WE THREE KINGS!- An Epiphany Message from Bishop Strickland

🙏 76 MEDITATION for PEACE in the WORLD 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time Octo...

5 Principles for Lenten Practices - As proposed by St. Benedict

   St. Benedict would not understand what Lent has become for many Christians today, trivialized to a time when we give up candy, cut down on television, or make a yearly confession.  I find it sad to see that Lent has become reduced to such a poor shadow of the great significance it had during the first Christian centuries. Perhaps we can rediscover again its true meaning and experience a new its rich reality by incorporating into our lives some of the timeless principles that St. Benedict proposes to all of us as Lenten Practices in the Rule.

5 Principles of the Lenten observance
1. "Refraining from sin"
2. Prayer with tears
3. Holy Reading
4. Repentance
5. Abstinence from food

Thanking God

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
e.e. cummings
1894-1962

   I first saw and read the poem above many years ago published in the bulletin of the Marikina Zendo in the Philippines.  It is a favorite poem of my Zen Teacher, Sr. Rosario Battung, RGS.  One way of learning a new language is to ask the person to say what it means, "Thank You" in his or her own language.  "Muchas Gracias"(Spanish), "Grazie"(Italian), "Salamat Po"(Tagalog) are the few words I know.  The same is true in spiritual life.  To be able to learn the language of the spirit, one has to be able to express thanks and gratitude to God for all His gifts and for everything, even the seemingly bad things in the daily experience of life, which later on will serve a good purpose in the divine economy.  There are many creative ways to thank God using the gifts of senses He gave us.  Our sense of seeing can see the beauty of His creation.  Our sense of hearing can hear the music of the wind and the rivers.  Our sense of taste can enjoy the blessings of food and the warmth of a kiss.  Our sense of smell can be awakened by the fragrance of a rose.  Our sense of touch can give life to a brokenhearted soul. Another way is by way of comparison of my life before and my life now.  In my past experience how did God manifest His grace.  In my life today how is God sustaining and guiding my steps and decisions.  To be able to see the difference and to see the workings of God in my life are jumping boards for grateful prayer of thanks to Him.  Identification of gifts given in the forms of persons in my circle of family, friends and associates, and even in personalities of the sacred and the mundane world I live in, can also be a reference in my way of thanking God. I can also expand it to see the larger view in my work, travel, and even dreams still to come.  As I start to count my blessings, I discover that the list is infinite.
   As an exercise, try to compose your own prayer of thanks to God today, at this very moment in your life.  The result is your own gratitude prayer to God, something which is deeply personal and from the innermost core of your heart.
   Lord God, thank you for gift of life, the gift of family and friends, the gift of a place to live and food to eat and the gift of this new day.  Help me to treasure each gift as it comes from You and from those around me and the world I work and live.  May your gifts be treasured and shared always for your greater glory. Amen.

To be grateful

“To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. 
Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.” 
― Thomas Merton

"Thank You!" is one of the most common phrases uttered in various ways, languages and occasions in daily life.  It is also a very basic prayer stance when a person is overwhelmed and overshadowed by the love of God and His many blessings.  The year 2014 is almost over and everybody is preparing to peek into the New Year 2015 once its doors are opened wide.  I am taking speedy effort to write something here since it has been quite a while that I have come home to my own blog, rest for a while and gain new wisdom and insight.

Every day there is an abundance of God's blessings to be grateful for.  An ongoing attitude of gratitude is a mark of an "Anawim", a biblical image of those who rely solely on God and who keep total trust and confidence on Him.  Life, the whole of human existence and its colorful paraphernalia of activities and experiences is a pure gift of God.  God is the breath of life, the "Ruah" of all living beings.  Living a life based on the belief and conviction that God is the giver and author of everything is the entry towards living a full, joyful and grateful life.

