Family ties

I just threw a little dinner party for my cousin A. whose birthday is up in a few days. As he hates fuss (about on par with the person who shares the same birthday as Dad but we won't mention initials here), it was kept simple and small (no other guests but my bro and SIL).

BTW I had to practically arm-twist him to allow me to cater for this little soirée in my home. What is it about the men in my family that know how to give but not how to receive love graciously?

As I chopped and julienned, I thought of how cooking was my dad's and my way of showing love. More than that, since his demise, it has become my way of remembering and honouring Dad, and evoking his spirit on a daily basis.

My father considered sitting down together as a family and sharing a meal as something sacred, a time-honoured tradition.

I used to find his insistence at eating dinner together irksome at times (especially when I had to work late and knew that my parents were waiting for me to return home before we all sat down together at the dinner table to eat - MAJOR STRESS) but have, today, come to appreciate and to perpetuate the tradition.

Earlier in the afternoon, Mum was sharing with me how someone she knew was abandoned by her children in a home and left to die. While I was trying hard not to be judgmental (What? How can he serve in church so actively and not care about his mother??!!!), I was made mindful of how I treated my remaining parent.

Do I show love, respect, care and concern for my mother (whom I live with) in a life-giving manner every single day? Do I bless her by being a good daughter?

"Honour thy father and mother" is the fourth* commandment and the first one that pertains to how we relate to others.

I believe the primacy of this commandment speaks to the fact that family is the most basic unit of society and if we can't even get it right at this level, whatever we do outside the family for the glory of God is dimmed, tarnished.

Charity, love, begins at home. Mutual respect and love between parents (husband and wife) and children (siblings), familial harmony is the weave of the fabric of human life on earth.

In his Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, Pope John Paul II recognizes marriage and family as the most precious of human values:

"Willed by God in the very act of creation, marriage and the family are interiorly ordained to fulfillment in Christ and have need of His graces in order to be healed from the wounds of sin and restored to their "beginning", that is, to full understanding and the full realization of God's plan."

Parents are called to be "the visible sign of the very love of God" while family is called to mission by becoming "more and more what it is", which it does by revealing and communicating love, and thus reflecting and sharing in God's love for humanity.

If we grow that little family tree in the soil of love, giving it the necessary nutrients such as daily waterings of forgiveness, warm rays of acceptance and sprinkles of tolerance, then it will grow deep roots and spread its branches into a community of love that crosses geographical, social and cultural boundaries to ultimately foster “the good of each and every human being”.

Want to effect world peace? Simple.

Start by loving (through active, concrete actions and words) and forgiving members of your immediate and extended family and seek to live with them harmoniously minute by minute, day by day, year in, year out.

*What for Roman Catholics is the fourth commandment, is for Judaism and some of the other Christian denominations the fifth. Did you know that? I just found out on Wikipedia today. Fascinating.

Heart at rest

For my birthday this year, E. gave me The Restless Heart by Ronald Rolheiser. My go-to person for books, she made yet another uncannily perfect choice.

It speaks to me right at the place I am now - trying to figure out how to live out my singlehood in a manner befitting a woman of active, lively faith. (BTW, it’s a fantastic book and definitely worth a read. Or two.)

Rolheiser talks about loneliness - why we feel lonely, why it's OK to feel lonely, and what are the consequences, pitfalls and benefits of loneliness. He offers the wisdom of some of the Church's greatest theologians as well as his own practical tips on how we can channel loneliness.

While loneliness is something each of us will experience at different points in our life (no one is exempt), if we acknowledge its presence and deal with in a constructive manner, loneliness can yield very rich and positive results.

Creating works of art that bring pleasure to the masses. Going outside of self and ministering to others like Mother Teresa did. Helping others get through life’s dry spells with a shower of empathy and compassion sourced from the depths of loneliness.

So what causes the L word? I love this definition found in the book:

"Perhaps the old myths and legends capture it best when they say that, before being born, each soul is kissed by God and then goes through life always, in some dark way, remembering that kiss and measuring everything it experiences in relation to that original sweetness." (p.54)

St. Augustine describes this primordial kiss as a God-shaped space within the heart that can only be filled by God. And this space is what keeps us always seeking, thirsting for God.

