper ill, that is, of solitude.
Jesus' touch made the leper become in contact, once again, with the world and even with himself, because when a person arrives at the point of extreme aloneness, the person also begins to doubt the goodness or the value of himself/herself and of life itself.
I like what Pope Francis said yesterday at the Angelus. In front of suffering, Jesus doesn't give a lesson about the value of suffering. Rather, Jesus embraces suffering and takes it upon Himself.
Oh Lord, grant that I may not be afraid to immerse myself in life so that I may touch the people whom You love.

The irony of Christmas

The irony of this birthday celebration is that it is the celebrant who gives gifts. May we not forget this truth. The true gift of Christmas is Jesus and it is a gift that God freely gives to each one of us. May this truth be the foundation of our lives. In our moments of defeat, solitude and lack of purpose, may this truth be the streak of light that will guide us through the darkness.

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.

God as number one

To make God the number one, the top priority of my life is the best thing I can ever do. It gives me a stable base on which to build my life. The other things do not lose their value; nay, their true value becomes clearer in the light of God.
To make God the number one does not mean I always have to be constantly saying prayers. No, it rather means that my life itself is a prayer, a constant seeking to do God's will.
To make God the number one is to live life to the full. It frees me from the illusion that I am the center of the world, which is the cause of a lot of regrets and disappointments that rob me of true joy.
To make God the number one is to never feel alone even in the deepest moment of solitude, when people let me down and my old securities crumble. I know that when I don't feel that God is walking beside me, He is in fact carrying me in His arms.

Believing in true love

Today, as I celebrate and thank God for the wonderful gift of life, I look back and see my journey with its ups and downs. There have been unpleasant experiences, difficult episodes and long periods of doubt and darkness. When they happened I just wanted them to come to an end. I think nobody wants to suffer. Every person wants to cut short the difficult part. No one would want to stay for long in an uncertain period of waiting. But somehow, as I look back, I know that I have tried to face them. I did not escape them. I have paid them my due. And little by little the pain eased. It took time but finally, the dawn has come.
I can truly say with Saint Paul that "for those who love God everything works together unto good". What is paradoxical is, I really had to experience with my own flesh this truth in order to make it my own personal truth.
Why do we need to suffer? Why do we have to pass through the crucible of solitude, of defeat, of betrayal, of despair? Is there no other way to grow except through the way of the cross? Perhaps. But what I know is, all men and women have to pass through the narrow door, so that in the process of pruning and purification we may come to the truth that really matters: we are loved in a unique and personal way.
When we come to terms with our imperfections and shadows, we can either wallow in despair or choose to cling to Someone and believe that we are loved just as we are, no ifs nor buts.
I choose to believe in that Love.

In the company of true friends

Yesterday's Gospel was about the anointing of Jesus in Bethany. There, in the company of His true friends Lazarus, Martha and Mary, Jesus had a little respite at the time in His life when He most felt the reality of His impending suffering and death.
Each person has to carry his own cross. Suffering is an inevitable part of life. Even those who love us most or who are willing to give their own lives for us cannot take suffering away from us, no matter how they try.
But true friends are like shafts of light in the darkest night. They don't take away the darkness, but they assure us that it is not all dark. There is light.
They give us the courage to take that difficult leap because it is important if we want to find the meaning of our lives.

Solitude

It is necessary for us to enter into solitude in order to know and to celebrate who we are.

Kathleen's kindness

“Sometimes I think that I could have said something …” After she said these words, I felt a lump in my throat and a great feeling of gentleness in my heart. It is one of those very touching moments in my life when I felt overwhelmed with the love of someone. She has accompanied me as I journeyed through a long period of pain. With her words I suddenly had the intuition that this special person has really entered into my own pain.

It is not easy to be with persons who are undergoing a difficult period,especially that kind of pain that is within, that interior pain which one can never even share. What can you say? Is it necessary to say something? If the person says she doesn’t need you, do you take her words at face value? What if she has been hurting for a long time? What can you do to stop the hurting?

So it is that at that very moment, I felt overwhelmed by grace. Something good has come out of the long Calvary. It is the realization that patient love does exist.

She hasn’t solved my problem. She has made me discover the treasure that I have, that of being accompanied by a person who is willing to enter into my pain. At that low point when I have lost all of my self-esteem, somebody has taken time to stay with me. More than anything, this made me realize that I had value. Somebody was willing to waste her time on me.

