True Home

For the wayward from their true home,

The journey back is so lonesome.

For those who found their true home,

Thoughts of going away is gone.

Each one is always a searcher,

Seeking for horizon's somewhere

Till one's heart is at peace out there

And one's soul finds room for slumber.

Real home is a precious treasure.

Once it's lost, life becomes obscure.

True home, a pearl of seas asure,

Once it's found, life's hurts get a cure.

This world is a home, but not yet.

I dream of a home, peace I get.

Serenity, my soul's outlet.

 God's home I will never forget. 

Artist's Profile

God has put in the heart of every person a deep and intense longing for a true home.  My inspiration in writing this poem came out of my own lifelong search  for a place of love, peace and silence.  I have been a missionary priest for many years and I found a home in the hearts of the people I served, loved and cared for in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and the Philippines.  My vision of life as a poet is that it is an amazing journey from the womb of the mother to the Father's bosom in Heaven.

Note:  This poem was published in the book, A SURRENDER TO THE MOON,

 The International Library of Poetry, Howard Ely, Editor, Copyright@2005, Watermark Press, One Poetry Plaza, Owings Mills, MD 21117 USA

The Last Supper Meal in the light of Intimacy, Service and Hospitality

This a personal reflection based on John 13:1-20, The Last Supper Meal

One of the common public worship services by the three major Christian Churches: Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican is the celebration of the Holy Eucharist or Holy Mass.

Here, I would like to share few significant points, which could be a basis for further reflection and sharing in a small group of Christians doing a Bible study.

The first thing that John wants us to reflect is that the whole of Christ's life and death is an expression of His special gratuitous self giving love for his disciples. "He had always loved those who were in the world, but now he showed how perfect his love was."(John 13:1 The New Jerusalem Bible). This means literally that since the time he called them up to the end, he has always loved them. This brings us to meditate on the call of Jesus to intimacy with him. In human experience, what does it mean to be intimate? I conceive intimacy as a home or an environment of a true maturing love between Jesus and his present day followers, between husbands and wives, among friends, among communities, etc. M. Scott Peck's definition of love is one that I am most convinced as a classic expression of what really love is. He defines love as "The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." In her National Bestseller book, "all about love" Bell Hooks built her idea on that and further said, "When we understand love as the will to nurture our own and another's spiritual growth, it becomes clear that we cannot claim to love if we are hurtful and abusive." She also said, "When we are loving we openly and honestly express care, affection, responsibility, respect, commitment and trust." For me, this is precisely the kind of intimacy that Jesus left as a perpetual legacy to his beloved disciples in that upper room of the Last Supper Meal on the night before he suffered and died. He gave us love's highest standard, that of giving up oneself for the sake of the beloved. "No greater love man has, than to offer his life for his friends."(John 15:13) Thus, intimacy is breaking through the barriers of personal differences, of time and space, of boundaries and cultures and simply being there to sincerely interfere, through the little and great acts of kindness and love, while allowing oneself to be also disturbed and challenged by the words and life of the one loved, for the sake of promoting spiritual growth, achieving mutual happiness and fulfillment, and like Christ, doing everything well in love.
This brings us now to the second important thing that John wants to drive at, i.e. humble service, "He got up from table, removed his outer garment and, taking a towel, wrapped it round his waist; he then poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and wipe them with the towel he was wearing."(John 13:4-5) In the Jewish custom this gesture of Jesus is very symbolic of the humility of a slave serving his master. How can we do the same act of humble service. Maybe we can understand this by looking at the angle and feeling of the one who is served. When someone serves me as I order something to eat in a restaurant I feel superior to that person. The cliche', "The customer is always right" is often used to claim one's right and superiority in an ordinary human setting. Jesus revolutionized a change in this mentality. His kind of leadership is one of being always disposed to be of service, rather than being served. A further note I would like to look closer is the defiant attitude of Peter when Jesus approached him to wash his feet. To teach him a lesson in true discipleship, Jesus told him that if he persists in his denial of the Lord's service the consequence will be, "...you will have no share with me."(John 13:8) which is a Semitic phrase of cutting him off from any further relationship with the Lord and from all share in Jesus' ministry and in his glory, because he does not appreciate his Master's outlook. Behind the act and the reply that Jesus made to Peter, he explained that his sacrifice has already achieved the purification required in the Mosaic Law. "Every branch that does not bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more. You are pruned already, by means of the word I have spoken to you."(John 15:2-3) Also we find another relevant text, "But if we live our lives in the light, as he is in the light, we are in union with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin."(1 John 1:7-8)
Lastly, the third and very important thing that John wants to stress is Hospitality. "I tell you most solemnly, whoever welcomes the one I send welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me."(John 13:20) By calling all his disciples to eat with him the Passover Meal just before he suffered the brutality of crucifixion, Jesus gave us all the core of the very heart of God, which is hospitality. I came from the Philippines, a country known by those who come to visit us a a country gifted with the gospel value of hospitality. In the different towns and cities around the Philippine archipelago, especially during the "Fiesta" celebration in honor of the Patron Saint of the town, all visitors are welcomed to eat in every home. Not only that the best food are put on the table but they are served both with smile and love from the Filipino host family. Here, in the very act of Jesus at the Last Supper Meal, hospitality is very much connected with intimacy and service. When I am intimate with someone, I also gladly welcome that person into my life and I am willing to offer the gift and the good that I have for that person in order to make the joy of fellowship complete. As a former Benedictine monk in Pecos, New Mexico, one of the best things I remember and still try to live is a tenet in the Rule of St. Benedict urging us to see the very person of Christ in every guest who comes to the monastery, which in itself is a practical application of the last supper admonition of Jesus. As we continue to live our christian life, the daily challenge is to make our hearts, our homes, our persons as the very sure place of the hospitality of the heart of Jesus - a heart pierced by the soldier's sword, yet a heart that continues to accept, to forgive, to love, to offer his very last drop of blood for each one of us.
In closing, we can ponder on the mysticism of love from the book, The Way of Love, The Last Meditation of Antony de Mello, "The symphony of life moves on but you keep looking back, clinging to a few bars of the melody, blocking your ears to the rest of the music, thereby producing disharmony and conflict between what life is offering you and what you are clinging to. Then comes the tension and anxiety which are the very death of love and the joyful freedom that love brings. For love and freedom are only found when one enjoys each note as it arises, then allows it to go, so as to be fully receptive to the notes that follow."

