Be like Christ

The phrase “you are what you eat” is usually used as dietary warning. In other words, eat unhealthily and expect your body to protest at some point with health problems (sometimes fatal) or weight gain.

This took on a deeper meaning for me last Sunday, being Corpus Christi.

If I eat the body and drink the blood of Christ, the Eucharist, I will be nourished and healed. For I am transformed as I allow the real presence of Jesus into my body, and consequently into my heart and my life.

I will become more like Him as I die to my worldly self. Yet how often do I really take advantage of the power of the Paschal Mystery?

Do I allow myself to be who I eat? My glib response is yes, as long as no one crosses my path or rains on my parade.

It's hard to remain mindful and to practise virtue when sometimes it seems as if everyone (hates me) and everything (is too difficult) is out to get me.

Nobody appreciates, understands or cares for me.

When the world is a harsh, alien and hostile place and in the words of five-year-old Brian, "I don't like it!."

This is where it's important to lead a Eucharistic life, to have faith and believe that we can rise above our troubles and ourselves by walking closely with the Father, by becoming like Christ.

Jesus came to show us that the impossible is nothing (to quote the Adidas ad campaign) and He left us with two very powerful weapons in our fight against our own foibles - the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist.

And God gave us His son, the Word made flesh, flesh to become the sacrificial lamb who would bring redemption and hope to the world.

So when I am unable to make it to weekday mass to get my Eucharistic boost, I rely on the written Word to remind me of who I am and what I must do.

"When your words came, I devoured them: your word was my delight and the joy of my heart; for I was called by your name, Lord, God of Sabaoth." Jer 15:16

Sup well today.

Mother's Day

I was telling my mother just yesterday that I did not realize today is Mother's Day. I had to be reminded by A.

We both laughed and I went on to say to her, tongue in cheek, that it was because to me, every day is Mother's Day.

It was a promise I made to myself when Dad passed on to treat my Mum specially every single day.

Dad used to say to us, "When I am gone, you all will bully your mother." It would tick me off for I did not see myself as a bully, much less a mother bully.

Upon reflection, I found a kernel of truth in what he said.

Mum is a total sweetheart and she is the most easy-going person in the world. If I were to treat her badly, she would stomach it without saying a word.

So the potential to bully is very high.

In many ways, Mum reminds me of Mother Mary: her gentleness, her meek acceptance of life and her unending patience. I like to think I have inherited some of these traits despite having my Dad's trigger temper.

Friends, do tell me if I am deluded or not?

When people tell me I am a good daughter, I always say I am blessed with a good mother. Mum makes it easy for me to be a good daughter for she is so accepting of my flaws and she eats whatever I put in front of her, good and bad.

Because of her I have learned to be capable, resilient and independent.

I have learned to be in touch with my girly side.

I have learned that gentleness is a strength.

I have learned to laugh and delight in life, be content with what I have.

I have learned to be able to tell a phalaenopsis from a cattelaya and appreciate the beauty of both.



I thank the Lord for the gift of my mother and I pray she will be around for a long time still, for she is one of my anchors in life.

Spirit light

Photo of Halema`uma`u Crater

Source: Hawaiian Volcano Observatory

When molten lava is over 900 degrees C hot, it glows a bright orangey yellow, giving off light that can be seen from a distance.

I spent this Pentecost weekend attending a Life in the Spirit Seminar (LISS) facilitated by "Alex Loo Sdn Bhd" as Fr. Arro called the team.

Having attended one previously in 2003, I was not very keen on attending another except it happened to be in my parish. So to support the efforts of my parish community, I decided to attend.

Plus, what better way to spend Pentecost than to experience the Holy Spirit in a seminar that recognized and celebrated His power?

It was a spirit-full event and I came away with the Spirit burning even brighter in my heart, much like molten lava.

I am even more convinced of how much Jesus loves me and I feel truly blessed to have experienced that knowledge in my heart and soul, and not just merely in my mind.

What made it especially wonderful was that my cousin and her husband had attended the seminar as well. And it is very cool to witness a family member you love experience the power of the Holy Spirit for the very first time and be on fire. I feel like a proud mama!

Of course there was the drama of people resting in the Spirit, dropping like nine pins, a sea of healing tears and the heady rush of joy of a crowd 250-strong on a mutual spiritual high.