Personally, as I review for a brief moment, the passages of my own life's journey, I cannot help but sing my own song of praise and thanksgiving to God for being there for me every step of the way.  God was there during the moment of my birth in "karma".  God was present during those first days of motherly love and care given to me.  God was there when at barely eight months, I was taken over by my grandmother to nurse and babysit me until I grow older.  God was there in my growing up years.  He was there in my studies.  He was there in my great moments of being ordained to the Catholic priesthood and sent to the missions.  God was there in my becoming a Benedictine monk for some time.  God was there in my decision to get married.  God was there in my finding a work and waiting for my wife to come to the U.S. and join me.  God is here with us, as we live day by day working, loving and caring for each other and our folks back home in the Philippines.  For all of these, my heart sings a song of thanks to God for all His love and blessings.

In many ways I am still an imperfect human being living in a strange and imperfect world.  Yes, I believe in God's guidance and help in my daily journey of faith.  Every new day, I open up my heart and mind to His guidance, stirrings and direction.  I know I am trudging along the road of many surprising twists and turns, of many challenges and moments of fulfillment and satisfaction.  I am very grateful for my wife, my friends and family members who are still there a call or a message away, to encourage me when I am down, to support me when I am weary, and to challenge me to grow when I am stalled and stuck up.

Gratitude has been my song, gratitude is still my song, and gratitude will always be my song.  The more I stay grateful, the more I grow in love and faith in the God of my own understanding.  Here I am Lord, grateful for your love and ready to embark on the service of love wherever I go out of love for you and gratitude for everything!



   

A Prayer On Becoming a Contemplative - By Thomas Merton

  Justify my soul, O God, but also from Your fountains fill my will with fire.  Shine in my mind, although perhaps this means "be darkness to my experience," but occupy my heart with Your tremendous Life.  Let my eyes see nothing in the world but Your glory, and let my hands touch nothing that is not for Your service.  Let my tongue taste no bread that does not strengthen me to praise Your great mercy.  I will hear Your voice and I will hear all the harmonies You have created, singing Your hymns.  Sheep's wool and cotton from the field shall warm me enough that I may live in Your service; I will give the rest to Your poor.  Let me use all things for one sole reason:  to find my joy in giving You glory.

  Therefore keep me, above all things, from sin.  Keep me from the death of deadly sin which puts hell in my soul.  Keep me from the murder of lust that blinds  and poisons my heart.  Keep me from the sins that eat a man's flesh with irresistible fire until he is devoured.  Keep me from loving money in which is hatred, from avarice and ambition that suffocate my life.  Keep me from the dead works of vanity and the thankless labour in which artists destroy themselves for pride and money and reputation, and saints are smothered under the avalanche of their own importunate zeal.  Stanch in me the rank wound of covetousness and the hungers that exhaust my nature with their bleeding.  Stamp out the serpent envy that stings love with poison and kills all joy.

  Untie my hands and deliver my heart from sloth.  Set me free from the laziness that goes about disguised as activity when activity is not required of me, and from the cowardice that does what is not demanded, in order to escape sacrifice.

  But give me the strength that waits upon You in silence and peace.  Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which the heaviest of burdens. And possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love.  Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of love that I may love, not for the sake of merit, not for the sake of perfection, not for the sake of virtue, not for the sake of sanctity, but for You alone.

  For there is only one thing that can satisfy love and reward it, and that is You alone.  (Amen.)

Personal Comment and Reflection - By Bobby Sagra

..."But give me strength that waits upon You in silence and peace.  Give me humility in which alone is rest,...possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love...."

  If Thomas Merton is alive and has a Facebook account, I will be among the first to like and be a fan of him.  I was still very young then, when I first read a written book of Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.  I don't have anymore a copy of that book because I only borrowed it from the library, but it left a very deep impression on me about the vision and spirituality of the author.  I have also read other classic works of Thomas Merton like the Seven Storey Mountain and the Vow of Conversation.  Now I am reading Seeds of Contemplation from where I got the the prayer above.  Indeed, contemplation is a personal call from God to discover Him in a new way in one's own spiritual journey of faith, love and hope.  God is all knowing and is present in all of His creation, especially in all of us members of the human family. To begin to contemplate is to make God the One to whom our hearts desire, the One to whom our minds seek to grasp and understand, the One to whom our restless soul can find true and lasting rest.

