Beloved always

We left Fatima last Saturday after spending two and a half days there on our own. It was a much needed rest and spiritual break where I could just be with Jesus and His mother, and focus on the message of Fatima - of repentance and prayer.  

Every morning P and I  traced the path Francisco, Jacinta and Lucia took every day from their homes in Aljustrel to Cova da Iria, where they pastured their sheep (and it marks the site of the last apparition and the miracle of the spinning sun).

We did the Stations of the Cross surrounded by groves of olive trees and along the way we stopped by Loca do Anjo where the angel of peace appeared to the three children twice. 

We also stopped by Valinhos where Our Lady appeared to them a fourth time on 19 August 1917. 

In Aljustrel itself, a small hamlet, we visited the houses where the three children lived and also the well where the angel of Portugal appeared to them.

And, of course, we went for mass in the Chaoel of Apparitions daily, prayed in the new and old minor basilicas, and visited the sanctuary museums.

The highlight for me was being able to participate in the candlelit procession within the sanctuary complex nightly with thousands of other believers.  It is during such moments where I truly felt that prayer transforms the world and I was part of this intercessory effort.

After the last mass before our departure (I gatecrashed a group of Indonesian pilgrims having private mass) as the English mass didn’t materialise as scheduled) I felt my heart sing, full of joy and peace. My spiritual cup was full. I felt blessed and loved by the Lord and His mother. 

No matter what life throws at me, I know that these experiences of deep intimacy and grace will be with me forever, like how I know, in a very real way, I am His beloved daughter till I die, and beyond. 

Return to Fatima

We are back in Fatima after our short and unsatisfactory first visit a couple of years ago. 

This time we arrived yesterday at mid-day and we could immerse ourselves in prayer with  mass, praying the rosary twice and finishing it off with the nightly candlelit procession in the square. We of course took time to visit the sights around the shrine, the religious art and artefacts, the highlight being the crown which holds the bullet removed from Saint John Paul II after the attempted assassination. 

Although I pray the rosary on my own every day, I have to say these communal rosaries are a source of light and blessing on their own. The sight of thousands of candles lifted higher in unison as we sang Ave Maria brings me hope for a better tomorrow and a confidence that we, humans, can fix our own messes if we lift our hearts in prayer. 

I am grateful for this time of grace, and I look forward to the next two days as P and I attempt to walk closer with Jesus and Mary in this sacred space.

Bringing God into the world

You bring God into the world through prayer - that was the simple yet profound pearl of wisdom my SD offered me last Friday when I visited him. 

We were catching up on life as usual, and I was sharing on how I facilitated a session on allowing God to guide us to the neophytes and parishioners during a recent retreat at Blessed Sacrament Church. 

Discernment has been something I have been preoccupied with ever since I experienced conversion twenty-two years ago and I have experimented with all forms of prayer, going through seasons of richness and dryness along the way. One thing, however, has remained constant in my life, and that is the desire to do His will in all things. 

Prayer is the only way, really. Not that the Spirit doesn’t guide us when we are on the move and in the midst of life’s busyness. The moment we say to Him my life is yours, I want to do Your will, then He honours it by guiding and protecting us, every waking moment (and even as we sleep).

Of course this fiat must come with a certain disposition of heart, that we remain open and obedient, and that we lead lives nourished spiritually by the Word of God, the sacraments and the traditions of the Church DAILY. We must be pure in mind and heart, avoiding sin at every turn. 

This is the first part of bringing God into the world through prayer, where we first allow ourselves to be transformed through our worship. The second part involves our active participation, where we live and breathe the holiness of the Trinity in our words and actions. 

This latter part is where the rubber meets the road, and we must make every effort to ensure we are on the right track (pardon the pun) - to be holy, as Jesus was, to be fully engaged in the lives of others, bringing healing peace and joy. 

My talk took inspiration from Nicky Gumbel’s Alpha course, as well as Peter Kreeft’s article on discernment. What I found most useful was this from Kreeft*: 

All God's signs should line up, by a kind of trigonometry. There are at least seven such signs: (1) Scripture, (2) church teaching, (3) human reason (which God created), (4) the appropriate situation, or circumstances (which he controls by his providence), (5) conscience, our innate sense of right and wrong, (6) our individual personal bent or desire or instincts, and (7) prayer. Test your choice by holding it up before God's face. If one of these seven voices says no, don't do it. If none say no, do it.