While being able to feel such elation and inner joy is great, faith is not merely emotion-driven.

For me, the most important message was in the final talk by Fr. Arro on how to grow in the Spirit.

He gave four simple ways on how we can continue to chart spiritual progress in our lives:

1) An eagerness and fidelity to prayer - switching to God's channel every day for some "quiet time" is vital for unless we give ourselves the chance to listen to God, we will not be able to know Him intimately and build a relationship full of vitality.

"Prayer is not magic," Fr. Arro reminded us. It should not be used as a means to get answers to questions in life. Rather prayer gives us the freedom to hear and love Him, to answer God's call, and consequently, know how to serve Him. Able to do the will of the Father, just like Jesus.

By starting the day with a question to the Father - "Show me how to love today?" - we will be better equipped to accomplish our mission daily, which is to sow seeds of love everywhere we go.

2) An eagerness and fidelity to reading and meditating on the Bible - Fr. A said the Bible should be our "best friend" and one we should look forward to spending time with, instead of viewing it as a chore we feel duty-bound to perform.

He encouraged us to use good Bible commentaries and attend Bible study courses to gain a better understanding.

While we may not understand everything, we must persist in reading consistently and systematically. In bite-sized pieces so as not to feel overwhelmed.

And the best starting point is to begin with is one of the four gospels.

3) To serve eagerly - with an open heart, we do whatever the Lord asks of us.

If we seek to be kingdom-builders, signs of God's love in the world, then we must see what is needed and do our best to fulfil the needs of the community by serving in the capacity we are called to by Jesus.

Always remember, it's not doing what I want to do, but doing what He wants me to do, whether I like it or not (and I won't like it much at times).

4) Accept that the process of forgiving and healing is a life-long one - there is no silver bullet or instant cure. Healing takes time, mostly a lifetime to achieve.

Even as we choose to forgive someone for hurting us, we may not have experienced healing.

And when healing does take place, we do not simply forget for "there is a duty of memory". However, if we can remember the past without bitterness, anger and a desire for revenge, then it is a sign of the presence of the Spirit within us.

We were reminded to avail ourselves of the power of the Eucharist in continuing the healing process.

Today I was given new heart, a new life in the Spirit. May the light shine bright always.

High fidelity

Audiophiles and avid photographers all seek perfection in music or photography. They spend tens of thousands of dollars on equipment that will reproduce sound or image that is as close to the real thing as possible.

This predilection for seeking perfection is completely human. Made in the image and likeness of God, we ourselves are closest to perfection when we strive to be like Jesus and when we are completely guided by the Holy Spirit.

However, when we get distracted by "noise" like fortune, fame, power and other worldly values, or when we have a distorted view of the world around us, we are unable to transcend our own fears, needs and values and we are hampered in our endeavours to be "perfect", selfless, like Jesus.

How do we rise out of our concupiscence, this desire for worldly things and the tendency to sin? How can we seek perfection and find it on this earth?

As is revealed in the readings this Ascension Day, we will receive power from the Holy Spirit to restore the kingdom - for it is through the spirit of wisdom and perception that we can hope in what we have been called to do and see the glories we stand to inherit through answering the call.

However, having the power but not exercising it is useless. This happens when we seek perfection in things that cannot last - perfection of the body, mind and material things instead of spiritual perfection. Or we ignore the call.

Seeking spiritual perfection does not mean we eschew pleasure and all things worldly. It does not mean we are called to live in the desert, away from all humankind.

Seeking spiritual perfection means we live by and in the Spirit by seeking the presence of God in our lives and surrendering our will to Him on a daily basis. It means answering the call to serve in the way we are each called to serve.

This requires work and fidelity of the highest order.

As St Paul exhorted the Romans:

"Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect."

So make it a perfect day. Stay faithful.


Note: High fidelity equipment enables minimal noise or distortion and produces sound that is pure.

Gifts of mystery

I cannot believe how incredibly fast the days have flown by. We are almost at the end of the Easter season.

It has truly been a season of new life for me - new ways of looking at and living out life which have presented real challenge lately.

For I found that I was spending more time feeling guilty about the things I had not been able to accomplish, things that I had wanted to do but had not physically or mentally been up to carrying out.