The Space of God

The silence of this autumn morn

brings me

to the keyboard

to write something

in this space

of God's cyberworld.

The Heart of God

is the silence of the soul

is the home of welcome

for those who are tired

for those who are weary

of browsing here and there

not knowing where to stop

start to listen and pray.

Oh, the silence

of the dwelling place of God

on the net, always waiting

to give a wholesome

resting place

for those who find life

burdensome and complicated

and still searching

for the answers to their many whys.

This little humble space of God

refreshes the yearning soul

delights every one

with His holy presence

in the here and now

in this eclipse of

one's reality with God's eternity!

The beauty of a white lily

sprouting tall and radiant

in the murky water pond

is the same beauty of God

in my moment of serenity

in all my adversity.

This space of God

is my online home

and my source of true peace

in my laptop window.

It is a safe haven

and a strong refuge

from the noise

and saturation

of the world, money and power.

This space of God

is a cyberhouse of prayer

and a wonder to behold.

In this simplicity

of God's networld

one finds the richness

of God's mercy

that brings forth

a new creation

a real purity

and true holiness

in the very soul

that connects to it.

This is also a place

of total healing

of the body, mind & spirit.

Jesus alone

is the Physician and Healer

and He wants only faith

and trust that He could do

the next impossible thing for me.

If He can open

the eyes of the blind

make the lame walk

and even make the dead

come back to life,

will He not also

be the One to help me

in my life's bottomlines?

As Jesus washed the feet

of His disciples

this space is also

a space of humble service

and most loving concern

for each guest and browser

who takes time to sit and pray

in God's holy space.

