Teach our children

It's sad, ridiculous and alarming all at once how sexualized the world has become. Everywhere you turn, look or tune into, your senses are assaulted with images that are designed to evoke a base, prurient response.

Celebrities indulge in flesh parades taken to the heights of Gaga-ish bizarreness which adoring fans try their best to ape. Men and women eyeball each other as they would a juicy hunk of meat and make sex the currency of love.

Sex has been commoditized to the point that pornography and aberrant sexual behaviour are accepted as normal: where sexual promiscuity is endorsed and chastity denigrated.

Worst of all is when children are taken advantage of while their parents look on approvingly; often the progenitors of the early sexualization of their children. They hand their children on a platter to paedophiles and sexual predators when they allow their pre-pubescent children to dress and act as if they were navigating a singles' convention.

When I was a young girl, my mother refused to let me wear clothes she deemed inappropriate for my age. Nothing too revealing or adult; and no nail polish or make-up until I was sixteen or so. Leading by example she was (and still is) always appropriately attired. Both she and my father made sure I behaved and comported myself properly.

Although I chafed against the conservative ways of my parents then, today I am glad that they were true guardians of my innocence and childhood.

Who will protect the children now when parents themselves don't even know the difference between right and wrong and instead are fiercely proud of having their children sexually exploited for the sake of money and fame?

We have lost a sense of respect for the sanctity of our bodies. We treat our sexuality and our human dignity as bargain basement merchandise - shop soiled and cheap.

It pains me when children are not taught the proper reverence for their minds, hearts and bodies, that their identity is intrinsically precious, not to be exploited, because they are the very image of God.

Every child deserves to enjoy the innocence of childhood and to have it kept unsullied for as long as possible.

Every teen deserves to be respected and valued for his and her being and not manipulated into living out someone else's dream or fantasy, be it parent, peer or predatory stranger.

It is the responsibility of every adult to protect every child in the world: to teach the young the true meaning and full expression of love so as to eradicate under aged sex and teenage pregnancy; to destroy the ever-exploding child sex trade and reclaim the glory of love as espoused by Jesus Christ.

Teach your children and grandchildren is something Moses reminded the Israelites (Deuteronomy 4:9) as crucial for the well-being of future generations. This piece of advice applies today, more than ever.

We must begin first with ourselves. By educating ourselves on what is right and wrong, good and bad. Say no to sexual immorality. Make a stand against a world with constantly shifting boundaries of relativism.

Watch how we live: what we do for entertainment, who we hang out with and with what do we feed our minds. Like Ezra (in chapter 7 verse 10), if we devote our lives to studying, obeying and teaching the laws and decrees of the Lord, we will be able to bring the fullness of Christian life into our own lives and that of the people around us.

And then we can teach all children well and equip them with the values and skills to change the world we live in for the better. 

Befriending God

Someone asked the question last night, "How do I know I have a personal friendship with God?" for Father David had stressed to us that Christian love is personal friendship with God and if we did not remember anything else from this course, he wanted us to at least retain this Aquinas gem.

Father D.'s answer got a little cheem (esoteric), or maybe I was tired, but I did kinda get it, even though I would not be able to tell you what he said.

I got it because I do have a personal friendship with God. How do I know this? Because He has shown me He loves me in very concrete ways, in ways that when I connect the dots backwards, I see His hand in the twists and turns of my life's journey.

To honour this friendship that holds first place in my heart, I have tried my best to give Him carte blanche, to allow Him to lead and to thus infuse my faith, hope and love with grace, unmerited and divine.

And He has. How else would I have been able step out of my comfort zone and be radical in my life choices and succeed?

I am happy for I feel I am living my life meaningfully, as it should be lived. I am free to be who I am and I like that I have let go of fears and distortions that held me captive for so long.

Best of all, when I am unsure or confused, I know I can make the right choices for me when I abandon myself to His wisdom.

He talks to me through the inner workings of my heart. I am a person who is led very much by intuition, and so when I feel strongly about something, I know it is from Him.

This does not mean I go by emotion alone for my decisions in life are a collective effort and integration of my reason, will and emotion. And they are borne out by the good fruit that follow (else it ain't from God but just voices in my head).

I spend a lot of time and psychic energy seeking truth, trying to understand and experience first-hand why dogma and Church teachings are beautiful, God-inspired ways of life. Living it and liking it more and more.

Yesterday at lunch S. said to me, "You working on getting to heaven?" when I said I was going reverse carolling in December.

The answer to her question is no for I don't really give a hoot about going to heaven. Well yeah, I do want to get to heaven but my chief motivation for being good or doing good is not spiritual brownie points: it is my relationship with Jesus and pushing it to a new and deeper level, all the time.

My singular prayer in life is that I should always be able to see His face and hear His voice. This requires purity of heart, a purity I once lost, and it left me lost and desolate for a long time. I was in hellish limbo and I don't ever want to go there again.

Purity of heart demands that I choose not only good over evil but better over good, and even if it flies in the face of convention and comes at great personal cost.

Having regained the ability to know what He wants on such a lively and intimate level, I will do my utmost to maintain this friendly status.

In FB speak, I will never defriend Him.

Healthy fear

Last night during our Bible Timeline discussion, D. commented that he was musing recently how he could love God more?

We were covering the books of Kings, Daniel and Ezekiel and the destruction of both the northern and the southern kingdoms due to the rejection of God's covenant by the people.

The over-riding message as we journey through the Old Testament is that God wants to love us and forgive us but the refusal to respond in love and acceptance is reflective not just of peoples of old but of us today.

Jeff Cavins asked a very incisive question at the end of his talk. We may have returned from exile in that we are regular church-going and even active parishioners, but have we truly returned to God in our openness of heart. Are we completely in sync with God and His ways or are there still false gods and petty, pernicious sin in our lives?

I think that D. has the right idea. If we seek to show God how much we love Him all the time in every little thing we do, if we continue to look ahead and see how we can make our dreams His dreams for us, if we say yes every morning to let the Spirit guide our thoughts, actions and words through the day, then, perhaps, we will have shown we have walked out of exile into the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

It is hard to remain single-minded and faithful all the time in all things. Even those among us whom we consider saint-like will demur from being thought so, for sin is all too accessible and convenient.