There are so many things on my to-do list, which seems to be growing longer faster than there are items scratched out from it.

I feel so out of control - one big disorganized mess and I am driving myself crazy, spiralling downward into complete chaos.

In the meantime, my body is protesting against my compulsive need to do everything, be everywhere at the same time and be all things to all people.

And so I have recently declared a sanity check and decided that I need to love myself a little more and affirm myself for being a good person. Go easy on myself.

Thus I have begun to look at the things I have accomplished, and which are usually dismissed as part and parcel of the daily grind of life and hence overlooked and unremarked.

Like how I cooked a delicious dinner tonight for Mum, my friend B. and myself and we had a good time. Everyone enjoyed the meal. The soup was rich in flavour, the mussel salad refreshingly piquant and the ginger chicken with mushroom was yummy.

So what if I didn't manage to mop the floor as I intended to today. I did sweep the floor. Yes, that deserves special mention.

During today's mass, Fr. Romeo remarked that we were given two gifts by God - one was love and the other was the Holy Spirit.

Love, not in the dreamy, romance novel kind of way, but a sacrificial act of love, and one that unleashes a redemptive force.

Just as Jesus' love for us was strong, concrete and dear, so too do we make His presence real in our lives when we act out of love.

The other gift that lives and moves deep within us is the Paraclete or the Holy Spirit. It vivifies and animates us, guiding us to engage others and life through action.

If we are Spirit-led, then we will receive the gifts and fruit of the Spirit, chief among which are wisdom, faithfulness, joy and peace, all great things to have.

Fr. Romeo called these two gifts mysterious for much as we try to wrap our brains around them, we can never understand them fully. We can only receive and appreciate, and in turn, give back.

If I rely on these two gifts, and the other gifts I have received as an individual to act in life, then I am good to go.

Go do what I can, on a daily basis, thanking the Creator for all things completed successfully and all things left unaccomplished.

The price of passion

Last Friday evening, JC, an old school-mate and good gal pal picked me up in her chauffeured-driven Bimmer and bought me dinner. We both had a great time catching up, sipping limoncello and wine, and dining on deliciously prepared Italian cuisine.

Her driver dropped me off after dinner and I walked up to my flat and into my room feeling distinctly blue.

There are aspects of my previous life that I miss at times. I miss dining out in ritzy restaurants on a whim. I miss travelling on business class. I miss taking off to exotic destinations or going on dive trips whenever I feel like it. I miss being able to buy something frivolous without batting an eyelid at the mind-boggling cost.

I DO mourn the loss of those fat paychecks and what I could do with them from time to time, even as I am grateful for the generosity of friends.

Don't get me wrong, I love my life the way it is now for I do NOT miss the stress, the inability to find meaning in what I did at work, the overwhelming despair I felt from being a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, and the battering my self-esteem and self-worth took as I struggled to fit into an environment I found absurd.

I was living a life without passion and it was truly a meaningless existence, made interesting and bearable only by the pleasures that the financial spoils afforded.

Would I go back to such a life? The answer is a definite no.

Would I do it again, that is to walk away from my previous life knowing what I know now about the opportunity cost of such a decision? It's a resounding YES!

For the decision was not so much motivated by fear or an act of cowardice, but by love, a new-found passion - for Jesus.

There is a saying by Lao Tzu: "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage."

This revelation of love in my life gave me both strength and courage to "leave the boat" and "walk on water", to choose a radical approach in life by submitting my will in all things to the Father (remember I am an "all or nothing" kinda gal).

There has never been an easier or a more difficult decision in my life. While I've experienced great joy and gained much, I have also suffered great loss and grieved tremendously.

What makes it all worthwhile is how fulfilled I am in this living, spousal relationship I have with Jesus.

Yes, I can just hear my friend, PC, say how I've been brain-washed or "psychoed" myself into thinking this way for how can it be possible to have an intimate relationship with a man who walked this earth over 2,000 years ago?

To paraphrase the angel Gabriel: "All things are possible with God."

Even as I experienced desolation last Friday evening, He spoke to me comfortingly and prophetically in the gospel of the day, words that were again echoed during Sunday mass two days later (see John 14) and at the Shaping Progress talk that ICPE's Woman to Woman ministry organized at CANA that afternoon.