At this moment in space

in this still point of the universe,

a circle of Christian love

is embracing everyone

and like the wheel of life

it swiftly moves towards

our Heavenly Father

in His Kingdom of light.

Over and above

this space is a little room

of contemplation

how much Christ offered

on Calvary's top

as He cried out

all the anguish

and pains of suffering humanity

and with His total surrender

lifted us all and set us free.

In this space of the Risen Lord

He is calling you and me

to wake up now

and rise with Him

and fill the whole world

with His love, peace and joy!

Performing the Work of God during the day

A time of grace in my life, I spent as a Benedictine monk in Pecos Benedictine Monastery, Pecos, New Mexico (2005-2007). In my period of Novitiate there I learned about the Rule of St. Benedict. In Chapter 16 of the Rule, St. Benedict tried to reflect on the question: How the Work of God is to be performed during the day. In reading the Rule, each one of us first reads it as a Lectio Divina. One of the important moments in Lectio Divina is to ponder on a word or a phrase. In this particular chapter, as I spent some quiet time praying over it, I underlined the Bible verse, "Seven times a day, I have given you praise." (Psalm 119:164)In performing the work of God, the first act is to praise him. And what is praise? According to a comment on this chapter, "Praise is the joyful overflow of a heart filled with gratitude and delight." Psalm 119 and the spirit of praise in it recalls us to our center, who is God Himself and His Kingdom within. The number seven is a sacred number which in jewish mind is perfection or completion. As Benedictine monks we take time to pray seven times a day and we are aware that in our recollection and singing of the psalms it is our common act of embodying both the perfection of our persons and the glory of God. In our worship of God together and with those who join us we witness how mighty and how loving is the God who was and is and will be. At the end of the Lectio Divina on this, I wrote my Prayer/Response and I gladly share it with you:

A joyful song stirs
from within my heart's portals
sounding forth
bursting of awe
wordless echoes
tearless cries
brightness of lights
of my soul's awakening
from a slumber
and fatigue of yesterday's
bleak, stormy, restless nights.
So this morning
I sing my song of praise
to you my Lord
and I delight
in giving thanks
for this new beginning,
so peaceful in its unfolding
so gentle in its embraces
so calm in its assurances
of your never exhausting love!
My soul praises you
Mighty fortress in my weakness
Flowing river of my dryness
Solid rock of my defences
Full moon of my quietness
Golden valley of my playfulness
White mountain of my emptiness
Oh Holy Presence of my world,
blessing, sanctifying this moment
at day's beginning
all praise to you now and forever!

- B. Sagra

Tribute to Crystal - Patricia Jepsen (Chuse)