As Jesus did, so must we. Pray constantly. Unceasingly. Night and Day.

A deliberate act of integrating heart, mind and soul will earn us the virtues of faith, hope and charity, virtues that can only be bestowed to us by God alone, given their  theological nature.

Virtues that will help us crack the happiness code and be as close to perfection as we'll ever get.

My SD recently gifted me with a way of praying: Place your disappointments, weaknesses and sins in your outstretched palms and present them to the Lord, asking that He accept what is offered sincerely, humbly begging for transformation.

This attitude of prayer is a sign of spiritual well-being, for fear of the Lord, a reverential love and worship of the Creator, will be our saving grace through the rigours of life.

It is what led Abraham from barren marriage to precious son who sired a nation, a son whom he was willing to sacrifice out of obedience.

It is what made Jesus drink the excruciating cup of death in order to fulfil his mission of saving the world.  

So to pull my thoughts together, for me, the ability to love God more is to nourish a healthy fear of the Lord that will restore and refresh me as I pray, pray and pray.

Monogamy fidelity

Seventy-two days. That's all it took for Kim Kardashian to file for divorce after her wedding.

While I am not about to comment on what led to her decision, this latest crash and burn is emblematic of the state and institution of marriage.

Forever is as short as 55 hours, as Britney Spears in 2004 would tell you.

Given the brevity of many marriages out there, I used to wonder why people bothered getting married. 

Was it the superficial, romantic daydream of a white wedding fairy tale? 

Or is it simply a true human desire that is within every man and woman: a human requirement for the transcendental beauty of nuptial love, a love that is faithful, unconditional and will not be withdrawn on a whim and can withstand the test of time.

How else would procreation and parenthood be viable seeing as children are pretty much the joint responsibility of parents spanning 18 years or more.      

Pope John Paul II identifies the root of this high incidence of broken vows in modern times as a crisis of commitment wherein “frequently lies a corruption of the idea and the experience of freedom”.  

First, we are spoilt for choice, and, by choice.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have the freedom to choose, but when the will to freedom supersedes wisdom and good sense and speaks only of selfish, immature urgings, then the process of choosing becomes one that is predicated on the idea of happiness as being the ability to choose among many options.

Commitment thus becomes an anathema to this misguided idea of freedom. We like what commitment brings to the table, the unconditional and faithful love, but we don’t want to play by its rule of reciprocity.      

Does freedom of choice truly lead to happiness? Perhaps, but it is only a very transient version of happiness that seems not even to last the honeymoon period. And surely we want more than that.

In the meanwhile, families are being torn apart and children are growing up in single parent homes only to perpetuate the lessons learnt at their parents’ knees, lessons of broken promises, infidelity and selfishness.

We have forgotten that we are able to synthesize happiness; that it is not found in material things or dream circumstances but in accepting the limitations of life and using these so-called constraints as a platform to happiness.

When we accept conditions such as race, gender or culture as part of our identity, these become a springboard toward self-actualization and fulfilment. 

The same can be said for accepting the strengths and imperfections of the spouse you marry.   

We would do well to mimic wild Canadian geese. David's Quammen writes in The Flight of The Iguana that these migratory birds “embody liberty, grace, and devotion, combining these three contradictory virtues with a seamless elegance” that humans often “only espouse”.

I would like to suggest that it is not just the geese but humans that have an “ecological mandate for fidelity”.

And that free will has somehow caused humanity to misplace its own human nature and adopt practices that are actually hostile and poisonous. 

Geese can’t afford our frivolity for their survival depends on “a life of mutual reliance in permanent twosomes”, a commitment brought about by their “physiology and anatomy”. 

Unfortunately for humans, the bid for survival and the perpetuation of the species is not so urgent or critical and also involves the luxury of love as an emotion and not purely just a decision.

Love is a glorious thing and should be at the heart of every marriage. However, it will be selfless commitment that carries a marriage through its rough patches and enables love to retain its vibrancy while growing in depth.

When love becomes a decision to be committed and faithful, happiness can be found at the end of the rainbow, which, incidentally, is symbolic of kept promises.  

Quammen ends his essay on geese with a quote from Marguerite Duras that I would like to end with as well:

“Fidelity, enforced and unto death, is the price you pay for the kind of love you never want to give up, for someone you want to hold forever, tighter and tighter, whether he's close or far away, someone who becomes dearer to you the more you've sacrificed for his sake. This sacrificial relationship is precisely the one that exists in the Christian church between pain and absolution. It can survive outside the church, but it retains its ecclesiastical form. There can be no more violent, and beautiful, strategy than this for seizing time, for restoring eternity to life. ” 

Caritas crazy

I think about love all the time for it's the only thing worth thinking about in life. One might even say I am obsessed with it for it is my ethos in life.

So what is it about love that is so compelling? The simple truth is I am made for love - as is every other person on this planet - and therefore it is part of who I am, as I live and breathe.

Seeing as love is essential  for my well-being I've spent years trying to get it right. And with the help of my Christian heritage, that I have fully embraced only in recent years, I am in a good 'lurve' place.

It hasn't been easy to find the balance and I've made quite a few wrong turns and taken a number of painful tumbles, but I have finally found the secret. It lies with one person: Jesus Christ.

By choosing to love as He did, in a selfless manner, I have found fulfilment and a deep joy that has set me free from desperate bids for love that portend only heartache and enslavement.

Instead Christ has led me to look for, and find love in all the right places.

In Deus Caritas Est, God is Love, Pope Benedict XVI proposes that love takes on a "multiplicity of meanings" that is much more than love between man and woman, so often thought of as the "epitome of love" and sought so avidly and single-mindedly by most people.

Love has an infinite number of flavours and textures but if we insist on hankering after one particular incarnation of love, nuptial in nature, then we have impoverished our life immensely and limited our capacity to savour the voluptuous, soul-satisfying and diverse fruits of love.