There is a price to pay for passion, Jesus paid for it with His life as he sought to do the will of His Father.

If I choose spiritual progress, to become more and more like Him, then I, too, must be willing and able to pay the price.

Albert Camus said: "A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing."

I hope to spare nothing in pursuing my passion for "the Way and the Truth and the Life" every day.

WONDER child

WONDER
I am. A girl child.
A luminous rosebud of femininity.
Tender-hearted and fragile
But resilient to the core.
I drink in the world in wide-eyed wonder
Loving – to the last atom of my being.
I giggle. I skip. I whoop. I glide.
Pure delight unto myself and others.
I’m on a magical, never-ending ride.
I slumber in the safe haven of my rainbow-tinted world.

DESPAIR
I am. A girl child.
A shrinking, prickly touch-me-not.
Afraid, ashamed and all alone
I’m crippled to the core.
In my broken, dank, dark world
I am malodorous, reeking despair through every pore.
I wail. I thrash. I scream. I slash.
A hateful creature - unloved by all.
Find me in the bowels of misery
Where I am tormented by my own existence hourly.

I am that girl child
Residing inside a woman preciously knitted
Sometimes light-hearted, sometimes brooding.
She is a cocktail of experience-shaken perception and emotion
A multi-flavoured mix of wonder and despair.
She doesn’t know it but she has the power to change the world
In a single heartbeat.
If only she would let me out to play
To be comforted and healed
By my Father’s warm and gentle hands
So that in time I become more wonder than despair
And hand in hand we can sing in resonant accord.

By Jackie Pau 2008

In John Bradshaw's Home Coming Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child, he identifies the wonder child as having these natural traits:

Wonder
Optimism
Naivete
Dependence
Emotions
Resilience
Free play
Uniqueness
Love

Golden jubilee

Last night I accompanied Mum to a wedding anniversary celebration. Old friends of my parents who have attained what is increasingly rare as time goes by - 50 years of marriage and still going strong.

It was great to see them surrounded by children, grand-children and friends, celebrating the cumulation of their lives together as husband and wife. What a special evening!

Biblically, 50 is the number of jubilee or celebration, a time of deliverance and rest, and, of grace as it is the perfect consummation of time.

Fifty days after Jesus was resurrected, the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples in the upper room and thus the gift of the Spirit was given to humankind on Pentecost.

So which ever way you slice it, 50 is a powerful number and cause for celebration.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the feast last night (and paying today for over-indulging), there was much to digest from last Sunday's gospel reading of the apostles' meeting of Jesus on the road to Emmaus.

As Fr. Renckens explained, we do not have the readings from the Bible before the Eucharist just to make mass longer, rather it is by listening to the word of God and by opening our hearts and minds to receive Him that we may truly be transformed by our faith during the Eucharistic celebration.

Through this transformation, we are then better able to emulate Christ and reflect His love in our actions in our daily lives.

Just as our bodies require food every day to function well, so do our minds and hearts require the bread of life a.k.a. Jesus, through prayer, especially through meditating on Scripture, to maintain healthy spiritual lives.

In Matthew's gospel. Jesus responded to temptation brought on by hunger resulting from 40 days of fasting with this: "One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."

I hope to spend these 50 days of the Easter season feasting on God's words and arriving at Pentecost in a suitable mood of jubilation.

All or nothing

I come from a family of people who are extremist in thinking. It's either in or out, a resounding yes or an emphatic no, all or nothing. And when it comes to major decisions, there is no room for compromise.

And once you put "your hand to the plow", there is no turning back, no regrets. Die, die, must go all the way.

It hasn't won me any popularity contests and I've been accused of being hard-nosed, stubborn and unyielding, to which I reply simply, "I just know what I want out of life so why should I settle for less when only the best will do?"

So I have chosen to follow Christ and the church His death gave birth to, founded by Peter, the apostle He tasked with being the shepherd of His flock.

This means following the teachings of the Church , not just selectively adopting the teachings that sit easy with me but the whole enchilada: teachings on the dignity of the human person, the respect for all life, whether it be in the womb or non-human and the sanctity of family and marriage.

Upholding age-old traditions and teachings in the modern world may seem anachronistic, ridiculous even, but having lived my life both ways, I find that "keeping to the rules" of the Church have given me the freedom and space to be the unique individual that I was created to be and to be happy, at peace with myself.

