Never alone

 

On this last day of 2023, I pray that we may be grateful for its joys, humble for the victories, forgiving for the missed opportunities, and trusting that we are never alone as we face the coming year. God is with us. We are in God's hands. God shows his presence in different ways. It could be through persons, events, a sudden inspiration, or just a quiet presence in our heart that enables us to live one day at a time until we slowly discover that there is something, albeit small, to be joyful about.

Miracles surround us

I was stopped by a lady this morning. She excitedly told me "Sister, I received a miracle". Then she went on to say that she is diabetic and she was able to find a good hospital where she is being treated. My first reaction was, so what is the miracle there? She is still diabetic. But on second thought, Vittoria was right. 

When we think of miracles we think of instantaneous cures or the complete resolution of a problem. But miracles abound every day. They surround us. We need the pure eyes of a child who can see wonder in the most ordinary things. We need a grateful heart that doesn't demand anything nor take anything for granted.

Thank you Vittoria. Lord, grant that I may see.

At all times, give thanks

Thank you, Lord, for your goodness and love.
Thank you for taking care of us in your own unique and unexpected ways.
Thank you for assuring us that whatever happens, we are always in your loving hands.
Convert me in your own ways. May this gratitude lead me to greater trust, and may trust open my heart to always be grateful.

Wings

To look up is to recognize that there is a higher power, God.
People of faith are people of hope, because they know that this present moment is not all that there is to life.
Trust God. He will give you wings, not to escape life but to discover new paths that lead to seeing life's meaning.

God answers our prayers

Sometimes God answers our prayers, not in the way that we are expecting. We just have to trust that God knows best. The way may be long and narrow, but it always leads to peace.

Come as we are

To pray is to come to the Lord as we are; better yet, to pray is to realize that we  are always immersed in God's infinite ocean of mercy, that we don't need to be worried about cutting a good figure. What we need is a humble and trusting heart.
Humble, in accepting the awesome and breathtaking truth that we are loved by God as we are.
Trusting, in believing that God wants us to be happy.

Not a stone upon a stone

While his disciples were looking with admiration and awe at the temple of Jerusalem, a magnificent work of art and the sign, par excellence, of their identity as God's chosen people, Jesus says that one day not a stone upon another stone will be left of it. And Jesus will be proven right, for, indeed, later on Jerusalem will be greatly destroyed, totally razed to the ground.
All of us have our own Jerusalems, our carefully and beautifully built lives that make us happy and give us security. And we almost always say a silent prayer, "please, Lord, let it stay this way!" Then something happens. It could be something big or small. Then we find our Jerusalem razed to the ground; our securities are taken away from us with force.
Then we go through a series of emotions: disbelief and shock ... despair ... anger ... loneliness ... skepticism ... resignation ... quiet surrender ... trust ... hope ... courage to rise and continue living ... Then we realize that "Jerusalem" is not a particular state of life where everything is perfect.
It is truly God who gives us our identity and security.

In front of suffering

 

In front of suffering, we can only bow our head. May it not be out of despair but with a hopeful and trusting surrender to the Mystery that surpasses the best human reasoning.
In front of suffering, the only response is silence. Words are stale. They might even be downright insulting.
In front of suffering the tears in our eyes are a sign of wisdom of the folly of pride and self-sufficiency. There is a Truth that is beyond us.

My alphabet

Always remember that God is in you and you are in God.
Be present to the present.
Carry out your commitment up to the end.
Don't let failure discourage you.
Eat well at the right time.
Forgive from the heaert.
Give thanks at all times.
Have a good laugh at yourself once a day.
In your dealings with others, be charitable.
Judge no one. You don't have all the facts.
Keep a happy face.
Listen to the person you are with right now.
Make the first step.
Never keep a grudge.
Open your senses to the wonders of creation.
Pray like a child.
Quit saying, "It is impossible".
Respect other people's choice, but have a mind of your own.
Say "Thank you", "Please", "May I" and "I'm sorry".
Trust the road.
Understand that even the best of people can sometimes let you down.
Visit the sick and those who are alone.
Welcome change.
Xpect some bumps along the road of life.
Yearn for what is good, true and beautiful.
Zip your mouth rather than say something uncharitable.

Go with God

 

Go with God, don't settle for less.

In today's first reading, Abraham, after waiting for many years for the fulfillment of God's promise to make of him a great nation, tries to make a deal with God.
Since he has become an old man, and his wife Sara is way past her child-bearing years, surely this promise of God will not come true in the literal sense? So Abraham uses his brain and thinks that perhaps God meant to use another way. Could it be that God's promise will come true through his son, Ishmael, from the slave-girl Hagar? So Abraham tells God to bless Ishmael.
God promises that He, indeed, will bless Ishmael.
But God didn't have Ishmael in mind as Abraham's offspring from whom a great nation will come. God meant that Abraham and Sara will have a son.
And we know for a fact that, indeed, a son was born to Abraham and Sara who was way past her child-bearing years: Isaac.

When we trust our own logic, our own resources, we have very limited possibilities. When we trust God, we can reach for the stars.

