Baby bro called two weeks ago and we had a lovely long chat. As always, the conversation was an exchange of diverse and varied ideas as we shared our lives for we are such different people, travelling on such disparate paths.
It is our love for each other, a bond forged in childhood, which keeps our hearts open, struggling to understand at times, but mostly succeeding in demonstrating a love accepting of each other's opinions, beliefs and foibles.
My brother knows I love him deeply and I only desire to see him happy and fulfilled, becoming the man he was created to be: a good man who can rock this world. (Don't get me wrong, bro, I know you are doing good, but you were created to do spectacular things.)
So when we connect, as big sister, I like to challenge him to grow and to be a better man while he challenges me to be less insular, self-righteous or hidebound.
When I first established a living relationship with Jesus, I was passionate about "doing the right thing" and becoming a model Christian to show my love for Him.
On fire, I wanted everyone to experience what I had, that God's love is amazing and the highest of highs.
I was dismayed, especially when people I love, made choices that brought them further away from that experience or alienated themselves from the experience of enjoying God as loving Father.
I have since learnt that God's timing is perfect. His way is best and it is not for me to insist on what I think is right or best. Yes, it's that old Messianic/Pharisaic complex.
During my Seven Fountains retreat, I meditated on John 21:1-14 and it reminded me that, like the disciples who were in the boat, we are all making our way to Christ on the shore, whether we immediately recognize Him, then sit back to contemplate Him quietly; whether we jump into the water like Peter and swim toward Him with urgent excitement; or whether we make sure we secure our great catch before rowing to shore to meet Him.
It happened to be All Souls' Day that day and I was reflecting on life after death and what happened to the souls in purgatory. As if Fr. David read my thoughts, his homily answered my questions.
No one really knows what will happen when we die but it is clear that Jesus came to save everyone. Christianity is an all-inclusive religion, whether we believe implicitly or explicitly. So perhaps we will all eventually make our way back to Him, leaving hell and purgatory empty, cold places.
That said, this aspect of God's love and mercy does not give us license to dally or go with a less loving, selfish choice (most of us will not choose evil) just because we feel the world has more to offer us than God.
As we enter the season of Advent today, we are reminded by the readings to have hope but to also stay awake for we do not know when the end will come and we will be held accountable for what we did with our lives on earth.
Rather than focus on possible dire consequences, I like to focus on what choosing God and His ways means in the here and now (putting aside the issue of eternal life) for delay means denying ourselves the multiple blessings of an active and practised faith.
I honestly do not care if I go to heaven or hell. What I care about is cultivating this precious love relationship I have with Jesus.
This may involve choices that are difficult and seemingly foolish by today's standards.
It will certainly guarantee persecution, even from those we love.
And, we may possibly not see the rewards in this life.
So why do it?
Because true love is not easy to find and having found it, I am not about to throw it away. I am willing to sacrifice much for this relationship. Paradoxically, I have found that the more I give up, the more I gain as Jesus had pointed out to the rich young man who sought the key to eternal life.
Fr. Ignatius reminded me recently that Christians are called to be signs of contradiction in the world today. So we must not be afraid to speak up for love and truth as Jesus did, and to live it. To change the world by changing who we are, first of all.
My cousin A. says we cannot defy the "scourge of our forefathers" and we are unable to effect change. She forgets that all things are possible with God.
If we are clear about what is our mission in life, we can move mountains and change the landscape (internally and externally) if, like Jesus, we are in tune with the Father and His ways by keeping the communication lines wide open all the time.
As I give thanks for family and friends who are travelling with me on the boat of life, I pray that each one of us will experience the hope surrounding the birth of Emmanuel, God with us, in special and unique ways, and be the Christ child to those around us.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Teresa of Avila
I recently read the biography Teresa of Avila written by Marcelle Auclair and I was blown away.
St. Teresa was completely feminine in her sensibilities* but so steeped in holiness that she was blessed with being able to experience ecstasy, a state of perfect union with God, when she prayed in silent contemplation.
Due to my grandmother's faith in the effectiveness of the prayers of Carmelite nuns, I have, from a very young age, always been aware of this cloistered order and grew up visiting the sisters regularly during festive occasions.
But given the austerity of the lifestyle, I came to the conclusion very early on in life that the person who founded this order must have been a formidable and dour woman who did not know how to have fun.
I had to alter this long-held impression upon closer study of this amazing woman.
Yes, she was formidable in how she utilized all her God-given talents to the best of her ability to reform and rejuvenate the Carmelite order, but she also sounds like a woman I would want to associate with and to emulate, for she was joyful, cheerful, funny, charming, witty, kind, wise, pragmatic, creative, humble and so imbued with common sense that she understood exactly what was needed to realize and maintain the spiritual aspirations of those who were called to live in her cloistered communities.
She was very big on self-knowledge, moderation, humility and silent prayer. Despite her gruelling schedule, she found time to write in order to better help her nuns practise the disciplines of "mental prayer" for she understood too well the distractions of noise.