While I have always tried to be non-judgmental about the life choices of friends and family members, loving them unconditionally, I hold myself to a standard that not many of them understand or appreciate.

Certainly a standard I hope they will one day adopt, but it's not one I expect them to adhere to unwillingly even though I do happen to think that it is the way, the truth and the life. (That's the other thing about my family, we always think we are right...because we are. Hah!)

I spent a long time going down the road of compromise that led to many dead ends. So now that I've found the narrow path, uncomfortable it may be at times to tread, it is the road I've chosen to travel on and I am very focused on keeping to the path. No detours allowed.

For the thing about compromise is this, it opens the door a crack and before you know it, you have rationalized your way to a wide-open door of confusion and pain, much like Pandora's box*.

We all know there is no such thing as a little bit wrong and two wrongs definitely do not make a right, so don't even go there.

I do admit it gets tiring and disheartening at times, having to explain my views and being misunderstood by loved ones, but I will not go back to living in fear, or have my freedom circumscribed by what people or society think of me.

Anyway, whatever I have to face in life pales in comparison to what Jesus had to - rejection of his identity, hatred born of fear and an excruciating death for loving (and healing) people the way He did.

When I think of how much Jesus loved and loves me - at all cost - as His follower, I can only follow the advice of the prophet Samuel to "serve him, faithfully with all your heart; for consider what great things he has done for you."

Alleluia. Amen.


* In Greek mythology, Pandora's curiosity led to her opening the box (or jar) that contained all the evils of mankind and hope, and thus she let loose all evil in the world but still kept hope captive inside the container.

A new reality

I love Easter. I love going for morning mass, reliving the mystery of Christ's resurrection and singing exuberant Easter hymns.

I love receiving chocolate or decorated eggs and I love celebrating the newness of life and all the promise that comes with it.

The feasting that usually comes with the season is reason to celebrate as well

Easter is for me a season of grace.

While there will always be scattered throughout life, periods of pure joy, utter contentment and immeasurable pleasure - times of grace - our lives remain grounded in reality. A reality that includes hurt, loss, conflict, violence, suffering, pain, sickness and death.

Moments of grace, what I call God-reality, are also opportunities to perceive and acknowledge the presence of God in our lives every day, and His manifold and unique blessings. Some of them so small that they are often overlooked as we go chasing after the BIG moments.

We each have an in-built survival instinct to avoid pain and avoid getting hurt, but that should not lead us to escape from the reality of life in its routine, mundane existence and the challenges that it presents.

To live only for pleasure, going from one high to the next, dismissing everything else in between as insignificant and irrelevant.

Or worse, relying on substances, people and activity to run away from what is undesirable in life, creating a make-believe world, editing out all the unsavoury, unwanted bits.

Real life can be painful and downright difficult, hard to make sense of at times, but we should never be defeated by it nor should we go into denial and stay there, buffered by a substance-induced fog.

Instead we can learn to live in the reality of life, relying on Jesus (who is the ultimate model of courage and sacrificial love) for the strength and wisdom to embrace the experience and use it to transform us into more human and humane beings.

God never promised a life without suffering, but if we trust in Him, then we will be given what is necessary to grab adversity by the horns and deal with it in a constructive, life-enriching manner.

So seek Him in all things and allow Him to transform reality into something new, making each day an Easter experience.

Ever Easter

If I knew then what I know now,
I would've told you I loved you and how.
I would've kissed your cheek every day,
I would've laughed your grouchiness away.
I would've learnt, at your hand, the art of cooking,
Instead of saying "Some other day" and not looking.
I would've tried to be the daughter you wanted.
Affectionate and gentle, yet by you not daunted.
I would've put in some serious one-on-one quality time,
Taken you on a trip to the moon, given you reason and rhyme
To be proud of me every single day,
As I transpose your wisdom, doing things my way.
I would've told you how proud I am to be
Your apple, your pearl, your one and only.
Most of all I would've told you,
How much I would be missing you.
For without you now in my life,
It feels much like deep in my gut a knife.
Yet I know you are never very far away,
For you reside within my heart, lodged in my DNA.
All that I am, the graces I've been bestowed,
It's because of you, Dad, to you gratitude is owed.

