Saying yes to wholeness

It has been an exhausting couple of weeks helping out at the five-day Pastoral Care Course entitled Empowering the Wounded Healer that just ended two Sundays ago as well as being involved in an earlier weekend retreat for Church of The Nativity of The Blessed Virgin Mary and an afternoon talk by Pia Attard entitled In Search of the Beloved.

There are so many things that have touched my heart - from lessons relearned to new discoveries. I am humbled and awed at just how God works and moves in mysterious and wonderful ways, not just in the lives of others, but in my own life. Truly the more one serves, the more graces one receives.

Perhaps the most important reminder for me this August is that saying yes to Jesus requires a lifetime of repeating the same response with fresh heart every day, something that somehow doesn't get easier with time.

My yes occasionally requires my willing to go the way I know I should even when my heart isn't in it: when I am feeling uncomfortably stretched beyond my limits, when I am most afraid to come out of my comfort zone, and especially when I am drooping and bone weary.

I like P's simple approach on how to say yes in tough circumstances. First, accept the situation for what it is. Then, look at the big picture (this also requires you to know who you are and where you want to go). Finally, respond by making the best out of the situation. Cut through all the dodgy rationalizations, the unreliable, seesawing emotions, plus the conditions that ego and pride place on things. Cut out all the complaining, griping and inner trash talk. Do what's right by God and by others even if it comes at great personal sacrifice that may not make sense at the time.

So when I wish to flee the scene, I am invited to make the best of it by standing my ground. And instead of bewailing the situation and allowing it to drain me, to look at it with a fresh set of eyes. Really grin, not just grit my teeth, and bear it. Bear it with good grace such that I eventually begin to see the merits of the situation. Did Saint Paul not say love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things?

Pia Attard quoted a line from Thomas Merton's Seed of Contemplation that is both profound and inspiring: There is a hidden wholeness in everything.

She encouraged PCC participants to live out a spirituality of imperfection for we are all called to wholeness and not perfection as the world sees it. Saint Paul proclaimed God's power is made perfect in our weakness, thus God's grace alone is sufficient.

It is only in my weakness that I seek for God strength.

It is only in my poverty that I seek for His richness.

It is only in my sin, that I seek for the Lord's mercy.

It is only in the seeking that I open my heart to receiving divine graces, and I open the door to wholeness, a wholeness that reveals the incredible beauty of Christ's suffering face in His redemptive act of love.

I, too, then, can be an instrument of redemptive grace and inject unimaginable richness in my life through my yes. It doesn't require me to be perfect, just to be honest with myself, vulnerable, and open to following Jesus.

In attempting to weather the hard blows and difficult life situations with the grace Jesus did in His life, the hidden wholeness will surface slowly, but surely. And even if it doesn't, I know it is there, and that, in itself, is enough. Therefore I need to continuously undergo kenosis, the self-emptying of my own will in order to receive His divine will, thereby enabling a constant flow of metanoia, a transformative change of heart.

Pia shared Saint Bernard of Claivaux's four degrees of love that we all, I believe, experience concomitantly even as we aspire to live out the fourth degree most fully:

1. Loving yourself for your own sake.
2. Loving God for your own sake.
3. Loving God for God's sake.
4. Loving yourself for God's sake.

When I can receive and wholly embody the love the Father has for me, then I am able to love myself as He loves me. Secure in my 'belovedness', I can mature into the being He created me to be. My brokenness can also be the space where He enters to bring wholeness to others. I just have to say yes to it, a wholeness that may remain hidden.

Our yeses power our actions of daily living, whether we are faithful to what we believe in, and whether we are able to rise above our own personal fears to act with integrity consistently. So make it a good resounding yes today. 

The Wounded Healer

I am not perfect.
And I will never be perfect
But that's okay.
In actual fact I am quite broken
Messed up
And more than a little quirky 
Good thing my Father really loves me
Greatly, and unconditionally
He dotes on me constantly
Calls me His delight
In His sight, I am precious
A priceless pearl
Me!
I am a child of God.
So no matter where I go or what I do
If I keep running to Him
I can celebrate my belovedness
Gain and regain strength in my weakness
Untold riches in my poverty
And in my sins I find His mercy
My imperfect cracks are gilded over
Made beauteous gifts that I can share
I can set the world on fire*
Just be being me _
Imagine that!
The imperfect, wounded one 
Who brings Christ to all.

NB   I am part of the team running the Pastoral Care Course comprising ICPE Mission Companions from all over the world, together with our brothers and sisters from the Earthen Vessels Catholic Community here in Singapore. It's a five-day course that ends tomorrow and it has been wonderful learning how to Empower the Wounded Healer inside each of us.

* inspired by Saint Catherine of Siena

Living with heart

P was sharing that when it came to healthcare, there is the heart and the art, besides the science of medicine. A good physician is one who has all three in the right proportions so that his or her patients will respond positively, to treatment both physically as well as psychologically.

Good doctors not only use their medical knowledge and skills to heal patients but they are able to build a relationship of trust with each patient, bringing reassurance and hope as well as the buy-in from each patient to do their utmost to restore their own bodies to health.

The danger is when a doctor loses heart and becomes jaded. All actions become mechanical and the practice of medicine becomes mere science, a depersonalized process lacking any soul. The loss of heart, and art, not only affects the physician's patients, but all he or she comes into contact with - colleagues, juniors, families, the entire healthcare system. The loss of heart taints everyone and everything.

Heart, or passion, is fundamental to everything we do in life, especially when it comes to our vocations and our ministries. When we are fired up with passion, our hearts are purest, we are unafraid and undeterred by obstacles; we have clear focus and we pour all our energies into hours of studying and practising skills to become good at what we do.

As practitioners, leaders or ministers, we continue to sacrifice comfort and personal wellbeing in order to help others. We aim to serve others always. We hone and use our skills so that others may benefit most. We keep on learning. And we maintain open and humble hearts to keep on running the race. We become people who inspire others to become like us: to live the art and science of being with heart.

It is not easy to remain unsullied by fame, fortune, position and power for when one is good at what one does, the attendant approbation and material rewards can change motivations and dispositions. Then there is the required staying power, the sheer grit to just keep plodding along when the going gets tough. When one loses heart, which invariably happens, how does one regain it?

I have a personal prayer which grew from the years where I turned my back on God and found myself in desperate and straitened circumstances. Because I could not experience the peace and joy of having Him in my life, I sought a purity of heart that would give me the ability to see Him again in my life. When I came back to the Lord and surrendered my life, I prayed daily that I would always be able to see His face and hear His voice in my life so as to always know where I should go. I know that if everything I am, all that I do is in God alone, then He will always teach me to walk with integrity and act with passion, compassion and wisdom.

I won't say that I do not lose heart in life, or grow a little deaf from time to time., for when the winds blow a little stronger, and the waves rise a little higher, fear does enter my heart. I am not good enough. I cannot do this. Who am I kidding - others are so much better than I am, how can I possibly make a difference?  Here is where I am called to come back to the correct disposition of heart, to return to the One in whom I live and move and have my being.

Matthew 6:33 encourages: Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. In some Bible translations it says set your heart on the kingdom of heaven. So set your heart on Jesus. When your heart is in the right place, you will have faith that moves mountains and transforms a multitude of hearts. Just as there is a science of being, there is an art of being that can only expand by being refined by the Maker Himself.