“…for you have made us for yourself and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

Having travelled the pleasure route indulging and satiating the senses, having participated in an alphabet of activities before I stood still and went within to seek Him, I have to agree with St. Augustine – the dude was spot on.

Looking for love in all the wrong places left me feeling more alienated, needy and seriously out of whack emotionally - until I turned to Him to fill the God-shaped space within my heart. And I continue to do so, time and again.

By inviting God to enter the space within my heart, I allow His presence in my life to bring healing and so much love that in my aloneness, I am in communion with Him and more connected than in a roomful of people “talking without speaking”.

Rolheiser invites us into a spirituality of loneliness; to constantly move towards a creative rather than destructive force within our lives.

Simple actions are called for such as (overcoming our fears) and taking emotional risks in relationships, being vulnerable and honest without forgetting to be playful and creative in loving others, and giving enough space for relationships to breathe and grow.

While this also involves commitment and self-sacrifice, the ability to find peace and an oft times blissful solitude is worthwhile.

So instead of trying to fill the emptiness with booze, drugs, sex or some other man-ufactured diversion, try a little God-filled solitude next time you’re lonely.

It’s free, safe and oh so soul-satisfying. With no morning-after regrets.

Perfecting hope

What is it about women that makes us so compulsive, so doggedly stubborn at times?

We persist in reading a book to the very last page even when we know by page 10 it's REALLY bad. Likewise we watch excruciatingly bad movies to the last frame, while a man would have flipped the channel a long time ago and watched at least a dozen other programmes.

In discussing the charism of woman, Fr. A. declared that woman's charism was to be life-giving and part of this charism was the facility and capacity for hope, something that men lack.

To illustrate his point, he brought up the weddding at Cana. It was Mary's hope in her son Jesus (despite His initial hesitance, she tells the men to do whatever He tells them) that led to the miracle of the transformation of water into wine.

While reflecting on Fr. A.'s words, I concurred with his opinion for it was Zechariah's inability to hope that led to his disbelief in the news the angel brought to him of Elizabeth's imminent conception of his son John.

It was hope that gave my grandmother the necessary daring to find the means to feed the family while my grandfather was at a complete loss on how to survive during the Japanese Occupation.

Hope was what enabled St. Monica to pray for many long years for the conversion of her sinful son into St. Augustine, one of the greatest theologians of the Church.

Hope is what makes women illogical creatures who depend on intuition more than fact.

There is a downside, however, to this facility. Especially when it is coupled with low self-worth, for hope is what keeps a woman in an abusive relationship for years. Even to death, at times.

"He's a good man and he's always very sorry after." "He loves me and he loves the children very much." "He promised me he would not do it again."

I am also reminded of the episode of Oprah "He's just not into you". Women just refused to believe that a particular man was not vested in their relationship for he would occasionally make the effort to be attentive or charming.

It was scary to watch attractive women in the audience rationalize and defend their decision to hang on to a relationship when it was clear as day to everyone else that he was just stringing her along and was a complete jerk.

Hope should not make us wait in vain for a hopeless cause.

More than just an emotion, hope is a spiritual grace and one of the three theological virtues of the Roman Catholic Church.

Karl Rahner understands hope to be the medium between faith and love, the other two virtues and that faith and love are "formed by hope".

It is because of hope that we dare to love on and on, again and again, despite being hurt.

It is hope that brings us faith, a faith that believes all things are possible with God.

As St. Paul said in his letter to the Romans, "In hope we are saved," for it is this Spirit-endowed grace that enables the surrender of self to the self-giving God, the human capacity for God to be our salvation that is a person's fundamental self-interpretation in relation to God (The New Dictionary of Theology).

Hope is what gives us the will to live, to conquer fears, to reach the summits of the Everests in our lives, to dream the impossible dream and effect miracles.

It is also what brings forth life, supports and sustains it.

Viktor Frankl, Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor concluded that life has meaning under any circumstance and thus even suffering was meaningful. And because we have the freedom to find meaning in what we do and all that we experience, the human spirit could survive even the most horrific atrocities.

