Mystery marvellous

I just got back yesterday from Malacca after spending four days there with Mum. It was necessary and ultimately pleasant to take this last trip of the year, but I am physically exhausted.

Despite the multiple juggling acts I have been pulling this year that have led to this continual state of tiredness, it has been a good year.

Good in terms of learning, growing and a few accomplishments along the way that I am proud of, pre-eminently Matthew, my first book. Yes, he is finally published.

The year 2011 has been a cusp year for me. I feel like I have been in training and many things will take place in the new year, the fruit of all that I have been exposed to this year.

Chief among the things I am grateful for is the moral theology course I took, Personal Compass, which has been mind-blowing and I give thanks for dedicated and brilliant priests like Father David who promulgate everything that is wonderful about Catholicism.

Music is another gift I have been enjoying immensely. Since September, Kihana, my gorgeous tiger maple and spruce Kamoa ukulele, has been a twin source of frustration and joy. I have re-discovered the fun of music-making and it's been awesome for I have done things I used to dread, like leading praise and worship.

Even though I have not been as diligent about my prayer time as I would have liked, God has been ever faithful and I have been blessed with His love, time and again.

Through the year, I have come face to face with my less than desirable weaknesses, my horribleness, and He has shown me that He is capable of transforming my heart when I ask for His help; that change is possible if I am open to it. Ego and sin can be overcome. Virtues can be acquired.

But the biggest thing that I have learned this year is that the mystery of God is to be savoured in gratitude even when it is not fully comprehended.

I never like things to be open-ended but the deeper I go into my relationship with Jesus, the more I realize that even though I know this ending (I am the type to read the last pages of a book to satisfy my curiosity of what will happen in the end), the journey can be exciting and profound if I choose to let go of pre-conceived notions and all fear.

As my SD once told me, mystery is not meant to obfuscate, but rather it is an invitation to delve deeper and luxuriate in the beauty of God who cannot be bound by human definitions or limitations.

Father Stephen who helps seminarians discern their vocations had this to add, that in the matter of vocation, it will always be a mystery purely because we have to make concrete choices.

Without mystery, we will lack the conviction to choose and stick by our choices in life; to know that what we have chosen is truly an independent choice.

What James Marcia would term identity achievement (making a committed choice after exploring different identities) versus foreclosure (making a choice without any identity exploration).
In accepting that mystery is God's way and letting Him lead has been a great adventure for me this year even as it went counter to my intellectual inclinations.

Saying yes means an uncompromising yes to situations I dislike or avoid; yes to hard work and laborious commitment; and yes to discarding fear and the comfortable known world I inhabit.

It has also meant saying yes to being used as a channel of grace to incarnate and glorify Him; yes to growing my talents and gifts beyond expectation; and yes to awe, amazement, much joy and great satisfaction.

Every day I have a greater appreciation for the ingenuity of my Creator and I seek to know His ways even more so that I can be more like Him: wise, caring, loving and good for all those things to me represent happiness and contentment.

And I look forward to living mysteriously in 2012 for He has worked marvels for me this year.

Celebrating Christ's mass

I have been feeling empty, restless and most un-Christmassy these last few days. Partly due to the fact I am recovering from flu and the lack of sleep for two weeks, and partly because I have not devoted any quiet time to God.

It's so easy to get distracted by technology and TV, especially because I have not had Internet or phone access for 10 days. But these diversions do not fill me up and the song I sang at the MSSP Christmas celebration which is based on Saint Augustine's Confessions has come to my mind:

"And I'm restless, I'm restless, 'til I rest in You, 'til I rest in You... You are the keeper of my heart..."

It was a call to communion that went unheeded by me for reverse carolling was such a profound experience that I needed time away from it, time to let it sit in a corner quietly.

It was only at mass this morning that I was ready to ask questions about the emptiness in my heart and this is my conclusion:

The emptiness was necessary for me to allow Jesus to be born inside today. To experience the hope and joy of His birth in the wake of deep sadness felt at the abject poverty I had recently witnessed. And to realize that no matter how dark the world may be, there is a light shining, all because we were gifted with the birth of a child.

The words of Isaiah 9:6 came alive today:

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

Come let us adore Him. 

Balikatan best

The reverse carolling this year was organized by the Balikatan Ministry who went to new areas in Montalban to suss out who were the "poorest of the poor" families that were open to listening to some carols and to prayer on 13th and 14th December.

Joscellan led my group while Vir was our untiring musician who almost lost his bike. Together with others members of the Balikatan Ministry, they awed me with their faith and their compassion in reaching out to the families we visited.

I thank them all for showing me that with God all things are possible.

Shoulder to shoulder we stand
As brothers and sisters in Christ
United in our shared suffering.
We help one another
Forge a community of love
For the light of Christ is with us
A light that warms our hearts
and brings us joy, even in the midst of misery.
We know that life is hard
But together we can overcome
New troubles that tomorrow may bring,
For He has already shown us
How much He loves us
Let us show you how much He loves you.

Balikatan means shoulder to shoulder in Tagalog and this ministry was initiated by Institute for World Evangelisation ICPE Mission Philippines to empower the poor in Montalban by walking with them and encouraging them on their faith journey. To read more about the Balikatan Ministry, go to:

http://icpephilippines.blogspot.com/search/label/balikatan%20ministry

Josephine's birthday

It was the day she was born, today.
A very special day and yet it seemed that
There was no reason to celebrate
No food in the house much less
A birthday cake.
Then they stopped by to say hello,
To sing a few Christmas carols
Which they sang enthusiastically
Quite lovely really; so what?
But then a kindly face, marked by poverty,
Smiled and asked if there was perhaps
A prayer intention or two
That the group might pray, for her and with her
In sincere solidarity.