The Pope goes on to say it is when "body and soul are intimately united", we are able to attain "full stature" and eros from undisciplined intoxication its "true grandeur". Love becomes an experience beyond a physical high.

"Love is indeed “ecstasy”, not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God."

These words of Pope Ben resonate within me for my own journey has take on such an outward looking, Biblical turn of loving God and others. This perfect marriage of eros and agape.

The conscious decision to give of my self that is not merely about self-sacrifice or cheerless deprivation but about doing and being all the things that make me feel good about myself and all the things I would wish on myself from others but do not demand from them.

It is an exodus from ego-centricity to happiness, inner peace and self-transcendence made possible only through attempts to be more and more like Christ.

Why? Because I love the way He loves me and I want to share this incredibly precious love I have found with Him with the rest of the world.

Love has become my enabler, to make my existence a rich and exciting one.

Every day affords me opportunities to make a difference, not just within my immediate circle, but beyond. To enlarge my world to include those who are the "least of my brethren". 

The call to respond is unceasing for poverty, suffering and injustice are ugly realities of life. If I believe in the equal dignity of all humanity, then I must act accordingly to address whatever I see wrong in the world.

For the Church, diakonia or the ministry of charity "is part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being" according to Pope Benedict.   

Therefore, as a member of Church, "God's family in the world", I have an imperative to ensure no one "goes without the necessities of life", necessities I have in abundance, be it financial stability or emotional well-being.

Whatever I have received that is good and beautiful, I must pay it forward if I am to be true to myself and to honour my Father who created me.

Last Friday evening, A. spoke about "the call within the call" - what has God specifically called each of us to be and to do, that goes beyond a  surface understanding of vocation and touches on developing a personal spirituality.

Answering the call within the call is responding in love to God to love others in a way that is unique to who I am. It involves cultivating an interior openness and humility, and lots of prayer.

These dispositions, Pope Benedict also stresses, are vital when reaching out to others with a helping hand.

And so, as I continue to make sense of how I am to love in the world - to misquote Descartes: I love, therefore I am - I hearken to the Catholic Church's social teachings as the consummate guide.

I'd like to end with this beautiful invitation to love from the Pope's first encyclical letter, Deus Caritas Est:

"Faith, hope and charity go together. Hope is practised through the virtue of patience, which continues to do good even in the face of apparent failure, and through the virtue of humility, which accepts God's mystery and trusts him even at times of darkness.

"Faith tells us that God has given his Son for our sakes and gives us the victorious certainty that it is really true: God is love! It thus transforms our impatience and our doubts into the sure hope that God holds the world in his hands and that, as the dramatic imagery of the end of the Book of Revelation points out, in spite of all darkness he ultimately triumphs in glory.

"Faith, which sees the love of God revealed in the pierced heart of Jesus on the Cross, gives rise to love.

"Love is the light—and in the end, the only light—that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working.

"Love is possible, and we are able to practise it because we are created in the image of God. To experience love and in this way to cause the light of God to enter into the world." 

Pure loving act

I fell in love last Saturday. She is a cherub with an incandescent smile named Elise. There is something simply irresistible about the wide-eyed innocence and trusting naivete of a toddler.

To her the world is a fascinating place filled with people who love her. Her joy of being alive was infectious as she wandered around the hall trailing drumsticks, or as she lolled lazily on the floor gurgling unintelligibly to a song she recognized, or when she plonked herself into the lap of her mother's choir mate with seasoned aplomb.

Although she is tiny, her insouciant presence brought palpable delight and I felt incredibly blessed and privileged every time she flashed me a grin of pure joy.

This is who I am created to be - a trusting being, secure in the beauty of my God-image and -likeness, enrapt with life's gorgeousness and the abundance of love that cocoons me. So what happened?

Original sin. The primordial evil that entered the world and causes me to fear and thus to be self-centred in order to protect myself from betrayal, injustice, manipulation and envy.

It is the incapacity to give myself to God or others with an instantaneous, child-like openness until trust has been proven or earned.

It is also a disintegration stemming from my woundedness that impels me to act with less than honourable intentions and barely admirable behaviour most of the time.

Is there a way for me to go beyond my human guardedness and insularity, to love again as Elise loves? There is. Christ who is the way, the truth and the life.

In the incarnation, God fulfilled His covenant with humanity by choosing to be in relationship with us in a way that risked a vulnerability to outright rejection and active hostility.

This is the story of Christmas, the greatest love story ever told, of the birth of Immanuel (God with us) who came into the world to show us how to love to the point of sacrificing His own life out of love for us.

Because of Him, we can be fully human as He was. We can reclaim the ethical imperative of loving beyond human reasoning by forgiving unconditionally all the undeserving people and impossible situations we face in life, day in and day out.

Even though we live in paradise lost, we can re-create paradise on earth. By being a sincere gift of self, we can find meaning in our lives and we can find ourselves, and ultimately, happiness.

Jean Vanier, founder of l'Arche, an international network of homes for people with intellectual disabilities, in his book Becoming Human says:

"To be human is to accept ourselves just as we are, with our own history, and to accept others as they are...to accept history as it is and to work, without fear, towards greater openness, greater understanding, and a greater love of others."

While we may live in a world with vast abysses of distorting relativism, greedy consumerism, self-centred individualism and deadly moral decay, we can choose to be like God, to love as He loves, and to be loved as a child like Elise is loved, for the beauty of her pure being.

So Christ's exhortation to "love your enemy" is not mere obligation or some crazy Christian stricture, but an empowering movement towards being fully human and fully divine.

To be. Just like Christ. Pure being. Pure loving. Pure forgiving.

Designed for love

Last Friday evening we talked about fertility and whether the Church's stance on contraception was practical. Surely methods of contraception that prevented unwanted pregnancy and the spread of sexual disease were indisputably brilliant and therefore should be adopted.

Rather than go into statistics that show that the number of unwanted pregnancies has gone up with the proliferation of birth control pill usage, with the same upward trend when it comes to STDs, not to mention the increasing incidence of divorce and single parent families, let's, as Father David would say, dive down into the waters and look at the iceberg from below.