"For speaking distracts; silence and action concentrate our mind and give it strength..."
What also inspires me greatly is that St. Teresa came to be this woman of deep and constant prayer, eschewing worldly comforts only when she was in her mid-forties. Although she ran away from home at the age of seven to be a martyr and she later entered a convent in her youth, she was far from becoming this great mystic and saint who is today recognized as a Doctor of the Church.
Auclair writes: "Teresa did become a saint by sheer force of willing it and with the grace of God. It is this process of achieving sanctity, this slow and costly transformation, which makes her life an unparalleled example for us."
She is truly a great role model even today, for her determination to rise above all of life's challenges steered her through persecution, privation, obstacles, lifelong illness and loss. Her ability to find her centre in God was singular.
And despite the outward signs she received of God's favour, all the miracles that happened during her lifetime, she never let it go to her head or saw herself as above anyone else.
She held on fast to love, humility, obedience and work and even in her latter years, retained a child-like innocence and simplicity, rare in a person who had already accomplished so much, moving mountains along the way.
When my heart is full of disquiet, I go back to this poem she wrote and sing the Taizé** version which always brings me back to what is important in life:
Let nothing trouble you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things pass away,
God alone is unchanging.
Patience obtains everything.
The one who possesses God lacks nothing,
God alone suffices.
And with this simple act, my fears are quelled.
"All is nothing. God is all."
* Mother Teresa of Jesus, as she was known, loved beautiful things, music, dancing and cleanliness. She had a great eye for detail and a great mind for organization, and she could spin, sew, cook and keep a household sparkling and running like clockwork.
** http://www.giamusic.com/searchPDFS/G5580.pdf
St. Teresa was completely feminine in her sensibilities* but so steeped in holiness that she was blessed with being able to experience ecstasy, a state of perfect union with God, when she prayed in silent contemplation.
Due to my grandmother's faith in the effectiveness of the prayers of Carmelite nuns, I have, from a very young age, always been aware of this cloistered order and grew up visiting the sisters regularly during festive occasions.
But given the austerity of the lifestyle, I came to the conclusion very early on in life that the person who founded this order must have been a formidable and dour woman who did not know how to have fun.
I had to alter this long-held impression upon closer study of this amazing woman.
Yes, she was formidable in how she utilized all her God-given talents to the best of her ability to reform and rejuvenate the Carmelite order, but she also sounds like a woman I would want to associate with and to emulate, for she was joyful, cheerful, funny, charming, witty, kind, wise, pragmatic, creative, humble and so imbued with common sense that she understood exactly what was needed to realize and maintain the spiritual aspirations of those who were called to live in her cloistered communities.
She was very big on self-knowledge, moderation, humility and silent prayer. Despite her gruelling schedule, she found time to write in order to better help her nuns practise the disciplines of "mental prayer" for she understood too well the distractions of noise.
"For speaking distracts; silence and action concentrate our mind and give it strength..."
What also inspires me greatly is that St. Teresa came to be this woman of deep and constant prayer, eschewing worldly comforts only when she was in her mid-forties. Although she ran away from home at the age of seven to be a martyr and she later entered a convent in her youth, she was far from becoming this great mystic and saint who is today recognized as a Doctor of the Church.
Auclair writes: "Teresa did become a saint by sheer force of willing it and with the grace of God. It is this process of achieving sanctity, this slow and costly transformation, which makes her life an unparalleled example for us."
She is truly a great role model even today, for her determination to rise above all of life's challenges steered her through persecution, privation, obstacles, lifelong illness and loss. Her ability to find her centre in God was singular.
And despite the outward signs she received of God's favour, all the miracles that happened during her lifetime, she never let it go to her head or saw herself as above anyone else.
She held on fast to love, humility, obedience and work and even in her latter years, retained a child-like innocence and simplicity, rare in a person who had already accomplished so much, moving mountains along the way.
When my heart is full of disquiet, I go back to this poem she wrote and sing the Taizé** version which always brings me back to what is important in life:
Let nothing trouble you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things pass away,
God alone is unchanging.
Patience obtains everything.
The one who possesses God lacks nothing,
God alone suffices.
And with this simple act, my fears are quelled.
"All is nothing. God is all."
* Mother Teresa of Jesus, as she was known, loved beautiful things, music, dancing and cleanliness. She had a great eye for detail and a great mind for organization, and she could spin, sew, cook and keep a household sparkling and running like clockwork.
** http://www.giamusic.com/searchPDFS/G5580.pdf
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Perfect seven
I just returned from my first silent retreat yesterday. I was in Chiang Mai at The Seven Fountains, a Jesuit Spirituality Centre. It was a week of total grace!
The number seven represents spiritual perfection in the Bible.
Seven are the gifts of the Holy Spirit* endowed upon us in Baptism and strengthened in Confirmation.
If you are interested, the seven gifts are wisdom, understanding, counsel (right judgment), fortitude (courage), knowledge, piety (reverence) and fear of the Lord (wonder and awe).