The candle lit became the light of Christ
Bringing the warmth of His love and compassion
Into an otherwise dreary day.
He loves and cares for her. He must!
Why else would He send strangers
To sing a birthday song and wish her well
On this day that she was born.

Happy birthday Josephine!
He sent us to say He loves you
You are the very reason He was born into this world
To suffer and die so painfully.
You alone are the reason why Christmas exists.
We pray this message of love remains
Long after the food in the hamper is consumed.

Carolling lessons

I just returned home from reverse carolling in the Philippines early this morning. It was an intense 10-day period of activity so far from my normal life that I felt I was in another dimension where space and time expanded to condense a year's worth of living in that period.

Because it was my second time in three years, I knew what to expect, and yet, I feel that I gained more in terms of insight for familiarity allowed me a more incisive perspective. Reflection yielded revelations of breadth and uncommon depth.

First off, there was a sense of homecoming as I slipped into community life with the four Institute for World Evangelisation ICPE missionaries and with six other volunteers from Singapore.

The faith dimension (daily mass, regular prayer, evening sharing and spiritual journalling) transformed the outreach, turning it from self-serving social work into a constant flow of grace, where the hand of God was visibly present.

More than just visiting disadvantaged families to sing carols and leave them with a Christmas food hamper, reverse carolling was an invitation to each of us who participated in this outreach to open our hearts and enthrone the Christ child, and let Him work through us.

So that with each family we visited, we were able to personally bring God's love to them as we prayed with them as fellow brothers and sisters.

Without this openness to the Holy Spirit, then we were merely on a feel-good mission trip that gives us something to talk about when we returned home to our comfortable homes, to tell people, "I did something good for the poor this Christmas!"

Without the continual focus on Jesus, I would have fallen into cynical despair or callous indifference for there was just too much ugliness, deprivation and injustice before my eyes.

The contrast of the beautiful fresh faces of the children with the prematurely aged, dull-eyed adults was stark.

The dark, bare hovels we visited reeked of suffering and hopelessness.

No one deserves to be dumped like garbage and forgotten, as these people were in Montalban, or to be ignored by the rich who lived side by side the poor in Tagaytay.

The words of Pope Benedict XVI in defending the need for the service of love in societies and the need for the additional social principle of gratuity rang true:

"There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbour is indispensable."

My ultimate challenge is to continue to respond to the cries for help and for consolation around me, wherever I am, abroad or at home.

I am grateful for the lessons reverse carolling have taught me this year and I thank God for meeting me wherever I was on that journey, whether in darkness or in light.    

Vocare

What do you need most to do in life and what the world most needs to have done is how Sister Martina defined personal vocation.

When vocation is a personal response to the call from God, then the place that God calls you to becomes for you one of deep gladness and the world's deep hunger. So say yes.






















As we embrace I see
There is a glow,
An indefinable change in you.
You have said yes to something big,
That will change your life forever.
For better. For worse.
You have chosen to be
Theotokos
I rejoice. Every atom of my body exults,
As does my child
Who leaps for joy within my womb,
My own little miracle.
In universal sisterhood we share
The gift of motherhood.
Although the birthing pains will not match
The great sorrow and losses we will bear
I am glad that I, too, said yes
To the fundamental option
Of the incarnation.
Immanuel. Fully human, fully divine.
God's will be done ever and always.

Opting in

With Advent well underway, I took time off this weekend to reflect and spend time with the Lord in a retreat to discover my personal name and vocation.

Together with 19 other women, we gathered at the FMM House of Prayer for a time of learning, resting, communing and reflecting in silence that helped me crystallize my personal vocation even further.

It begins with a fundamental option - a question posed and answered. If I say yes and opt for God, then this initial response will form the basis for my personal vocation.

This preferential option for Christ challenges me to a personal relationship with Him. To know Him and to know more about His ways, so that I can become more like Him.

As Jesus proclaimed in Luke's Gospel, He came to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, help the blind see, let the oppressed go free and proclaim a year of the Lord's favour.

If Jesus were alive today, he would be a social activist, but one whose radicality is personal and pacifist in nature and is diametrically opposed to the violence that perpetuates and dominates our world.

Is this way of God possible? Yes, if we emulate ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary deeds such as Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero and Satoko Kitahara, and did it with only God's glory in mind.

What these people had in common despite their diverse backgrounds and accomplishments is a personal relationship with Christ, one that kept them focused on living out their own unique vocation in answer to God's call.

The fundamental option for Christ is no easy one for it requires sacrifice, openness of heart, great stamina, and a constant clarification of will and cultivation of the mind in order to follow a suffering Christ that died on the cross for His beliefs.

This constant process of conversion  and its attendant challenges was played out in the movie Of Gods and Men, which is a true story of nine Trappist monks who served an impoverished Algerian community.

Under threat from terrorists and a corrupt civil government, the monks faced the reality of death daily and the film chronicles the interior struggle of each man and their ultimate collective decision, which was to stay and continue serving the medical needs of the largely Muslim community... to their untimely death (only two survived being shot).

It isn't often that we are faced with such life-defining moments as these monks, living as we do in relative comfort and luxury. However, we must keep questioning and searching, in order to know why we choose what we choose.

To make a conscious choice for Christ and not make it about just a default position we have arrived at by virtue of our parents' faith.

I am thankful that my parents raised me in the faith, but I am even more grateful that I found Him and that today, eight years later, He is still my fundamental option, my first choice.