So if you think me a woman wise, strong and wonderful,
It's just that I've been blessed by my fathers in ways bountiful.
With love unconditional and life everlasting,
I arise each new day to a radiant, Easter morning.

Cultivating beauty

When I read the article Skinny But Fat in last week’s Urban about body parts that transgress the “perfect body” standards of beauty, I of course first checked to see which ones I was guilty of , give ‘em a little squeeze and go “Too bad” before I resignedly but happily went about my day.

Arm scallops, buffalo humps, bat wings, neck wattles… good if you don’t have them but it’s not the end of the world if you do. Or is it? Judging but the measures recommended in the article, it would seem so. Expensive treatments, surgery even.

This was for me a “It’s a crazy world” moment and reminded me why I rarely read beauty magazines any more.

While strolling through the National Museum to catch the Greek masterpieces from the Louvre yesterday morning, I have to say I fleetingly wished I lived in that era for Aphrodite, the goddess of love, had a figure not too dissimilar from mine. Wow, I’d be considered body beautiful then. Goddess material. Way cool.

One of the things I love about being in my forties is a growing and equable acceptance of my self – mind, body and spirit.

I’ll never be perfect but I am loved and accepted for who I am (thanks to JC), so I don’t give.

Sure, I do bemoan my child-bearing hips and Rubenesque thighs, especially when I am clothes shopping and cannot find much to fit, but cultivating inner beauty is of much more consequence to me.

I aspire to be clothed in humility, patience, perseverance and deep inner strength like Mother Mary.

Or to be faith-filled, wise and courageous like Queen Esther, saving her people from destruction.

Or attentive, loving and generous like Mary Magdalene and thus be able to see Jesus face to face.

While I believe as a woman I should always take pride in my appearance and make an effort to look presentable, I prefer to spend time on beauty tips that Sam Levenson wrote for his grandchild:

Time Tested Beauty Tips

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; Never throw out anybody.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.

The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows, and the beauty of a woman with passing years only grows!

Celebrating your senses

Do you make use of your senses in a way that celebrates life?

Or do you merely use your senses in a strictly functional way, using them only to avoid potentially dangerous situations?

Going about your day on auto pilot, rushing around, your brain too distracted to really register all the different sights, sounds,tastes, smells and sensations, your spirit completely unmoved by your environment.

If it is the latter, then you are not using your gifts, your senses and your intellect, to experience life to its fullest potential.

You are also not giving thanks to the Creator for His bountiful gifts in the way that thanks should be given.

St Irenaeus said, "The glory of God is man fully alive."

If we believe in God and we see Him in our lives, then this relationship we have with our Father gives us life and enables us to enjoy His goodness when we participate in life, never forgetting that He is the source of all activity throughout creation.

Can we claim to be fully alive if we do not seek and find beauty in all things, good and bad?

Is it possible to have a vibrant, intimate relationship with Jesus when we do not engage our senses and move toward what is true and what is good in life?

So next time you watch the sun set, smell your mother's stir-fried ginger chicken wafting through the air, hear the delighted laugh of a child, feel the cool breeze caressing your skin or savour the last sip of coffee on your tongue, stop and contemplate, live in the moment and say a small, quick thank you to the One who made all this possible.

Then you will come to your senses like the blind man who was given the gift of sight by Jesus and start seeing with the spiritual sight of faith... and celebrate.

Aqua vitae

Over 70 per cent of the earth is covered in it. Seventy per cent of our bodies consist of it.

Without it, all living forms cannot grow and eventually die. Life only begins when it is present.

It cleanses, refreshes, even brings healing.

Beyond the physiological level, it is a gift of the Spirit, a gift that in baptism we are purified and reborn into new life.

What an unimaginably precious gift water is in all its rich nuances of meaning and yet, we often take for granted, misuse, and even abuse this gift.

Like the woman at the well, we have been given living water that will become “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” inside each of us.

However, very often our thirst for God takes us away from Him rather than toward Him for our senses and our intellect tell us that the other alternatives are more attractive.

Unless we are able to seek within, this thirst will never be slaked. Instead we become slave to things, people and ideas, finding temporal happiness but not much inner peace, driven on by our unquenchable needs, subsisting only on a primal level.