This cocktail of spiritual and conventional wisdom, stirred by the Holy Spirit through prayer and right Christian living helps bring clarity and sound action. Kreeft’s pragmatic approach really speaks to me. Know what God wants, know what Jesus would do, then do what I want (taking into consideration who I am and where I am currently), guided firmly by the Holy Spirit.

Certainly we will make mistakes along the way, and we may not always attain the desired level of clarity, or worse, we may be finding it hard going along a previously discerned path and get disheartened, and yet, in all this, if God is our True North, then He will always bring us back onto the “right” route. 

I must say I am always amazed by God’s ingenuity at problem-solving, and I am always grateful for how He provides so abundantly through the people He has put into my life, and how He responds so tenderly to me and my needs, big and small. 

* https://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/discernment.htm

Missing you much

My mood has been slightly pensive since yesterday for today is my father’s death anniversary - 22 years gone.

What has come up in my prayers as I sit with my memories of his last days on earth is how blessed we all were during those awfully challenging days.

Blessed because God sent many angels to minister to him. Someone (I don’t even know his name) would come pray with him regularly as did my cousin E. My uncle P would come and administer the Eucharist to him every week.  The hospice nurse and doctor would pop by to dispense advice as well. My cousin A would visit frequently, and he also helped out with expenses. My aunt S would cook for him and bring him lunch frequently as well.

Throughout all this, I got to witness my Dad’s courage and tenacity as well as his transformation from a man who had transgressed a lot into a man who came back to God and got to know Jesus in a very special way. He exuded a deep peace that spoke of great spiritual healing, and he prayed, offering up his suffering for others. 

I know he is now with Jesus in heaven and he continues to pray for all those whom he loved - not just my mother and us, his children, but my entire extended family. My father had a great love for family and he exercised a generous love with all of us. I know that generosity of heart is still doing good things for those of us who are left behind. 

Thank you, Dad, from the bottom of my heart. Your one and only. 

Praying power

There is an apocryphal quote: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I can identify with this insanity more commonly known as being stubborn, or what the Bible calls hardness of heart. 

We can be like Pharoah, who simply refused to let Moses and the Israelites go despite wave after wave of plagues that devastated the land. Every time he bargained with Moses and the situation improved, he reneged on his promise. 

For years I refused to turn back to God going after my own idea of romantic love, chronically suffering from either deprivation or spiritual indigestion due to its improper nature. It was pure insanity to latch on to relationships that would never end well and resulted in addictive behaviour and low self-esteem. 

Snapping out of this endless cycle of bashing my head against the wall was pure grace. God never got tired of looking out for me and calling me to journey home to a truth, a beauty and a goodness that was found in Him, and was actually what I was looking for all that time. 

Having entrusted my life wholly to Him since 2003, I now spend my days doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting the different results He wills in my life. I pray; not just every morning or every evening, but many times in between. I have a running conversation with Him, constantly measuring my actions against the Jesus standard (a.k.a. What would Jesus do?).

I ask for the Holy Spirit to lead me after asking for the openness to hear His inspirations and then follow through with action. He is my action guru. 

I seek for the Father’s protection from my own foolish inclinations, knowing what I perceive or feel like doing is often not objective or intrinsically good. 

Yesterday N received the Primary One ballot results for C. She got in despite there being only 86 spots available versus 117 applications. As spots would first be given to applicants residing within a two-kilometre radius from the school, C’s chances of getting in were, as N put it, terrible. 

Throwback to a year ago when N made known her desire to have C attend her alma mater, P and I began praying for this. Along the way I also began to pray for E as her mother, J, had the same desire of seeing her daughter attend her old school. 

While P and I thought St Nick’s was the right school choice, and prayed for this outcome, we also prayed that this outcome was what God willed as the right one for both little girls, C and E. 

Praying (and fasting at times) this same intercessory prayer for a year might seem like insanity, if not merely futile, but we never got tired of offering up to the Lord our desires and plans. 

Certainly there were moments of doubt, but there were also moments of pure peace, knowing it would happen as God would provide. I even told C a year ago she was going to St Nick’s for this sat well within me (of course I was not 100 percent sure if this certainty came from me alone or was divine inspired). 

P received confirmation of a successful ballot on Pentecost while I received mine early yesterday morning when I saw C and E rocking the white top and blue pinafore as I prayed. 

In all this, I thank God. I cannot begin to describe how I felt when I received the news of the successful ballot from N. I was mega in awe, super grateful and I just wanted to hug everyone I met yesterday. 