We cannot live others’ lives for them. We can rejoice with their joys and cry with their sorrows; but each person has to go through life’s moments and experiences of solitude, in order to discover the meaning of life and of who we are.

Our patience, trust and faith are the best gifts we can offer each other as we go through the dark, believing that there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Wait

I got inspired by the Gospel today. Actually, I have been struck by this passage last year and it has sort of accompanied my journey.

Then he said to them, 'Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for life does not consist in possessions, even when someone has more than he needs.' Luke 12:15

Since God is a loving Father who takes care of our moment-by-moment needs, I call it my “daily bread spirituality”, I believe that, once again, He has enabled me to have an insight into my journey at this point in my life. I came across a book by Anselm Grün, OSB, “The Spiritual Challenge of Midlife”, and I know that it is a treasure. It doesn’t solve my questions, nor does it quench my angst, but, as I said, it offered me an insight, nay, so many insights, that I am even tempted to say that this “midlife crisis” is actually a blessing.

Midlife is an invitation to change perspective and to go inward, to know, not through your head but through your heart, after a lot of tears and o being bent and bruised, that what makes me happy is not to be in charge of my life. Rather, true joy comes from knowing that God is the only security. Hoarding doesn’t make me secure. Only gratitude and trust can.

Here are the words of the book. I cannot paraphrase them as I am afraid of losing their beauty and depth.

Many people get into a midlife religious crisis because they have the will to conquer religious life in the same way they conquered their professional lives. They continually want to grab onto religious experiences and, as it were, amass a spiritual fortune. Dullness and disappointment in prayer are an indication that I must give up the search for the God experiences, let go of my striving for ownership, and just be very simple before God. What is important is that I surrender myself entirely to God without constantly demanding gifts from him, such as rest, security or religious gratification. Detachment also requires the readiness to suffer. Detachment does not mean that one has found calm and enjoyment. On the contrary, one is willing to give up these things and is ready to let God lead one into the fray…

People should not break away from the difficulty, but simply wait. One cannot free oneself by one’s own power. A person can do nothing but wait for God himself to lead one into a new spiritual maturity. This also means trusting that God will not leave a person in distress without providing a positive outcome…

Midlife crisis also involves an internal change of leadership. It is no longer I, but God, who leads.

Desert

God said, "I will allure her in the desert and speak to her heart."
My desert could be any place.
When I am bereft of my securities, when I feel helpless in front of life's forces, I am in the desert.
When I feel totally alone, despite being surrounded by a crowd, I am in the desert.
The paradox is, it is only when I am in this difficult place called the desert that my heart becomes ready to listen.
Finally, God can speak to me.

Joseph's story is every person's story

These days we have been reading the story of Joseph and his brothers. This story has always fascinated me since I was a child. Joseph - the chosen one, the fair-skinned son of the beloved wife.
Joseph has certainly lived a charmed life as a boy, but everything ended in a flash. He certainly wasn't prepared for that fateful day when his life took an unexpected turn. Tired of being second best and of being lumped together in the generic term "Jacob's other sons", Joseph's brothers wanted to get rid of him. The first plan was to kill him, but one brother interceded "let's just sell him to the travelling merchants..."
Joseph pleaded, after all, these are his brothers. They have the same father, they ate at the same table. But the brothers' hearts have already been hardened. Envy and jealousy have a way of killing whatever spark of reason there is.
Then begins Joseph's many adventures...
From being sold as a slave, to being jailed, to being a high official in Egypt, second only to the Pharaoh himself.
It is a real dumpsters-to-throne story.
It takes only a few chapters of the book of Genesis to see how Joseph's life story had a happy ending.
In real life, it must not have been very easy for Joseph. Who knows how many nights he laid awake trembling with fear while he was with the caravan of the travelling merchants. What did he feel everytime he remembered his brothers' treachery and betrayal? How long did he struggle to accept that he was now alone in a hostile and foreign world, and that he would never see his beloved father again? Did he ever blame himself for what happened? Did revenge ever enter his mind? What about death, did he ever think of death as a sweet end to everything?
The Bible doesn't give answers to these questions, but given the number of years that it took before he ever saw his brothers again, I am sure that Joseph did not even imagine that his life would have not only a happy, but a glorious ending!
I guess Joseph's story is the story of every man and woman.
There are times in our life when we feel that there is no way out, that we have already exhausted all our options, that everything conspires to lead us to a downward spiral. There are many experiences that just don't make sense, no matter how much time and attention we give to dissecting them. There is just nothing in them for us except suffering.
But somehow, we survive, in different ways.
These experiences change us.
Probably for many of us, our stories will not have Joseph's perfect ending, that is, full closure, with people and events that have treated us badly, trampled our self-esteem and forced us to go on a very lonely journey.
For many of us, the happy ending will be something "quiet", like when we come to realize that, indeed, something good has happened out of the bad blows that life has dealt us with.
We do not know how long it will take before we arrive at this realization. That is why we need the presence of Someone who can be our deep center, Someone who will not give us the answers like a vendo machine, but Someone who will keep us company as we go through the journey's ups and downs, lights and shadows.
God will help us to read the beautiful stories that He writes with our life's crooked lines.