  Hence, the source, reason and goal of contemplation is God.  The process of contemplation is seeking God 24/7 in every nook and corner of His creation, in every moment and experience of life, in His revelation of Himself in silence, in the marketplace of unending sounds and voices of people, in the byways of society, in emptiness and fullness, in poverty and sickness and even death. To be a contemplative is to make a decision to make seeking God a way of everyday life, so that at the end of each day, when sunset comes, our eyes can glance to the western horizon and say a prayer of gratitude for the gift of having that experience of the divine and the love of God in the hours of the day that etched a portrait of God in our souls, hearts and minds.

  The beauty of God's creation is that He created our minds to know Him, our hearts to love Him and our souls to find rest in Him.  When our minds are cluttered by the avalanche of digital communications, our hearts confused and broken by the hurts and pains and cajoled by the joy and celebrations in the satellite of our human relationships, God comes to us in silence and prayer and assures our souls that whatever happens He loves us still and will show us the way to peace, to wholeness and to mend our broken hearts.

   If not tended daily by the love of God, our souls are like a flower I found in the balcony of an elderly which was dying and without flowers.  I put the pot in the sun to receive the healing rays and I water it every morning and evening.  To my amazement after a while, the flower came back to life, and now is giving joy to those who come to get amazed at her beauty in the midst of God's creation.

  Let us therefore become the beloved that God dreamed us to be, the sons and daughters that our Father in heaven wants us to behave and the followers of the holy footsteps of Him who said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life."

  

  

Remembering Patty

Remembering Patty

   She was cute, petite, small and full of life, energy and love.  Everyone who comes to the house likes her.  Her million dollar smile welcomes, delights and comforts all.  Just moments after she passed away, my wife and I have the moment of grace to be with  her sorrowful son and daughter in law by her bedside.

   I recall with feelings of nostalgia and grateful reminiscence those times when I served Patty's favorite coffee in the mornings, accompanied her to walk outside, watched NBA basketball games with her and brought her to rest on her bed at night.  I also remember those times when I would ask her to help me dry the dishes or fold the clothes from the laundry.  Helping out was her therapy and we will always try to find something for her to do to make her happy.

   Patty loves her family and was friendly and kind to all.  She and her husband Ed stayed for few years in the Philippines when Ed served as a U.S. Navy officer in Subic Bay and Olongapo.  I saw photos of happy memories of the Filipino friends they both came to know and have fun with during their stay there.  She will always ask where Ed is and will wait for Ed to come home.  She fondly remembers the day of her birth, May the 18th, 1933.  She is always happy to see her son and daughter in law, her grandchildren and her brother visiting her.  She loves her dog Einstein and she misses her room upstairs in the house where she last stayed.

   Among the residents we took care of, Patty stands out as one to be greatly missed.  My wife and I cried the moment we saw Patty's lifeless body.  In our hearts were treasured experiences of taking care of her as she made her journey home to be with her husband Ed and her Maker.  How short, fast and mysterious those times of being with her day by day, night after night in the residential care facility we worked for almost a year where Patty stayed till the end of her life on earth.  Now, her joy is complete as she smiles from the window of heaven  looking at us, who still makes our day to day journey here.  My wife prayed to her for something and immediately came the effective response.

   It is a night of the first moon.  We went out to eat dinner at Cicero's Pizza and just before I got into the car I saw the crescent moon in the dark western horizon.  The moon shines out of the first darkness of the summer evening.  It is indeed a cycle of life and death.  When the day of life is over and darkness prevails over the earth, the moon comes and gives a shining glow of hope, a vision of light and new life in the night just after a day has ended.  I see Patty's beautiful smile in the new moon and in the silent whisper of the summer breeze I hear the echo of her loving heart and caring soul.  Such a fullness of life from such an exuberant and kind person as Patty is a real rejuvenation and joy for us who came to know, love and care for her.