Go back to the fundamentals and examine human design. What is human nature?

Humans are designed to be in monogamous relationships. When we fall in love, we want exclusivity in a relationship. We want to be unique and special in the eyes of the other. We want to be able to share with this person, be intimate in a way that no one else can and we want it to last forever. (Tell me who falls in love with a view to moving onto the next relationship? We do want exclusive and forever.)

Out of this mutuality of love, we want to create life in order to enlarge the love we have for each other. It is written in our DNA for the perpetuation of the species but more than just a biological premise, humans are created to be spiritual, to develop their potentialities to the fullest, to transcend who and what they are.

Thus procreation is much more than just a mere bid at immortality but offers parents the chance to enrich their own lives and develop as persons. For humans are social animals and need other humans in order to self-actualize, whether it's physically, psychologically, intellectually, emotionally or spiritually.

Cliched as it sounds, it is the circle of life. All life has natural rhythms and seasons but it would seem that it is only the human animal that does its best to ignore this. Unique to humans is the freedom to will, but this can be a huge blessing or a curse of epic proportions.

The cultural dogmas of self-interest first, happiness forged out of freedom and the separation of mind and body have resulted in a culture of using, grasping and instant gratification.

We often forget we are subjects, equal in dignity and we are likely to use others for our own means, treating them as objects, whether it is to assuage loneliness, to combat fears or to pursue our own self-interests and build our own little kingdoms where ego-centric, hedonistic pleasures flourish.

We have lost the art of waiting, not appreciative of the fact that hunger whets the appetite; instead we'd rather dull our appetite by stuffing our faces with junk food fillers than wait for the feast.

Where we have gone very wrong is how we think and act about sex. We use our own body and our partner's body for gratuitous carnal pleasure. We treat each other and ourselves as objects to get off.

We have silenced the language of the body where the sexual act is meant to communicate and deepen an already spousal love, a love that is self-donating, unconditional, pure and faithful. Instead we abuse our bodies for cheap thrills and become slaves to addictive lust.

We even mistake lust or carnality as the pinnacle of human pleasure for we have dismissed the fact that love can be infinitely richer, satisfying and more beautiful than an orgasm per se.

However, life-giving love that invokes real happiness requires work and discipline but most of us are sold on the easy way and instant pleasure, and so we compromise.

Coming back to contraception, again, by human design, women have infertile periods each month, thus by using natural family planning (NFP which is 99% reliable if practised correctly* and needs only the one-time purchase of a thermometer), couples can choose when and how they exercise their generosity and prudence in building their families. So why is there a need for contraception?

Statistically, couples who practise NFP have a lower rate of divorce. Sure, a woman's fertility cycle may cramp the spontaneity of passion for one week, but pro-NFP couples are forced to work on other facets of their love relationship and this enhances intimacy and mutual respect which can only be a good thing for any relationship.

Just think, if you cannot restrain your libido within marriage (and marriage does not legitimize lust), what makes you think you can resist temptation when you are attracted to someone other than your spouse?

And if couples are not married and having sex, they are misusing the language of their body. The usual argument is if I am not hurting anyone and in fact, making someone happy, why not?

Like drugs, when you are a user, you lose your clear-headedness and become enslaved. Being an addict may not kill you outright but you are dead in many other ways - to common sense and decency, freedom and self-love, and the opportunity to find a love that really satisfies.

Going against our human design we blight our souls whether we know it or not in a Dorian Gray-like way where the portrait of our humanity is marred by hideous pockmarks of infidelity, broken relationships, abortion, violent sex crimes and sexual perversions such as the unspeakable horrors of child prostitution and pornography.

We lose the sense of sanctity that is inherent in our minds, bodies and spirits. We desecrate the blessing of our fertility and close ourselves to love as it should be: life-giving.

So what can we do about the spread of sexual disease? Safe sex is only the new prudishness and fails to get to the root of the issue. Lest we forget, there is no question of sex being unsafe if one is in a committed, monogamous relationship.

And for those of us who are not in a relationship, abstinence is not an impossible and harsh reality but a way for us to live out our sexuality honestly and be fulfilled.

We all value honesty in life, why not sexual honesty? We won't explode by abstaining from sex and chastity is not the worst thing in the world even though Oprah thinks it is.

And babies won't get HIV if their parents choose to live out the design of their bodies.

It is true that most people don't think of chastity or fidelity as virtues and have lost touch with the inner workings of the heart, but that doesn't mean we give up, give in and join the crowd.

An indication to me that people around the world still retain a shadow of understanding of how we are made are the K-Dramas I so enjoy and Bollywood movies like Veer Zaara (which I just caught and loved).

These shows are hits with audiences the world over for they speak of a selfless, unconsummated love that sees the lovers go through hell and back, sacrificing much for love before they finally come together in marriage.

Lovers like Veer and Zaara bring a nobility to love that leaves the audience weeping for we all want a self-sacrificing love like that: rare and precious, that goes beyond the boundaries of sexual love, meets adversity with courage and fortitude, and transcends time and social divide.

So don't settle for less. Uphold and exceed the beauty of your designed humanity. Forget about the rules and love as you were created to love.

In this personal journey you will find the true meaning of life.

* Read about studies that show a 100% success rate: http://www.physiciansforlife.org/content/view/192/36/

The Little Way

This weekend the Church of Saint Teresa celebrated the feast day of our patroness, Saint Therese of Lisieux for her feast day falls on October 1.

She is a saint after my own heart for she was well aware of her own imperfections and limitations but offered wholeheartedly to Jesus her littleness and poverty.

Saint Therese is the originator of "The Little Way" which, 138 years later, we are able to imitate and offer up whatever little we have in simplicity and love, knowing God is pleased even with the minuteness of the gift.

A young of girl of 15 who knew exactly what she wanted, she entered the cloistered Carmelite community in Lisieux, but barely before a decade was up, she died of tuberculosis at the tender age of 24, suffering greatly the last 18 months of her life.