A Personal Tribute to Crystal

Sometime in July 2007 I was in Pecos Benedictine Monastery, preparing to go to Ghana, Africa for a mission assignment. I received a group of visitors one afternoon, Crystal, Elizabeth Hunt, Ann Carpenter and Fr. Joseph, a visiting priest from Ghana with them. They saw my name and my Ghana destination posted in a bulletin board of the local grocery store in town and they all decided to come and visit me. During that first meeting with Crystal, she said that while waiting for me to appear in the visiting room of the monastery she was browsing over the Retreat Schedule and took another notice of my name there. At that time I was scheduled to give a retreat on Ways of Contemplation according to classic and modern mystics. She said she was struck by that and expressed her interest to pursue further discussion with me on a personal level about my teaching on that topic. Then came the invitation to join them for dinner at the Mother's Sanctuary School in Glorieta, New Mexico. During that dinner we came to know more about each other and shared some more notes on the Higher Christ's Consciousness, focusing on the mystical traditions. After that, I received a call from her that she is going to visit me at the monastery to talk over something just between the two of us. I agreed and we found ourselves sharing deep and highly profound spiritual things as we took a walk by the Pecos River along walking pathway at the back of the monastery. That walk with Crystal by the river was a "Kyros" - a God moment for both of us. Only during this recent transition of Crystal to the much Higher Realms of the planetary dimension of the University that I am beginning to understand the significance of the holy conversation we had during that summer afternoon. Of all questions, she asked me about the mysticism of pain and suffering. I responded from my own spiritual background as Filipino missionary, Benedictine monk and a member of an ecumenical movement called Focolare Movement. The first thing I said to her was about the Dark Night of the Soul theology of St. John of the Cross, a Spanish Carmelite reformer & mystic. I told her that at one point in his poem on pain and suffering, St. John of the Cross exclaimed about the night which is not night at all but has been transformed into light, "Oh (night's) darkness which is not dark (but light!)" I also told her that each soul who seeks God has to pass through a "thicket of suffering" according to St. John of the Cross as part of the purification of the senses in order to be worthy of the "nothingness" required in meeting God face to face. Then I told her about the theology of Chiara Lubich, the Foundress of the Focolare Movement on Jesus Forsaken and the comment made by Blessed Pope John Paul II in his Encyclical for the New Millenium. I explained to her that one of the last seven words of Jesus just before he died on the cross was, "My God, my God, why have you forsakened me?"(Matthew 27:46) Chiara Lubich had a powerful experience of spiritually espousing Jesus Forsaken and dedicating her whole life towards living and loving only Jesus, who died and rose again. In view of that theology Blessed Pope John Paul II commented that the cry of Jesus, was both a human experience of total abandonment and a divine experience of total surrender. At that very moment when Jesus cried out, "My God, my God why have you forsakened me?", according to Blessed Pope John Paul II, he experienced the deepest human anguish and fear in the midst of a great suffering. At the same time, it was also a humble cry of total surrender of one's whole being to God. In other words, Jesus felt totally abandoned, yet also totally abandoning himself to God out of the last beat of total prayerful surrender to God of his heart. I told Crystal that this is always the case and experience of every pure human experience of pain and suffering. Each one has to go through the "fire" of suffering in order to be a genuine "gold" for God. I also told her that the way to experience suffering and let it become one's very way to see God is through a total surrender of oneself and everything to God. During the series of meditation teachings and classes which followed and I joined with the core group of the university from Glorieta, New Mexico and when it was relocated for a short time in Mt. Shasta, California, there were times when Crystal will point us back to that conversation I had with her by the Pecos river. Tonight, as I write this, my Inner Voice is telling me that all the way then, Crystal knew was she was about to plunge into during the final days of her life just before her transition, a real intense, quiet and totally surrendered pain and suffering. When Ann Carpenter, Crystal's nurse and companion at the university house in Kanab,Utah, told me over the phone that Crystal has been diagnosed with a cancer, I was not at all surprised. I know that a golden soul like Crystal is meant to go that way just before the "final curtain" is lowered down for her stint here with us to come to a swift close. The last time I saw Crystal was just moments before she and Ann Carpenter traveled to Kanab, Utah. I saw her sitting on a chair outside the house she rented for one year in Mt. Shasta, California. I saw her face so bright, but deep in her eyes I also saw her greatest anguish and pain. I know now, that during that last moments of Crystal, she has only one song, a song of total surrender to the next plan of God for her life. As I recalled these events and experience of Crystal as my personal tribute to her and the Universityof Melchizedek for the grace of being them all the way from Glorieta, New Mexico until their last day in Mt. Shasta, California, I cannot help but also sing my new song of praise and thanksgiving to God for earning the trust, love and care of Crystal for my soul during her last moments as Teacher and Guiding "star" for the University. Tonight, I know Crystal's star is eternally fixed and I can only glance and believe she is still very much present with us as we continue to spread the teachings of the University of Melchizedek, especially through her classic books, The God Self and Living the God Self manuscripts and making it more available and more understandable to those who seek the truth it brings and the transformation in one's life it can accomplish. My personal thanks to the Board of Directors and to Susan Hunt, Elizabeth Hun and David Chuse for taking this initiative to write a Tribute to Crystal. I hope to see and read more tribute on Crystal by those whose lives were touched and transformed by her. Then we can collate it to a book form for the continued teachings of the University. This Personal Tribute to Crystal is humbly and gratefully written and marked with the Seal of the University of Melchizedek.

 - B. Sagra