I spent seven days at Seven Fountains, and this was after seven years of my initial conversion experience so I see a lot of symmetry in the timing and I know that how I was led there is a God-incidence (thanks B., it was really you who inspired me to go) and no accident.
If you have been following my blog, you will note that I have been experiencing a season of spiritual dryness and desolation for some time now.
People are funny, or maybe I am funny, it's not as if I did not know what I needed to do, but I could not muster the effort to do the necessary, which was put aside time for prayer, but instead decided to desiccate in the aridity of the desert.
In the battle of flesh versus spirit, the spirit must win from time to time and this was one of those times. Thank God!
I was just telling D. this morning to expect obstacles to commitments that will bring us closer to God for the devil will try to hinder such commitments.
Lest we forget, there is a spiritual battle going that goes beyond flesh and blood so we must guard the gift of our faith well if we seek to remain true every step of the way, but I won't bore you with details beyond saying Paul says it best in Ephesians 6.
Obstacles aside, I experienced such a revelation of God's love and mercy that I was, still am, overwhelmed and beyond awed.
I told my spiritual director Fr. Olivier (a lovely, lovely man) that I finally understood why the Bible is known as God's love letter to us.
Consolation upon revelation, I could not stop singing Him praise and paeans of gratitude as He spoke to my heart with such tenderness and perspicacity.
The format of prayer was simple. Four daily meditations based on Scripture. Take 30 minutes for each meditation and an additional 10 minutes before commencing the meditation to still the mind, heart and body.
To maintain the spiritual ambience, silence was observed throughout the day apart from the meeting with my SD and the peace offering during evening mass. This includes keeping any form of communication to a bare minimum, and preferably at the end of the day, for if we carry the baggage of our daily lives with us, we will not get very far...)
It was very liberating for me to maintain the disciplines of prayer for my days were made simple and focused. And the only person I spoke to was God, who, in the silence, responded in kind and proved quite talkative.
I did not lack for companionship and I was never bored.
Dorothy Day, one of our modern day saints, was a woman of action who always took regular time-outs for contemplation, for she saw it as being vital for her spiritual life.
After my Seven Fountains experience, I begin to see why she was so diligent about retreating from the world in silence. I am convinced of the efficacy of an annual retreat to refresh the soul and I intend to make another next year, instead of waiting another seven years.
Spirit, and God willing.
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The number seven represents spiritual perfection in the Bible.
Seven are the gifts of the Holy Spirit* endowed upon us in Baptism and strengthened in Confirmation.
If you are interested, the seven gifts are wisdom, understanding, counsel (right judgment), fortitude (courage), knowledge, piety (reverence) and fear of the Lord (wonder and awe).
I spent seven days at Seven Fountains, and this was after seven years of my initial conversion experience so I see a lot of symmetry in the timing and I know that how I was led there is a God-incidence (thanks B., it was really you who inspired me to go) and no accident.
If you have been following my blog, you will note that I have been experiencing a season of spiritual dryness and desolation for some time now.
People are funny, or maybe I am funny, it's not as if I did not know what I needed to do, but I could not muster the effort to do the necessary, which was put aside time for prayer, but instead decided to desiccate in the aridity of the desert.
In the battle of flesh versus spirit, the spirit must win from time to time and this was one of those times. Thank God!
I was just telling D. this morning to expect obstacles to commitments that will bring us closer to God for the devil will try to hinder such commitments.
Lest we forget, there is a spiritual battle going that goes beyond flesh and blood so we must guard the gift of our faith well if we seek to remain true every step of the way, but I won't bore you with details beyond saying Paul says it best in Ephesians 6.
Obstacles aside, I experienced such a revelation of God's love and mercy that I was, still am, overwhelmed and beyond awed.
I told my spiritual director Fr. Olivier (a lovely, lovely man) that I finally understood why the Bible is known as God's love letter to us.
Consolation upon revelation, I could not stop singing Him praise and paeans of gratitude as He spoke to my heart with such tenderness and perspicacity.
The format of prayer was simple. Four daily meditations based on Scripture. Take 30 minutes for each meditation and an additional 10 minutes before commencing the meditation to still the mind, heart and body.
To maintain the spiritual ambience, silence was observed throughout the day apart from the meeting with my SD and the peace offering during evening mass. This includes keeping any form of communication to a bare minimum, and preferably at the end of the day, for if we carry the baggage of our daily lives with us, we will not get very far...)
It was very liberating for me to maintain the disciplines of prayer for my days were made simple and focused. And the only person I spoke to was God, who, in the silence, responded in kind and proved quite talkative.
I did not lack for companionship and I was never bored.
Dorothy Day, one of our modern day saints, was a woman of action who always took regular time-outs for contemplation, for she saw it as being vital for her spiritual life.
After my Seven Fountains experience, I begin to see why she was so diligent about retreating from the world in silence. I am convinced of the efficacy of an annual retreat to refresh the soul and I intend to make another next year, instead of waiting another seven years.
Spirit, and God willing.
.jpg)
* Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1831.
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