We become superstitious, idol-worshippers, spiritually bound by the walls of our worldly beliefs, living dependent "lives of quiet desperation" but convincing ourselves we are living the dream.

When the waters grow muddy. we lose the ability to see with supernatural clarity and eventually treat this baptismal gift as a mirage, a tantalizing but capricious figment of imagination.

To come to the spring within requires first the recognition and acceptance of self, of who I am.

Together with an openness of heart and mind to Jesus and a faith-filled imagination to see beyond what is perceived as reality, we can be transformed.

Just as the woman at the well was.

Now this is not a one-off, chance occurrence but something that can happen again and again in our lives , IF we allow it.

Today’s gospel reminds me of the importance of drinking regularly from the waters of life: to meet Jesus where I am and sit quietly, replete with His transforming love.

So if you're thirsty, travel inside and treat yourself to some living water. Satisfaction is guaranteed.

Love and marriage

Just yesterday, I chatted with two friends in the course of my day and one asked me whether I wanted to get married while the other asked if I had met that special someone yet?

I have to admit that the concept of marriage has popped up in my consciousness a fair bit recently and I have been reflecting on what it means in my current state of singlehood.

Coincidentally, I had spent the morning watching Christopher West’s Created and Redeemed on Living the “Great Mystery” of Marriage.

Watching the DVD helped me understand the longings of my heart for each of us is created for marriage, to be in union with "Christ the Bridegroom", who out of deep love wants to "‘impregnate’ us with divine life.”

Can I, as a single, live out marriage vows and experience Christ’s love as “free, total, faithful and fruitful”?

Having received the complete gift of Christ’s love, who laid down His life for me of His own volition so that I can live life to the fullest, I am learning to reciprocate that love and in turn, love Him in a manner that is “free, total, faithful and fruitful”, which, incidentally, is what couples pledge each other in the sacramental vows of marriage on their wedding day.

While I lack the physical presence of a husband, and at times wish that I had someone to cuddle just before I fall asleep, I can honestly say that I do not want for much at this point in my life. Even the occasional jagged edge of loneliness is smoothed over by spending time with Jesus.

Abraham Maslow found that humans have an instinctual need to make the most of their unique abilities, to self-actualize and be the best they can be once they had satisfied all their physiological needs.

Viktor Frankl took the concept of self-actualization one step further and posited that self-actualization is merely a side effect of self-transcendence, for our search for meaning in life takes us outside ourselves and our psyches into the world.

Falling in love (when self-transcendence becomes an actuality) with Jesus has led me to seek beyond my own needs and wants. And being faithful to Him means being faithful to His vision of life here on earth: to love others as He has loved and continues to love me -with a love that is unconditional, tender, compassionate and boundless.

Secure in His embrace, I am content, at peace with myself and brimming with inner joy. For what matters most in my life is His happiness and in seeking to please Him as a bride pleases her bridegroom, and vice versa.

Ain't love grand?

Forty days

There is a common trait in my family that I suspect runs in many families.

We tend to get impatient with the people that mean the most to us and end up speaking in curt tones to one another, saying things that hurt the other.

Why do we do it when we claim to love members of our family dearly? There is no reason on this planet to treat another human being without respect or basic courtesy, much less one who is loved.

The haunting lyrics of Alicia Keys's song Like you'll never see me again are an apt reminder:

"I don’t wanna forget the present is a gift
And I don’t wanna take for granted the time you may have here with me
‘Cause Lord only knows another day is not really guaranteed"

As she cautions in the song, don't wait until you lose it to know what love really is.

While it can be pleasant to reminisce about the past and to dream about the future, we live in the present and should therefore recognize its import and the impact our actions have living each moment of the present.

"The challenge of Lent is to recognize the place good things have in our lives and not be addicted to them," said Fr. Romeo during his homily yesterday.

Just as a disproportionate amount of attention on the "good things" is bad, so is a total lack of appreciation for them.

He went on to say that our biggest temptations came not from our weaknesses but from our strengths.

We can be tempted to be arrogant in our intelligence. Likewise, we can be tempted to discount and even abuse the bonds of love we have been blessed with in our relationships.