I like that she was girly girl - over-sensitive, needy and weepy - and yet, it was her child-like love for Jesus that was her strength: she was trusting and obedient in everything she did and became known as The Little Flower of Jesus.

Despite her youth and simplicity, Saint Therese is one of 33 Doctors of the Church, and one of three woman, the other two being Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint Catherine of Siena, all recognized for having contributed significantly to theology or doctrine.

Hers is a spirituality that is easy to relate to and aspire toward: “Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.”

One of my favourite quotes of hers is: "I will spend my heaven doing good on earth." Simple yet so profound.

I used to wonder how a cloistered nun who did not live very long became the co-patron saint of missionaries (with Saint Francis Xavier) until I read that it was her desire to be a missionary but because of ill health, she was unable to do anything about it except pray for her missionary brothers and sisters in the far corners of the world.

She reminds me that the desires God plants in our hearts may not always take the conventional route, that there may be obstacles, physical limitations, but we should not give up, and instead, get creative.

Dreams become  reality only when we refuse to let them die, but at the same time, remain open to new possibilities of making them happen.

So when life gets overwhelming and you feel like you are at a dead end, ask for the courage and creativity of the young Saint Therese and imitate her Little Way.

Little by little, you will find a way.

Saving faith

Faith is a gift. But like many things we receive for free, it is not accorded the full appreciation it deserves. It is taken for granted and treated with profanity until it is subverted and sometimes even lost.

Being a cradle Catholic, I never appreciated the gift of my faith and saw it as a burden and even the abuse of my human rights: how could my parents have arranged for my baptism when I was merely 12 days old and in no position to give an opinion?

I believed in the idea of God but I didn't know Him at all. I saw organized religion as outdated and oppressive, and made no effort to go beyond the rudiments of childhood Catechism.

The sacrament of reconciliation was an invasion of my privacy for why should I tell my deepest, darkest sins to a human stranger who although a representative of God was still a man?

Prayer was an arduous duty. The Bible was filled with images of a strange, unfathomable God and a bunch of sinful losers - not a riveting read at all.

No pre-marital sex. No contraception. No divorce. Come on, we were living in the 20th century! I was a product of the 80s and believed in personal freedom as the supreme right of my humanity which ran right smack into the forbidding pillars of Scripture and Tradition.

Stories and bad personal experiences of religious who were less than holy further fuelled my cynicism and justified my belief that organized religion was a crock.

I checked out for 20 years although I dutifully went to church every Sunday for many wrong reasons save one: deep down I was desperate that God would throw me a lifeline even though I was drowning in a sea of misery, beyond redemption.

I did not reckon for the strength of purpose of the Good Shepherd and when I finally looked up and found Him (He had found me a long time ago and was just waiting for me to see Him holding out His arms to me), I knew I was home at last when I walked right into His embrace.

As Saint Augustine once said, "God who created you without you will not save you without you."

Learning to walk in my new-found faith was difficult and painful, but exhilarating and joyous at the same time.

I was constantly awed at the beauty and wisdom I found in all things RC even as I grappled with how I could incorporate the moral truths I discovered into my own life.

The "rules" were God-inspired and came alive when I tried them on for size and lived them out for an extended period of time even when I wasn't yet fully convinced of their veracity.

I was also appalled at how ignorant I was, and at how I had taken my faith so lightly for so long.

On reading Scott and Kimberly Hahn's journey to Catholicism in Rome Sweet Home I was humbled and heartened at the same time.

Humbled at the depth of their faith and heartened that God could inspire such passionate advocates.

Here were two staunch, good Christians, actively living out their faith, but because of Scott Hahn's thirst for truth, the "Bible detective" came to the realization that the Catholic Church was the one, true church and not the "whore of Babylon" he had been led to believe.

The challenged faith of this former Protestant minister saw him enrolling in a Catholic university and defending the Catholic faith against Catholics, irony of ironies, before he finally arrived home in the Catholic Church.

His and his wife's faith journey was one of copious tears, deep conflict, pain and much soul-searching. They lost friends and a promising future of their dreams. There was division in the marriage and both must have experienced great confusion amidst the increasing conviction of a new paradigm of truth.

Yet their faith never wavered and they both tirelessly and assiduously searched for the truth until it blossomed and became inscribed in their hearts.

As I continue to fertilize and water my faith, I can only wish for half their enthusiasm and diligence in cultivating a living and transforming faith.

Another hero of mine in keeping the faith and staying the course is Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit who was also a man of science and a brilliant academic. He refused to abandon his faith and chose obedience to a church that condemned his writings and silenced him (his books were banned and he could not teach) during his lifetime. His was a faith beyond human understanding, just like Christ.

May I become an ardent and wise defender of the Truth as the Hahns, with the fortitude of de Chardin so as not to profane my gift of faith (ever again) and I urge all Catholics to ask for a "faith-seeking understanding" when it comes to the teachings of the Magisterium before making the decision to walk away from the goodness and beauty of Roman Catholicism.

Faith is only as powerful a redemptive blessing, deep and fruitful, as you will allow.

Why reverse carolling?

What would you say if I said reverse carolling? Will you have to sing carols in reverse? Or will the people living in the homes visited sing to the carollers instead?

I will be a reverse caroller this coming December when I go up to the Philippines to participate in ICPE Mission Philippines' Christmas initiative taking place from the 13th to 16th December.

Reverse carolling is a termed coined by ICPE Mission Philippines for their Christmas outreach. In the Philippines, it is common practice to give the carollers who visit your home a small cash gift for their efforts. However, the families that we will be visiting would not be able to do so.

So instead we will serenade them and leave behind the gift of a Christmas food hamper that will enable them to celebrate the birth of Christ with joy and full stomachs.

This will be the second time I am participating in this and I am looking forward to it for we will not only be visiting families living in the dumpsite around Montalban, but also disadvantaged families living in Tagaytay over four days.

I chose to do this this year for I know the Mission desperately needs muscle (each hamper weighs a ton, well, pretty much when you've been walking with two for a while) and it's been over a year since my surgery so I should be able to lift hampers this December.

