It has been almost a month now that we are at our new home and last Sunday, we finally googled the church nearest our home and went there for mass. It is the Mater Christi church, and it was a beautiful church which overlooked a lake. A very nice and serene place.
The name of the church struck a cord with me, Mater Christi meaning Mother of Christ. Mother Mary being so important to us and a role model for us to follow. At mass, Father shared about prayer. He mentioned that there were two types of prayer. One is the prayer of embrassement and the other being the prayer of hindsight. It is indeed an interesting way of looking at prayer.
The prayer of embrassement is really petitions. We ask God for something when we cannot obtain it on our own merit. Embrassed because we need to ask someone to get that particular something for us. As I pondered, it doesn't really seem to be an embrassing thing because we do it so very often. Sometimes, we do not even try ourselves and just go straight and ask God for it. I guess we need to include God in all that we do, but to jump straight to asking Him for stuff when we have not even tried to obtain it using the faculties that He has blessed us with is just wrong. We have probably been immuned to it that it does not seem embrassing to us...
Anyway, the prayer of hindsight really got me thinking... It facilitates the culture of reflection, as we think about the workings of God in our life, and it is through that where we realised that God has His hand in everything that we do. This is really a prayer of gratitude. I feel that I do reflect more nowadays and I must admit that I do see His hand moving in the events of my life, which sometimes scare me too. It's like you know He is directing you along life's journey but we need to be discerning to follow His lead. We need to stay connected to God all the time to know exactly where to go. What happens if we don't... I know that He will lead us back but I can't imagine having to always be on my toes and be aware of where He is leading me... It seems so tiring...
Well, I am really thankful that I am more aware of this now and I do pray that God will lead me and on my part, I will cooporate with Him. Grant me the strength to stay connected to you Lord.
It has been quite an activity-packed period since we returned from our trip, with home stuff to attend to and the conferences at work. This has left me with little or almost no time to pray in the mornings, which has been my daily ritual when I arrive at work. Today, as Father spoke about the need to be like Mary, and listen to what Jesus has to say, I felt I needed to once again spend some time in prayer on a daily basis.
In the Gospel today, Martha was complaining to Jesus about Mary, who instead of helping her, just sat listening to Jesus. Many of us are like Martha, busying ourselves with our work and all the things that occupy our time, that we fail to really set aside time to just listen to God. Father reminded me that we need to have both the active and contemplative side. It is good to busy ourselves in serving in ministry but we also need to spend time with the Blessed Sacrament and be renewed and strengthen to continue in our ministry. One time that struck me was this sentence that Father shared: “Necessity, when paid undue attention, becomes a monster.” A simple phrase but packed with so much meaning.
As I reflect on where I have been focusing my time and energy, I realized that I may have been paying too much attention on certain things that it might have consumed me and made me someone not so pleasant… I think it’s high time I start to avail myself to listen to God, to be directed by him and not by me.
I remember last week’s Gospel message: “Love your neighbor.” This is something I found very difficult, especially when faced with people who never fail to be unkind and mean. This verse in the song As Bread that is broken really sums it up: “Help us to begin where we are, help us love the people near to your heart, give our faith a mission field, wherever you may call, love the world through each of us, until you’ve touched them all.”
We can be anywhere in the world but we are called to love as Christ loves. This is probably the hardest thing to do but Christ himself strengthens us, and the only way we can allow him to, is to spend time with Him in prayer. Let us unite in prayer and be recharged to love the difficult people in our lives.
Our short trip to Singapore came and went too quickly. The weekend before we left, two separate sermons from two priests helped put some perspective to my present situation.
The first was about our all knowing God. He knows what is best for us and gives us only what we need. Father shared a story about a father who refuses to give his young son a knife although he wanted to play with it. It is akin to us asking God for stuff that we are dead sure we need and when we do not get them, we fret and lament. I feel that I have been asking God to provide me with certain things which probably is not what I need at this present moment. God wants us to trust that He will provide us with what we need and not what we think we need. I pray that God will shed some light on the things that I need at this present moment so I can go and pursue it.
The second was about evangelising. We must be prepared for both failure and success. It is much easier to handle success as compared to failure and we need to bear in mind that there is bound to be these two outcomes peppered in the daily grind of our lives. We should not allow the fear of failure to stop us from spreading the word of God in our lives. I realised that I have allowed fear of failure to consume me, forcing myself into a place of security, not stepping out into the possibility of both success and failure in the things that I envision in the little brain stucked in my head. Help me to acknowledge this Lord and constantly seek to spread your word through my words and actions.
Success and failure which can be epitomised in the game of soccer... The recent World Cup 2010 final was a fine example of how in the quest for the biggest prize in world soccer, there will be success for one team and failure for the opposing team. Kudos to the spanish team, you guys played amazingly and are always a joy to watch. Ole Espanol!
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