Happy birthday

Beautiful boy
That is how I will always remember you
The six-year-old with big, bright eyes  
Who followed me around adoringly
We had a connection, a deep bond, God-given.
You made me laugh, wiped away my tears 
Dispenser of good advice
Never short of a pithy remark
Kind of heart, generous and incredibly creative
A truly gentle and gorgeous soul
Unfailingly loyal
While I weep for your absence
A hole in my life, irreplaceable and sorrow-filled 
I give thanks you happened in my life
You have made a difference in my world 
Gone but never forgotten
Love you forever, my beautiful boy.

Cana good

The Wedding at Cana is a Scriptural passage I love for it was what guided me during my courtship days when I was feeling nervy about marriage. Eventually P and I chose it for our wedding mass gospel reading for we both felt it represented our relationship - miraculous, joyous, abundant, best wine for last and all that. Incidentally, our wedding bands were blessed in the church in Cana as well, thanks to Father Francis. 

Before we got married, P and I were supposed to go to the Holy Land. However, we had to cancel the trip and what we did when we were on leave instead was to do a backyard pilgrimage of Marian churches as well as designated churches with Holy Doors of Mercy in Singapore, 2016 being the Jubilee Year of Mercy. It was such a blessed time.

As I entered Holy Cross*, the first church we visited, the stained glass window on the left caught my eye, it was the wedding at Cana, and we also arrived just as a wedding party was leaving. At SVDP, the pews were decorated with cream-coloured roses and ribbons, indicating a wedding was imminent. Every church we visited, we discovered a message of God’s promise, of joy. We didn’t have to travel abroad to hear Jesus and Mother Mary speak in our lives.

Cana speaks of many things: of love, love between mother and son, between the young couple, and the community who had come together to share in the couple’s nuptial bliss. Cana celebrates new beginnings, both of vocation and ministry. The passage tells us that things may not always go to plan, disaster may seem impending, but love is always on time and will save the day. Cana highlights how scarcity can become abundance when we cooperate with the Holy Spirit. Cana recounts all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes to make an event successful.

During this period, Cana reminds me life is to be celebrated even when I am struggling for miracles can only happen if I listen to our Mother’s advice, to do whatever He tells me even when I am tired, disgruntled, less than enthused, and about to give up. Keep going, never stopping to consider the needs of others, never desisting from doing what I know is right, and to always offer to Jesus the best of my efforts, together with my joy and gratitude at all I have received every day. 

Life is a wedding feast filled with colour, excitement, beauty and great joy. Drink it all in, live it sensuously, live it fully. Take the good with the bad for even the bad can transform into something very good.

* The churches we visited were Holy Cross, Risen Christ, Saint Vincent de Paul, Divine Mercy and Sacred Heart.

Exercising the gift

Excuse me, are you a healer, she asked expectantly, can you tell me what’s wrong with me, she stood with her hands held out in front of her as she looked at me? My immediate response was to laugh and think to myself, yes I am a healer, but not the sort you are thinking of.

A few days earlier I had gathered D had a bad back just by observing her movements and had recommended to her what she could do to try and ease the pain. That was all, nothing mystical about it.

As Christians, we are all called to be healers in some way or another, whether it be through speaking words of insightful affirmation, or by simple, helpful acts that channel love. I think that was what Jesus did, besides performing miracles. He observed and noticed the words and behaviour of those around Him, and responded in ways that met the unspoken and desperate needs of the hearts around Him. 

Think the woman at the well, the haemorrhagic woman, Zacchaeus, the grateful leper, the disciples who followed Him... all the people he encountered and spoke with, he touched them with His words and actions, and transformed their lives.  

At the core of His actions is a sensitivity to others and the ability to gently provoke a response that takes the other beyond himself or herself and create a positive change. I have always admired how Jesus could do that so masterfully. For it also required Him to be bold, to dare to engage with others without fearing rejection or failure, to move in the Spirit with great humility and vulnerability, letting the Spirit of God guide Him.

Jesus was a do-gooder. If I call myself a disciple of Christ, then I must emulate His availability and sensitivity to others and behave in ways that bring healing through my communication with others. A great part of encouraging healing through words is to listen without passing judgement, accepting the differences despite not fully understanding and without feeling personally threatened, and to be genuinely interested and invested in the well-being of the other, to really want the better of the other. This is so, not just with people we have transient encounters with, but more so with those whom we call family and those with whom we sustain long-term relationships.  