St. Paul give us the Christian perspective when he talks about how faith, hope and love work together to help us grow in a life of grace:

Suffering (trials) produces endurance (patience), and endurance (patience) produces character (merit), and character (merit) produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Romans 5:3 – 5

It is by faith that we can hope to experience the kingdom of God not only in the future but in the here and now, and we achieve this by serving Him in love. Thus suffering is no longer something meaningless but a means to attain perfection.

Don’t stop seeking perfection in hope.

In the beginning it was not so...

A tribute to Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, retold by Christopher West

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth
He made all things good.
Form followed function.
Everything worked the way it should.
Perfect and precise, like clockwork.
He is God after all
The master craftsman, the Creator.

Let there be light
So the sun rose in the east and set in the west, as the earth rotated on her axis.
When darkness fell, the moon
Palely reflected the brightness of the sun.
The beauty of the night sky was revealed
In the luminous stars that stretched across its infinite expanse.
The oceans surged in a rhythm dictated by gravitational forces.

Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures
Of such colour, shape, texture
Mass, complexity and variety
It made the beholder gasp in awe and wonder.
On land, he lavished the same attention to detail
To all living things that crawled, slithered, galloped, swooped,
Lumbered, raced, scurried, flitted and crept.

Then God created humans
Made in his image and likeness
A man formed from the dust
A woman formed from the rib of the man
For it is not good that the man should be alone.
This at last is bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh.

Into them the Lord God breathed
A spirit that gave the spark of life
And the capacity to choose between good and evil.
Freedom of choice. Free will.
His work done,
God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it
Rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

Fashioned to live in unity with God and each other,
Man and woman, Adam and Eve,
Lived in harmonious bliss
They were both naked, and were not ashamed.
Receiving the love of their Maker
Living out the meaning and being of their existence
And God saw that it was good.

As one flesh their bodies were a gift of self-donating love to the other
Joined, two halves of a complete whole.
Manifesting the sacrament of the Spirit
The Trinitarian mystery
Making visible what was invisible
With the ability to give birth to the miracle of new life
Be fruitful and multiply.

One day a seed of doubt was sowed by the serpent
In the minds and hearts of Adam and Eve
Distrust and desire led to the denial of the gift.
The fracturing of the unitive relationship between God and humans
The eyes of both were opened
With it came enmity, pain, toil, thorns and sweat
Until dust you shall return.

Thus sin entered the world
Solitude turned into loneliness.
Unity transformed into alienation
Nakedness now required the protection of fig leaves.
Although paradise was lost, before he sent them forth from the garden,
The Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife
He clothed them out of love, mercy and compassion.

Fickle and forgetful, humans kept breaking the everlasting covenant
Promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
To Moses who led the people out of Egypt into the land of milk and honey.
A history of salvation endured
Marked by Yahweh’s faithfulness to his chosen people
As generation gave way to generation
Until the Word became flesh and lived among us.

It took one man, the second Adam, to redeem what was lost by the first
Out of the womb of Mary, the Immaculate Conception, the second Eve
Jesus Christ was born; to live, to love and to die on the cross.
As the human face of God, the Divine face of man.
Jesus walked the earth and changed the world
Made a difference by performing miracles
Out of his boundless love for humanity.

Follow me, and I will make you fish for people
And so his disciples journeyed with him as he taught -
Proclaiming the good news of the kingdom,
Curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
By fulfilling the law through his radical brand of love
The Son of God made us all sons and daughters of God
A relationship restored, paradise found.

Love one another as I have loved you.
Was his only commandment to all humankind.
And on the night before he died:
This is my body, which is given for you
The cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
So that, in remembrance, we celebrate the gift of his life daily
Forgiving to the end (they do not know what they are doing), he breathed his last.

On Easter morn, he revealed himself to Mary M,
Who stood weeping outside the tomb. And later on, to his disciples.
Thus Scripture fulfilled, he ascended to heaven,
With a promise of power to them. So it was
When all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.
On fire to become witnesses of His love
Builders of His kingdom until he comes again.

Created and redeemed, we become priest, prophet and king
Called and chosen to love in the Spirit of abundance and joy

Amen.