We leave early morning after loading up the van with heavily laden hampers. When we arrive, we each take two hampers and break up into groups to visit the houses which are typically made of wood, corrugated metal sheets or cardboard and are cramped and dark. Many have no doors save for a cloth nailed to the top of the doorway that drops down to cover the doorway.

Before we leave the family with one Christmas food hamper, we will have prayed with them and sung Christmas carols to them.

The thing that struck me most the first time I got involved was how grateful they were that their presence was acknowledged by another.

A simple smile seemed to transcend the language barrier and make their day brighter.

So if you are looking for something meaningful to do this Christmas, give reverse carolling a try. You will get to stay in ICPE Mission Philippines' mission house in Tagaytay which is pleasantly cool.

If you are unable to take time off during December, a donation would be equally meaningful for SGD5,000 must be raised to defray the cost of 300 food hampers. 

Go to http://icpephilippines.blogspot.com/2011/09/normal-0-false-false-false-en-sg-x-none.html to see how you can get involved in this.

What better way to enter the spirit of Christmas than to give a gift from the heart that benefits many? And that's why reverse carolling.

What He wants

The body is intelligent. When muscles are tight, the body will automatically compensate such that you will accomplish what you want to do, except your muscles will not be working collectively in a balanced manner and you will not be properly aligned even though you think you are.

Over time, the compensatory movement will create a muscle imbalance that may eventually cause an injury or impact the skeletal structure negatively.

Likewise, our mind can play tricks on us when we deal with trauma, unpleasant truths or our own voracious need for love.

Sometimes, the lies we tell ourselves are a necessary self-defence mechanism in order we survive, however the danger is if we remain in the lie and perpetuate unhealthy patterns of behaviour that we cannot see and shake off.

When it comes to love, we all have this propensity to behave in ways that demonstrate a tenacious compulsion to fashion relationships that feed our own inordinate needs and desires.

We are unable to see or act with true self-giving love, that is, to love in a way that is objectively good for the other person and not what WE THINK is good for the other or our own self, with no expectation or hidden agenda.

It's usually a little (or a lot) self-serving for we are often unable to love in a way that is free of self-interest, or salutary for ourselves.

We grasp. We bend over backwards. We get enmeshed. We over-compensate. We rationalize co-dependent or abusive relationships, and our own and others' toxic behaviour.

We manipulate. We obfuscate. We isolate ourselves. We lose truth in our lives, and consequently we lose our way; we lose self-awareness and even our sense of self.

Last Friday evening we talked about marriage, and love - how love should be prophetic and liturgical.

We agreed that the marriages we saw around us that were successful were those where the couple was centred on God and His plan for them. It's all about what He wants, not what he or she wants.

The same holds true for those of us who are single, or more precisely, for everyone.

Within each of us is the call to love and be loved, but how we answer the call makes all the difference between a love that is life-giving or poisonous.

As Father Bernard Lonergan states, "Heirs of original sin, people come into the world as divided creatures, gifted with the love of God, being in love with God, but victimized by ignorance and concupiscence."

Because of original sin, we will tend toward sin and we will sin. It's inescapable. But we can minimize sin, just as we can train our bodies to proper recruitment of muscles and better postural alignment.

Through the continued effort of hard work: educating ourselves, shedding our ignorance by looking for a more edifying way of living life; and acknowledging shortcomings yet being willing to effect change.

An additional way to cultivate wisdom involves daily examen consciousness or self-reflection,  regular time spent in prayer, meditating on Scripture and persistent journalling (patterns of behaviour can be seen more clearly over a period of time).

For as JPII proposes, we are made to spend time in solitude in order to discover how we can enrich our relationship with God by hanging out with Him, and consequently to be fed emotionally and spiritually, growing in wisdom.

Seek counsel from wise and mature spiritual guides, or listen to the opinions of trusted friends. I even consider remarks made by people who are not life-giving for a hint of truth may lurk in the midst of malice.

Journeying with a community of like-minded, committed Christians has also made the difference for me. By being honest and open with those who love me and want what's best for me, I am able to cast light on my secret, shameful weaknesses and move forward into transformational strength.

When we aspire to love as Christ loved, and loves, we love prophetically, reflecting His love to others.

We are able to share the truth of friendship* with love and sensitivity; remain compassionate and patient in the face of blind obstinacy; and uphold a high moral standard with humility and without being judgemental.

We love liturgically when we praise the Lord in all situations, in all things. When we worship with the exuberance and joy of Psalm 148.

This means elevating the unpleasant, mundane and dreary by imbuing a sense of caring pride into all we do. Not only by doing small things with great love but by keeping faith and finding blessings even in disaster.

Releasing tight muscle and harmful "love" behaviour are equally painful and difficult but there is hope when we attempt to love with JPII's "original nakedness"; with vulnerability and openness that is untainted by fear, distortion and subterfuge.

Whether it's peers, friends, spouses, parents, siblings or children, let us ask God today to purify the love we receive and give in all our relationships, and restore them to wholesomeness.

* A. echoed Bernard Cooke on friendship: "Human friendship is the most basic sacrament of God's saving presence among us".

Family benefits

Human beings are social by nature. This means that there is a given pattern of human design that we all feel called to fulfil; and which if we ignored would mean that a dimension of our humanity would remain undeveloped.*

Only in society, interacting closely with other people, can we fully develop as persons.

The first stratum of society we are all exposed to is our own families. Therefore our first training ground in learning to become human is within the family - as child, sibling, grandchild, niece or nephew, cousin, and even aunt or uncle in big, extended families.

As we enter school, we develop friendships with our peers and we find mentors in our teachers. And when we transition into adulthood, we become colleagues, employees, managers or employers - and citizens.

To complete the circle, we eventually become spouses and parents ourselves.

At every stage of our life, we can weave in and out of various social circles of our own choosing. And yet, we can never lose the familial relationships established in our childhood even if we deny their existence, finding them lacking and onerous.

I found this great quote by Father Granados, my TOB lecturer in Melbourne, that proposes JPII's TOB is, "not just about sexuality, but about the truth of love as the foundation of the person’s dignity and the meaning of reality; and about the family as the place where the person finds himself and his way towards happiness."