Thus I have always prayed for the gift of healing. But do I engage and do good all the time, using this gift in particular? Much as I try, I don’t. My pride and insecurities get in the way at times. Plus it is tiring work to get involved with others’ lives and requires great emotional energy. A lot of times, it is much easier to retreat into my inner world and watch the world go by, uninvolved, and cushioned from getting my feelings hurt. Do-gooders can get injured, even killed. 

And yet we are social animals who need to interact with each other to fully experience joy and self-fulfilment, and grow in maturity. One of our fundamental needs as humans is to be known and the only way I can know someone and be known is to engage with him or her fully, using all my senses and being, giving my time and space. I need to love others and be loved, so I can only jump in, prepared to get muddied and bruised, remembering that nothing can truly defeat me with Jesus by my side.

Praying like Jesus did is necessary: taking the time to go off to a quiet place to pray for longish periods, and allowing my own tending to by God to happen so that I am centred and secure in my own being, and therefore able to minister to others effectively. To be healed and then to heal. To do good to others as it has been done to me.

The past Sunday’s readings tell me to move ahead with confidence: Isaiah first reminding me of my status and true identity, not forsaken or desolate but a delight and espoused; Saint Paul of my many spiritual gifts including healing; and finally Saint John who recounts the Cana miracle of scarcity to abundance. 

The message preached is clear. Identify the scarcity, turn to Jesus immediately and trust Him to turn things around by cooperating with Him fully. Filling the six 20-30 gallon stone jars with water is back-breaking work but many hands make light work and if I want to see the miracle of water into wine, I need to do my part: work in unity with others day after day, using my gifts. Bring healing to the world. 

New year intentions

The party’s over, the new year is here to stay

How shall I make the next 364 days count?

What can I do to keep my faith alive and real?

Can I make someone smile with delight

Laugh away the blues, lighten a mood 

Bring comfort to the sick of heart 

Soothe an ailing body, a fevered imagination  

Chase away fears by injecting sound reason

Into doubts and all matters dark

Bring freedom with a song of gratitude

Inspire harmonious peace at the same time too

Can I invite you to walk the narrow path with me?

Do the right thing always because it feels really good

Can I be the bubbly God-eyed optimist?

As the overflowing cup pronounces:

The joy of the Lord is my strength 

Cascading like rain from heaven

Watering the earth so thirsty for love

Enrobing florescent hills with fruitfulness 

I can do joy, I can do that joy

I can breathe new life into my days

Through Him, with Him and in Him
Through love, with love and in love

This is how I want to spend my days

What about you?

Whatever He tells me

There’s no better way to start the new year off than to be with family. The death of my mother’s youngest sister last March triggered off this reunion which saw her sister and her family from Vancouver, and her brother and his family from Melbourne all converge in Singapore. I got to meet for the very first time one of my cousins, along with everybody else, and, of course, it was good fun to spend time with the children of my cousins, three of whom were my flower girls two years ago. 

Mummy and her siblings are all in their 80s so meeting up like this is significant. Of course we ended up eating too much over the several meals we had together, but celebrations of any sort usually involve food.

We celebrate today the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God and it was a special thanksgiving mass P and I attended this morning at the Church of Saint Teresa for Father Michael Arro, the former parish priest, who is retiring and moving away from the parish after 17 1/2 years of serving in this parish (the last four years as priest in residence). He is one of the key reasons I began serving in that parish, first as a lector and heading the ministry for several terms, then for two terms in the Parish Pastoral Council as an office holder. How does one say no to one’s Spiritual Director who unfailingly remembers to schedule regular monthly meetings in order to help direct one’s spiritual journey? 

Through Father Arro I have experienced the mercy and love of God, and been inspired to seek Jesus more and more in my life these past years. Plus his Gallic sensibilities have taught me to appreciate and nurture my feminine genius more fully. 

Father Arro spoke of Cana, and to follow what Our Mother instructed the servers: Do whatever He tells you. We should all remember we can recreate the abundance of Cana when we do whatever He tells us. With recourse to His Mother, we can be sure she will intercede on our behalf, sometimes without our saying a word but relying solely on the refined sense of a woman who knows what is needed and will present the need to a Son who cannot refuse His beloved mother’s compassionate request.

I thank Father God today for the yes of Father Arro and all his MEP confreres who came before him and brought the faith to Asia. Without their wholehearted response to do whatever He told them to do, I would not be acquainted with Jesus as I am, and would therefore be living a life devoid of spiritual richness.

I  also give thanks for such a wonderful way to start off the new year by being with family, experiencing the pleasure that must have been found in Cana of celebrating life, laughing and eating with people I love, and renewing relationships. 

May my yes be as faith-filled and steadfast as Mary’s was in 2019 for great things He has done for me these last days and years.