An insight that came to me in all this is one connected to mission. P and I were talking about mission and while his exercised gifts are so widely acknowledged and far-reaching, I like that mine are more invisible, barely discernible, yet equally vital. 

Both P and I know exactly what and where are our mission fields even as our landscapes constantly shift. We both also know that our yeses will give rise to sacrifice (Herculean at times) and to doing the same thing over and over again without flagging in zeal and passion. 

Oftentimes the work, or should I say, our efforts, may not seem worthwhile, and self-doubt may creep in, we both know, saying yes to God with the same level of faith is an act of will, a daily process, a constant renewal of our baptismal office, and one which will yield different results in ways we never imagined possible. 

And I hold fast to 2 Thessalonians 3:13: Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.

Entrusting

Entrust is not a verb much used in conversation, and yet, over the weekend I heard it used twice by different people meaningfully. First, during our Sunday community meeting, Karen raised up JP2’s article written in early 1994: A Meditation on Givenness where he expounds on gift and entrustment. 

‘God has given you to me.’ This is true of every person God has placed in my life: parents, siblings, spouse, children…so on and so forth. Every person I know is a gift, a gift to be treasured. I need to recognize the value of each gift for as JP2 writes: 

…to entrust means God believes in you, trusts that you are capable of receiving the gift, trusts that you are capable of embracing it with your heart, that you have the capacity to respond to it with the gift of yourself. Honour and respect are due to each person I meet and know, whether friend or foe. The question is how have I treated those entrusted to me? Am I intentional in being as ‘loving’ as I can be? Na-ah, I could do so much better. And I fail most times, especially with those closest to me. 

 That evening I went home and P and I began the Catechism of the Catholic Church in a Year with Fr Mike Schmitz, yet another JP2 initiative (the CCC ie). Now you get why JP2 is my hero. Anyways, we were listening to Jeff Cavins on Day 3 and here it was again, the word entrust. 

This was in relation to the obedience of faith which has two parts: intellectual assent and a personal entrusting of yourself to that truth. This is biblical faith, a faith that requires both words and action. I believe and I respond. It is not a passive faith to which we pay mere lip service, or one which is compartmentalized. It has to be lived out in all areas of our life, in every waking moment. We do not snooze just because no one is looking. 

As A put it, when she is obliged to carry out a task she is not keen on, she does it willingly and cheerfully as her “sacrifice of love”. She is a generous giver for she has fully entrusted her life to the Lord. I have a lot to learn from her for I am not exactly the cheerful giver she is. 

Aside from how we live our life going about our day with an active faith, Cavins encouraged us to entrust ourselves especially when we are praying articles of our faith such as the Creed. He says: “And if you entrust your life to that, every part of that Creed, you're going to live differently.” 

It not just a recitation which I go through because I am at mass, but it’s an opportunity to say hey God, I believe in you and I entrust my life to you in all these ways, and in an active manner, no matter how I am feeling right now, whether I am in crisis or thanksgiving mode. I believe in you and I know what’s happening right now is not the be all and end all of my life. 

 Entrusting goes beyond surrender which does not always come from a choice position. Entrust implies a deep faith, a I am willing to bet my life on this act of trust because I know you love me and I KNOW you would never harm me. Let it, life, your will, be done unto me. I will entrust and not go it alone by myself.

So today, I entrust my life to the Lord, knowing He loves me and I desire to love Him back with a more proportionate level of passion and devotion. And I will try my best to nurture those whom He has entrusted to me, loving them the way He loves them. With this act of entrustment, may my prayers gain more power and vibrancy. 

May your prayers, and your life be enriched with entrusting the Lord.

Sixty-one reasons to be grateful

Never have I felt so old as I have these last six months of being 60. My failing eyesight, coupled with woolly-headedness brought upon by lack of sleep, age and stress have caused me to make some errors that have been financially significant. Then there is the constant battle with pain from insisting on exercise and physical activities my body protests very loudly against. 

I am fighting a growing laundry list of limitations and an interior struggle to deal with all these unwelcome changes. And yet, despite all this, the one thing I have not stopped feeling is gratitude. 