Psalms

Last Sunday while praying the Lauds I almost choked when we reached the part that says "I was punished, I was punished by the Lord, but not doomed to die" (Psalm 118).
I've never believed that God punishes us or puts us to the test. In fact, I often feel bad when people speak of their problems as God's test.
God is Father.
Perhaps in this day and age this affirmation doesn't mean anything; or worse, it may arouse something negative.
But when I say that God is Father, it means that I believe that God is the giver and sustainer of life. God wants nothing else but that we live to the full His gift of life.
So where does suffering enter? Well, this is how I understand it: Suffering is a "given", as a consequence of our creaturehood, our finite life, our imperfect world. That is why no one is exempt from suffering.
But to get back to Psalm 118...
While reciting it, I just thought of how the author of that Psalm, written thousands of years ago, has adequately expressed something that is mine. I, too, experienced the depth of suffering. I've "kissed dirt". I thought there was no way out. I thought the pain would never end...
But here I am...
Once in a while the thought of how much I've suffered still comes back...
the ache in the heart...
but it's a quiet ache, a reminder to forgive;
a gentle assurance that, indeed, things get better.
The psalmist expressed it so well, yes, God did not let me die. "I shall live and recount his deeds."

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.

To forgive

To forgive is to let God take over in settling my affairs.
To forgive is to consign my life in God's hands.
To forgive is to trust that God's project infinitely surpasses my best laid plans.
To forgive is to leave me open to possibilities I haven't imagined.
To forgive is to open my heart again.
To forgive is to embrace the world's imperfect beauty.
To forgive is to let the grace of God water my dry and arid heart.
To forgive is to believe in the miracle of life.
To forgive is to trust that the human person is, indeed, the image and likeness of God.
To forgive is to set myself free.
To forgive is to be born again.

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.

We shall overcome

I recently watched a television interview of a man who, fourteen months ago, lost his eldest daughter in a terrible accident. Six months before that, his wife died. So this eldest daughter was practically like a second mother to his youngest son.
He is a permanent deacon, so it was understandable that he talked about how faith has sustained him throughout the whole ordeal of waiting until the definitive news that his daughter’s body has been found. It is still faith in God that colors his everyday life. He said, “I believe that it is part of God’s will, though it is not always easy to understand”.
What has struck me the most, however, were not his words but his eyes. I cannot describe them. Even without saying anything, his eyes would have communicated a certain depth that has been reached only through the royal road of suffering. It wasn’t sadness I saw in those eyes, but joy tempered by the awareness of one’s fragility. It was something quiet and silent, a joy that has been tamed by pain and the experience of brokenness.
His eyes seemed to tell me, to tell us that in the midst of the most terrible pain, something good can come out; that God is faithful, though He doesn’t take away the suffering and the pain.
Here was a man who live each moment and each day with gratitude and trust that God never fails even when He seems silent. He will never fail us. We just need to trust.
And I believe him because of his eyes.

Happy birthday

The other day I celebrated my "birthday".
Last year, on October 16, after so many months of dryness and of dragging myself one day at a time, I suddenly had my eureka moment. I do not know what precipitated it, or what was its context, but I just had a very sure feeling deep in my heart that "the days of mourning are over". The feeling wasn't the result of the resolution of anything because my life's situation practically stayed the same, but I knew in my heart that my life was turning around, that, finally, the joy of the new dawn is coming.
So it is that I have chosen October 16 as my new birthday. Every year I will celebrate it because it reminds me that God will never allow anything to break me. I just have to trust Him. How can my small mind ever grasp life's great mystery? It's presumptuous to think so.
God didn't fail me. He never will.

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.

Never the same

Every person, at one time or another, goes through a "Humpty Dumpty" experience, when the world, as it is known, suddenly crashes and "all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again".
This experience normally catches one by surprise, though, as one looks back, there may have already been signs along the way.
When the Humpty Dumpty experience happens, the first reaction is to ask oneself: Where did I go wrong? What didn't I do right? Why did this happen to me?
Then follows the frantic attempt to re-create the lost world, to try to put back things as they were. But, somehow, one finds out that the pieces of the puzzle don't fit anymore. You suddenly get the insight that, no matter how hard you try, it won't work, that any attempt is futile.
But your heart is afraid to surrender because, after all, the old world, despite its imperfections, is the only world you know.
Then daily life becomes a battleground:
between resistance and abandonment;
between holding on and letting go;
between self-blame and compassion;
between resentment and gratitude;
between despair and moving on.
It will take time before one finally reaches a certain level of equilibrium, when you start to see life in a realistic way, but with hope.
And there will still be moments of uncertainty, but that is okay because they remind you that this life is not our permanent home.
Yes, you will heal, but you're never the same.

Not in control

These days I am living in tension, that is, there are so many things in my mind and in my heart. When they surface, I don't have the time to face them because there are more pressing works to attend to. When I find time, I cannot recover the stirrings that have surfaced during my busy time; but subconsciously, I am not at ease because I know that there is something I have to attend to.
This situation has now become so normal and ordinary in my life. I don't know whether it is temporary, or whether I will be able to get back a little semblance of "serenity".
I admit that I am not in control of my life. The words "Lord, just let me live through this day", has become my mantra.
In a way, I find this expression very dry and bereft of creativity. It is like I am back to Level 1, that is, my life is just a fight for survival.
On the other hand, it could be an expression of an important lesson I have learned the hard way: Without God, I am nothing.

Signs

Yesterday, God spoke to me concretely through two signs ...





As I was taking a stroll in our garden, I saw "the tree". I call it my tree because I feel a certain affinity to it. Two years ago, it looked to be dying with its bare branches, dry and decaying trunk. It was a picture of sheer helplessness. It was an image of life's transitoriness.
Now it is alive. Its branches full of green and robust leaves. It has grown big that it provides ample shade on a hot day.
God's message: There is life after death. In fact, in many ways, death is necessary in order to have true life.

Among the email messages I received, I got a story entitled "The Necklace". It is a very simple but poignant story. I will not attempt to make a summary because it is more beautiful to read in its entirety.
God's message: It is not easy to let go of things we think are the best for us. I do not know why, but in most cases, we cannot have the real best unless we let go of the second best.