It is in our families that we learn how to be patient, kind, forgiving, honest, generous, caring and all the other qualities that define a person as good or a decent human being. It is where we first learn how to love.

Upon my return from studying abroad, I found living at home quite impossible for I was used to living my life without the restriction of obligation and the tension of family dynamics.

I was dismayed for I found myself regressing into this grouchy, crazy person when I thought I had become a fairly amiable and collected woman.

In learning how to live in the pressure cooker of dysfunctional and broken relationships, how to deal with hateful situations, I had to face up to my own flaws and deficiencies, resolve my own demons in order to fashion my own happiness within the parameters of the family structure.

Reality can bite, especially the reality of unhappy family situations and ridiculous relatives, but I wouldn't trade mine in for each one has helped lick me into shape: I am a better person because of them.

So if you want to grow spiritually and emotionally, you don't have to travel far. Just learn to love your family at close range and you will get there.

After all if we don't strive for harmony within our own backyards how can we hope to broker world peace?

* From course notes of the social justice module of Personal Compass.

REDEEMED CREATION

Inscribed in my body is the desire
To love and be loved. It burns in my heart,
Soul and mind an insatiable fire
That can only be slaked when I'm a part
Of He who made me - in deep communion.
The world spins a candy floss existence
Spurning solitude and naked union.
Until I turn from its sly insistence,
I can't fathom my reason for being,
Getting lost in isms so unseeing.
Eschewing the Beatific Vision
Leaves me with a meagre sense of mission.
But redemption of my sexuality
Can be the grace of my mortality.

LISTEN
I know you've known me all my life, while I
but recently tasted the sweet pleasure
of your presence that I truly treasure.
I can't help but want more of you, yet I
get distracted so easily, a curse I
can't seem to shake: spiritual ADD.
Most attempts at prayer are mere parody.
A litany of needs and wants that I
recite swiftly with no real conviction.
How do I invoke this gripping passion?
Breathe and live your commitment and vision,
Experience love as more than a notion.
Is it in the silence you sought constantly?
Perhaps I could learn to listen as keenly.

Life compass

Last Friday evening we were discussing how difficult it was to put into practice what we have learned from our study of TOB.

What if the people around us did not believe as we did, especially the people whom we loved?

How do we "preach" the good news of TOB, living as we do in a world that idealizes a very one-dimensional understanding of love and promotes instant gratification of sexual lust?

A. reminded us the TOB is like a new lens we are invited to view life through and in using this lens more and more, we will make personal choices based on the clarity of truth that will eventually affect those around us.

The way we carry ourselves - how we think and how we act - will bear witness to our beliefs and spread the message of self-donating love, rather than through any conscious effort to change minds and hearts.

TOB as a way of life is an invitation to self-awareness, to a more incisive understanding of our own human design and nature that enables us to realize the desires of our heart and in turn, to be happily fulfilled.

We are all born to transcendence, to become more than what we are now; to grow spiritually and find the real meaning of our individual lives as it is lived interwoven with the lives of those we love and live with.

I agree with my W2W sisters that it is tough. Living and breathing TOB does involve a process of multiple transformations that takes time and hard sacrifice initially. As with anything else in life, practice makes perfect.

I just attended a class last night and the topic was work: it is part of the nature of man that we have to "toil" in order to be fed. So why should it be any different for spiritual food?

Being proficient at anything takes hard work, but there will come a time where it becomes easier and things will be a cruise.

One of the fears of living honestly or with integrity is that no one else is doing the same so you will be a loser by choosing to live differently. To misquote Luke, is losing such a bad thing if we lose the world by find ourselves?

Plus, there will be others who think like we do, we just have to be bold enough to be upfront and let the light of truth shine from our hearts and this beam will find the glow of others' truth beams and blaze a unified brightness that will light up the darkness, making night day.

Having bought the TOB message and lived it for a couple of years now, I no longer struggle as hard as I did previously. There is a payoff:

I like that I am no longer confused or unsure of myself but am growing more confidently in my sexuality as woman.

I know I have much to offer to the world and I enjoy what I am already giving.

I look forward eagerly to becoming more and giving more even though I know there will be times I will bemoan the "painful toil".

Above all things, if I defer to the Captain of my ship to tack my course, I know I will weather even the fiercest storms and TOB is a trusty compass that the Captain has bestowed on me to help me navigate through life.

Try it.

Turning the other cheek

It is no accident that the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 disaster should fall on a Sunday where the readings are on the practice of forgiveness.

Can we forgive the destruction and death wrought 10 years ago that was so unthinkably devastating?

We are told that resentment and anger are "foul things, and both are found with the sinner" in Ecclesiasticus. The writer further reminds us that if we wish to be forgiven ourselves, we must choose to forgive others. For God always forgives, His covenant with us a sign of His unending mercy

While Saint Paul reminds the Romans that "the life and death of each of us has its influence on others" and to therefore "live for the Lord" and "die for the Lord", for we "belong" to Him.

Finally Jesus himself tells Peter that we must forgive not seven but seventy-seven times. In other words, always.

This teaching on forgiveness is hard to swallow and even more difficult to carry out when we come face to face with evil or suffering.

In instances of extreme evil or destruction, whether natural (today is also the six-month anniversary of the tsunami that devastated Japan) or human-induced, we even question the existence of God, which interestingly enough is what convinces Aquinas that God exists.

God does not cause evil directly but He allows evil in order to bring good from it.

We are created good (being created in His image) and by virtue of this goodness, the human spirit has the capacity to triumph over evil.

The human capacity to love, to hope and to believe is infinite. This is what propels us forward: to pick up the pieces and rebuild something good out of what evil has reduced to rubble.

To go beyond fear, despair, bitterness and anger; to find healing and to find a way to live with peace and inner joy.

To forgive is to find new life by letting go of the past and not let it control our future actions in ways that diminish us.

It invites us to define how suffering has changed us and to discover how we can rise above our suffering and ourselves: to make limoncello out of lemons.