A very long distance

Between the mind and the heart, there is a very long distance. It happens very frequently to me now that certain things are very clear, reasonable and appealing to me at the level of the mind, but the heart says another thing. Sometimes I find myself numb and paralyzed. I know what I have to do, and I am totally convinced that I must do it, but the helplessness is there. So within myself I have two opposing forces. It must be what St. Paul was talking about...
To illustrate what I mean, it's like I have left my familiar shores because the other side is beckoning me. What lies ahead is very attractive, clear and luminous. I know I am moving but I don't seem to be getting nearer to the other side. I know I cannot go back anymore to my familiar shores, but where I am is a very insecure place. It's like I am moving but I don't seem to be going anywhere. It's like being stuck; I am neither here nor there.
Oh God, just give me what I need for today.
Let your grace be enough for me. Let your will be the source of my joy.

In the desert

With the Spirit's help, I would really like to live this Lenten season "in the desert", bereft of my securities. I read somewhere that the desert is the place of the essentials.
With the passing of the years, my life has become complicated: so many knots, so many gray areas, so many rationalizations. Sometimes it is hard for me to see and to recognize my own values and convictions.

What or who do I hold dearest in my life?
I know that I have made a lot of decisions, big and small, that were dictated by convenience and utility - because I wanted to fit in, because that was expected of me, because I did not want to offend, because I just wanted to end the discussion, because I did not want to get hurt, etc., etc.

What are the securities that I have accumulated?
My experience of these past two years has made me realize that these so-called securities are false. Indeed, they make me feel more insecure because I hold on and I cling to them so desperately, and so I lose my freedom and spontaneity.

So, welcome to this 40-day desert experience. I know that by myself, I cannot do it.

The desert is not some exotic place we see in postcards. It is a place of hostile forces.
When the howling winds of my mistakes haunt me,
When the scorching heat of rejection and judgment is unbearable,
When the cold nights of solitude are just too much,
When the lack of water and other things I used to rely on make me crippled and desperate...
When these temptations call me to turn back, I need a deep Center, Someone who will stay with me through it all, so that I may enter the land of freedom, the Promised Land.

Jesus is that deep Center. He will walk with me through the desert and lead me to freedom.

Leaving my boat, burning my bridges

Funny how certain experiences of ours call to mind a particular passage from Scripture; and how certain passages from Scripture make us look at a particular experience from a different perspective.
Today's Gospel talks about the call of Simon the Fisherman. Towards the end of the passage it says: When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him. (Luke 5:11)
Following Jesus is the source of true joy and fullness of life, but it has its price to pay. In my experience, it is not a choice between good and bad. Rarely do I have this choice. Rather, it was always a choice to leave behind a certain Something, that has given me joy, security and a certain fulfillment.
These past months have been the longest and most difficult experience of leaving my boat.
I guess the image of burning my bridges has more impact to me. I have always loved bridges. In fact, it is one of my symbols. Bridges symbolize connection. I have always been a relational person. I could renounce my own comforts or go way out of my way in order to give joy to somebody. Perhaps, sometimes I exaggerate. But that is what I am.
The Gospel today is like an inspiration from God. I have to burn my bridges in order to be truly for Him and for His Kingdom. It is not easy. I struggle a lot, because, as I said earlier, it's not as if it's a choice between good and bad.
The price of following Jesus is solitude. I am still in the process of letting go and of accepting this reality. Many say that solitude is the source of fecundity. Well I am not yet there, but I hope that I am on the road.