So here’s to celebrating my 61st revolution around the sun with a gratitude list. In no particular order, I am grateful:

1. To be alive, breathing and walking on my own, relatively sound of mind and body.
2. For my life - where I came from, and what I have made of it thus far. It may not look like much but it is good enough for Him and me.
3. For every screwup that has given me insight and taught me not to go there again.
4. For God, my loving Father and generous provider.
5. For Jesus, my delightful Bridegroom.
6. For the Holy Spirit who inspires me to goodness.
7. For Mother Mary, my role model.
8. For Saint Joseph, my hero, the silent doer.
9. For my guardian angel who never fails to guide me back to God.
10. For the community of saints, both living and dead, who have helped mould and shape me into God’s image and likeness. 
11. For family - the good, the bad and the ugly. Tyvm.
12. For the virtues of faith, hope and love, so necessary in navigating life and eternal life.
13. For good friends who embraced me even when they didn’t understand what I was about.
14. That I am an evolved feeler (thanks Ams for the compliment).
15. For all my spiritual guides who nudged me back onto the narrow path.
16. For a sense of humour that saves me from taking myself too seriously, and from pride or despair. 
17. For a tender heart that moves me to go beyond myself.
18. For marriage and motherhood - a vocation that came late in life; one I will be always amazed is mine.
19. For the Sacraments, which ARE everything.
20. For my father who taught me how to be loyal, hardworking and responsible.
21. For my mother who schools me in gentleness, compassionate acceptance and perseverance.
22. For brothers who taught me girls are meant to be kickass tough, not prissy princesses.
23. For my gem of a husband who makes me laugh even as he irritates me -a rare gift. I have to admit I catch myself laughing at times when I think back on his silliness.
24. For children who are sweet, generous, and simply good peeps.
25. For grandchildren who evoke such tenderness and joy within me.
26. For ministries and communities that have helped me grow spiritually, especially the ICPE Mission.
27. To be able to enjoy and find meaning in what I do for a living. I love my job!
28. For the gift of writing, my super power.
29. For cousins, the ones who got me when my siblings didn’t, and those who had my back. 
30. For Christmas tree worms and pgymy seahorses.
31. For pain that gives me a wealth of insight, and makes me a better teacher.
32. For the Word of God, the Bible that expounds  the Way, the Truth and the Life so fully.
33. For intuition that enriches my thinking and guides my actions. 
34. That beauty just makes my heart sing.
35. For music that makes me want to dance.
36. For inner peace, and joy, that comes from following Him and trusting Him every step of the way.
37. For an adventurous palate that has been rewarded amply.
38. For the beatitudes, especially #6.
39. For the love of gardens and what they mean to me. Thanks Mama.
40. For ice cream and J’s ice cream face.
41. For grandfathers who inculcated the love of reading; Classic comics, gumnuts and blossoms - I inhaled them all. 
42. For the Roman Catholic Church, lock, stock and barrel. So imperfectly perfect!
43. For flowers - every bloom is like a Hi there from the Creator. 
44. To be able to find myself in the sincere gift of self.  (Gaudium etc Spes, paragraph 24)
45. For inheriting my grandmother’s common sense and her folk remedies.
46. For P’s love for me.
47. That I can cook.  
48. For Hawaii and all things Hawaiian: flower leis, the aloha spirit, lomi lomi salmon, hula and spam musubi.
49. That I can hold things lightly in my hands.
50. For JP2 and his Theology of the Body
51. For my physiotherapist Elaine.
52. I mastered (and can again with some practice)  Ahi Wela on my ukulele. 
53. That I have someone in my life who is as crazy as I am about saints and shrines, and all things Catholic. 
54. I no longer sweat the small stuff or fuss over irrelevant details (well, not for long).
55. I can forgive myself, and others.
56. That I know who I am and what I’m worth - precious, priceless and wonderfully made.
57. For the treasure of divine wisdom: pure; then peace-loving,considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. (James 3:17)
58. For the ability to speak truths that are eventually received well. 
59. That I am redeemed: forgiven much, loved much, can love much.
60. For the transformative power of prayer; making possible the impossible.
61. I get to wake up tomorrow and do it all again; hopefully better than yesterday.

My journey of life continues.

HBD

Yet another birthday with you

Celebrating in heaven 

Without us

Who remain behind. 

In Singlish speak:

Why like that?

Sharing my faith journey

Is always bittersweet

For you are so inextricably 

Vitally a part of my story.

You were the one He sent

To bring me back to Him.

Mired in shame

You pulled me up

Showed me the Way

His true intent for me.

Continue to keep me 

In your prayers

Send me a kiss and a hug 

As I send you one today.

Love you my dearest coz!