The central message of Lent is to renew our hearts and renew the way we live our lives. Refresh our relationships, not just with Jesus in our personal prayer time, but also with others, in order to enrich the relationship we each have with Him. For we cannot profess to love Christ if we do not love one another.

Just as we spring-clean our houses during the Lunar New Year, so must we spring-clean our hearts and minds.

It is said that it takes 21 days to form a habit. During Lent, we are given 40 days to change the way we normally lead our lives and enter Easter transformed by this season of grace.

So don't let the time go by unmarked. Make a change in the way you normally live your life today.

World views

As our last W2W meeting we were discussing how we viewed five areas of our lives - self, life, others, the world and God. (We are in the middle of John Powell's The Fully Alive Experience.)

My vision of the world scored really high for I saw the world as a beautiful place that God had created. When M. shared that she couldn't score that section and that she thought she ultimately saw the world as a scary, frightening place it got me thinking.

She is not wrong. Look at the fighting and unrest going on in the world. The mindless violence. Multitudes of people being abused, oppressed and killed. Disasters of all manner you read about in the newspaper every morning. The world IS a grim place.

So have I hardened my heart so that I am inured to the horrors of the world? Or am I myopic and cannot see beyond my nose and hence live life cocooned in my own little world?

I suspect I am guilty of both instances at times and can only pray that they are few and far between.

However, I also choose to see the glory of a sunrise breaking over the distinctive skyline, the graceful beauty of the trees that grow outside my window, or the elegance of herons wading in the canal in the cool dawn air as the world that God made and the world that man has contributed in adorning.

All the ugliness and the suffering to be found are mainly man-ufactured and have little to do with the world we have been tasked to be stewards of, a world that evolves and surprises as it revolves around a primordial cycle of its own.

There is, of course, an inherent fragility in life. Everything ages as time passes. People, animals, plants, fall sick and die. Death cannot be denied, or explained at times. But that's what makes life, the world, even more poignantly glorious. The transience of natural law that can be cause for sorrow and celebration simultaneously.

The world we live in cannot be a perfect place - we already know that as paradise was lost due to the disobedience of the first humans. It will only come to perfection when we are reunited with Jesus beyond death. Or when we choose to live out God's will in our lives and the beatitudes Jesus gave in His sermon on the mount.



So let us honour the world we have been given and make it a better place by staying focused on God and never losing hope; being poor in spirit, pure of heart and compassionate, principled kingdom-builders.

Consequently, if we learn to view the world through Christ's eyes, maybe the world won't seem so scary after all.

Guiding Light

Today's psalm, Psalm 27, is an especially rousing one and one which gives me heart in times of struggle.

Entitled Triumphant Song of Confidence of David, it is one of bold testimony of the Lord's protection and fidelity.

"The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?"

It is a psalm that I can see St. Paul praying often for the triumph of light over darkness is one he experienced most literally in his body on the road to Damascus.

As I reflected on the feast day of St. Paul's conversion last Friday, I gave thanks for his enthusiasm and untiring effort to bring Christ to the rest of the world - something that he continues to do today through his letters.

St. Paul's letters, which pre-dated the writing of the four gospels, are a source of inspiration and a testament to the ingenuity and dedication of one man.

Variations on the same theme, his letters to diverse communities answered the questions each struggled with, and addressed specific needs in very practical terms, becoming a how-to guide on living in the Spirit.

While I do not pretend to offer such profound wisdom in my blog writing, I do aspire to bring Christ to those who read it.

To get people to give pause and ponder a little.

Get curious about this amazing man, Jesus Christ, who lived over 2,000 years ago and why He still continues to impact so many lives today.

Like St. Paul, the presence of Jesus is real in my life, and this living relationship I have with Christ brings me such joy that I want very much to spread this joy to everyone I meet.

To say to those who live in darkness that life doesn't have to be that way. There is a much better alternative.

As Psalm 27 proclaims "I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."

This has become a truth I live out every single day.

While there are passages of dark I have to navigate through in life - it's never all hunky dory all the time - I know that if I focus on the light ahead that is Christ, then He will guide me through tough times. He will never forsake me.

I am content to "live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life" and I can no longer envisage my life any other way.

All it takes, as Fr. Arro advised today in his homily, is for us to make time for prayer and reading Scripture on a regular basis.

So seek His face and you will not lose your way.