In the Linns' book Don't Forgive Too Soon Extending the Two Hands That Heal, they offer an enlightening interpretation of what Jesus means when He tells us to "turn the other cheek" (Matthew 5:38-42).

Rather than accepting violence submissively, turning your other cheek signals that you are "reclaiming your dignity" and communicating "that you refuse to be humiliated". How so?

In ancient times, the left hand was reserved for unclean tasks. Hence when a master were to strike his slave, he would backhand the slave with his right hand and hit the slave on the right cheek. Backhanding people signified a position of power and superiority.

When one presents the left cheek, ass Jesus advised, the person who is striking you would have to punch you to hit you again with his right hand.

Punches are thrown only among equals so in receiving the punch of your attacker, you are saying I will not resort to your violent ways but I am equal in dignity to you.

Non-violent engagement in dealing with evil requires forgiveness which is a process the Linns see as similar to Kubler-Ross's stages of dealing with death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

It demands of us creative ways of stopping the evil by resorting to means that communicate we will not cooperate with evil but that we are reacting in a life-giving manner that will not perpetuate violence but rapprochement.

We must never forget that evil does exist and that our lives will invariably be touched by its insidious malevolence.

We can, however, honour the past by choosing goodness, and deal with evil actively in the way Jesus exhorts us to - by turning the other cheek and saying no to oppression, hate, "dissolution and death".

Judgement calls

In today's readings we are called to speak truth into the lives of those around us, to point out their sins, for if we do not, then we will be held "accountable for their blood".

Yet we are also reminded that love is the driving force behind all the commandments and that we should nurture a love of neighbours.

A tall order for to be humbly righteous without being judgemental, truthful yet lovingly so and on top of that, to know when exactly to voice your opinion is mighty tough.

I grew up in a family of opinionated and legalistic people so to pass judgement on others is a skill that comes only too naturally to me.

On the positive side, I do have a fairly well-developed sense of right and wrong and given that I am aware of my judgemental streak, I do manage to actively censor the worst of the highly critical comments that pop into my head unbidden.

What I find humbling and highly amusing (yup, it's confirmed, He does have a bona fide sense of humour) is when I get outraged at how others behave and I turn the situation around in my mind, He often reveals to me a situation in which I have behaved in exactly the same manner.

Who am I to cast the first stone?

What I have learnt this year is that we should never judge people, just their actions. And even in this regard, we need to look a little deeper at the person's intent to make a more accurate assessment of any given situation.

The standing joke in class when we are asked to judge a situation is that the only answer we should give is, "It depends".

Plus the only conscience we need worry about (as Father David pointed out so fittingly) is our own, and that alone will keep us fully occupied for our own redemption depends on our choices in life, and you can bet your life that we will screw up no matter how "good" we are.

Having said all that, there are universal principles that govern morality: what is right and what is wrong and often we are reticent in proclaiming our belief in these principles for fear of being thought a persnickety prude. I know I am often guilty of keeping silent because of this.

It takes prudence and guts to be able to tell it like it is, yet do it in such a way that the other person is receptive to the message.

As Saint Paul said to the Romans, "Love is the fulfilling of the law", so love is supreme. This means being open to the movements of the Spirit and to let that be the guide for Jesus is always loving and never manipulative (as humans can be).

Being a good Christian is not about being popular or nice, it's about being loving, and that sometimes involves being a "watchman" or a party pooper prophet.

In order to make the right judgement call, we need to grow in wisdom, and the best place to start is with "fear of the Lord". (Proverbs 1:7a)

Luncheon challenge

One of my worst nightmares is to be put into a roomful of strangers who know each other well and I found myself in exactly that situation last weekend, with the exception of my good friend who had invited me to lunch.

I was extremely uncomfortable and knew I would be but went anyway because I love M. and wanted to celebrate with her (plus I had not seen her in a while). I also have a masochistic streak in me and like to challenge myself.

I came home with a tension headache.

So this made me ask myself why I had such an adverse reaction? Why was I so stressed out? There were a number of reasons:

*  I am an introvert who enjoys being alone; never bored with my own company.

*  I hate small talk for I find it meaningless and therefore am quite bad at it.
*  I was painfully shy as a teenager because I had low self-esteem and I have never really outgrown the awkward, gauche girl I was.

Yup, I am socially inept although I have learnt how to get by most times. Although last Sunday was not one of those times and I felt I was failing miserably, hence the headache ("Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I think I'll go and eat worms...").

It is quite disgruntling to note that I can still be a prisoner of my teenaged angst-filled years where I felt like an unloved, weird misfit.

And yet, I know that this is who I am and I am still learning to embrace my own unique shortcomings and weaknesses.

We are bombarded daily with messages of  how we should look (slim, youthful and sexy) and what will make us happy (more designer stuff, living the high life with an adoring good-looking, rich partner, etc.) and it's so easy to fall into the trap of self-loathing for how many of us actually attain the celebrated ideals?

And if we do, can we hold on to them or do they turn out to be illusory and too transient for lasting happiness?

This is where I feel blessed to be grounded and centred on Christ. One of my greatest esteem-boosters has been my affirming relationship with Jesus for through Him, I know what's important  in my life.

As Saint Paul said to the Colossians: "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things."

With Christ, I know I am loved for who I am exactly where I am, without having to lift a finger to prove anything. He also points me in the right direction and best of all, I don't have to be perfect to attain my goals.

The journey is definitely more significant than the destination and if I maintain the right disposition and attitude in life, pointing towards Christ always, I will be near perfect in my bumbling, surly social persona. And even when I fall.

So when I do fall short of my own expectations, I remind myself it's okay, I am still loved, and not to get into a self-hate downward spiral about it.

At the same time I recognize that there is always room for improvement. As my aunt L. was fond of saying: Be content with what you have, but not with what you are.

Maybe the next lunch with strangers will be easier. I will be "better". Let's hope so for I am going for two separate luncheons today to celebrate Eid with friends.

Update 5:30pm: I enjoyed myself at both places - the food and conversation with strangers were equally good. Yay!