facing the challenges in a familylife...

May the Holy Angels guide you and your family to a righteous path...Happy New Year to all...from your Dom lawrence, OSB

Today is the Feast of the Holy Family.
Whether we live alone or have a dozen faces gathered round our dinner table, we all belong to God's big family. And like it or not, our ability to thrive, and indeed our salvation, depend on how well we learn to live in family.

We have immense power for bringing good and evil into each others' lives. The simplest things we say and do can change the course of whole days or even years, sometimes poisoning them, sometimes enriching them immeasurably. And the same is true in reverse. The people we choose to connect with and the people we're just thrown in with can change us, sometimes in major ways, for good or ill.

Our ability to change others and to be changed by them confronts us with two crucial questions. First, what are our words and deeds saying and doing to those around us? Are they saying, "I value you and I want to help you have a good life"?

Or perhaps, "It's survival of the fittest! Have a nice day if you can"? Are we becoming life-givers or life-robbers?

Secondly, what are we receiving from others?
The question is not, what are folks saying and doing in our regard, but rather, what part of what they say and do are we taking in?

Some of the folks around us are sending some pretty ugly stuff, but we don't have to receive it and take it in. We can mark it "Return to Sender."
On the other hand, by their words and deeds, some folks are sending us some tremendously valuable gifts. Are we receiving those good gifts or are they being lost to us forever?

Deciding what to send to others by who we are and what we do, and deciding what to receive from others, are crucial decisions that shape our very center and then feed back into our family and every one of our friendships.

In giving us the power to make those decisions, God has given us a share in His own power to create what is good, true, and beautiful.

Use that power wisely.

Jesus, I don't care...

Hey! Jesus, yesterday, I celebrated your birthday. Though I already lost count of your age, I know that wherever you are now, you must be feeling glad and delighted that I was able to celebrate your great day with my brothers in my community.

I don’t care if I got so exhausted in baking six giant turkeys the night before your birthday and I don’t care if I had to stay behind at the kitchen when all else had gone to bed already after we said a Solemn Mass at midnight in celebration of your birthday.

I don’t care if I had to be the first one to wake up at four o’clock in the wee hours of the morning on the day of your birth to continue preparing the food that will be served at the banquet table in Your honor when all everybody else were still sleeping soundly and cozily on their beds until seven thirty in the morning.

I don’t care if I had to stay in the kitchen with no break at all to sit or stretch my back from four in the morning until one forty five in the afternoon to do the escabeche fish with all the garnishings, the turkey’s gravy, sautéed beans, baked the stuffings and set the banquet with two giant heavy coolers filled with canned softdrinks, canned beers and bottled white wines.

I don’t care if in the afternoon of your big day, I had to be on a rush to set the refectory table immediately after our Solemn Vespers for the evening party of my community of Benedictine monks in which I belong and for our neighboring Benedictine nuns who joined us in Your honor.

I don’t care if the Abbot of my community had to give me errand to set the light meal for the guests who were not included in the evening party at the very moment when I was still at the pantry and was actually putting out the party drinks, and party stuffs for the community.

I really don’t care if I suffered leg cramps while the evening party in your honor went on because of continuous standing in the kitchen for ten long hours without taking any break or taking a much needed seat even for a single minute.

I don’t care if towards the end of the party, I had to put away the party foods, party drinks, put way left over foods and washed pots and pans, with very less assistance from the brothers who were just too carried away from their unending and non-stop chats with the nuns and guests and from their getting so much overwhelmed of the ambience of the celebration of your birthday.

I don’t care really if I failed to take pictures of the entertainment numbers that were presented in the program of the evening party simply because I couldn’t even stand up and move anymore from where I was seated due to leg cramps I was suffering.

I did not really care about all these anymore.
I didn’t care anymore because at that moment, what I really cared about was the fact that I did all those acts of sacrifices as my offering and gift to You on the day of Your birth.

On the other hand, I thank you Jesus as I am about to come to the end of this year.
Yes, I thank and praise You for all the people around me who have been angels to me all these long.

I thank you and praise You for all the people who have spoken God’s words to me. Friends, loved ones, even strangers.

People who told me what to do when I was most confused and overwhelmed. People who encouraged me when I was discouraged. People who boosted my morale when I was down and vulnerable.

Thank You Jesus for all the people who have been instruments of Your grace to me. For the people who continually remind me of Your loving grace. For the people who constantly remind me to be good and to strive to be holy.

Lord let me learn from their goodness. As they have been angels to me, may I , in turn, be angel to them. May I, in turn, be an angel not only to the good and kind people but to the bad and wicked people as well.

May I, in turn, speak Your word to encourage and enlighten not only the good people, not only the kind and generous people, not only the grateful people, not only the compassionate people, not only the hardworking people, but the otherwise.

I lift up to You these people in gratitude, in praise, in thanksgiving.

As I kneel before You, I ask You a second grace. That I may speak Your Word, that I may share Your blessings, and that I may offer you my weaknesses and vulnerability.

Jesus, make me an angel to others.

a gift I will not waste...

Today we celebrate the biggest surprise that God ever gave us: His very own Son, Jesus, who came to help us find our way home.

When God made us, He made us good, every last one of us. But we weren't finished, just barely started!

Each of us has the lifetime task of growing into the persons God always dreamed we'd be. But as we've all discovered, it's not a task we can do alone.

On our own, we get stuck in an endless cycle of trial and error, trial and error! Eventually, we lose heart and give up.

That's not what God wants. So He sent Jesus to give us back our hearts; to give us hope that all our striving is going somewhere; to pick us up, dust us off, take us by the hand, and show us the way home.

Jesus came to save our lives. And now today He needs to hear from us: "Thank you, Jesus. I promise I won't waste your gift."

Happy birthday Jesus!!!!!!!

Friday Reflections on the 1st Week of Advent: The offer

It’s a day before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and as our preparation for tomorrow’s great Feast, let us reflect on some thoughts about Mary.
Let us mull over the fact that if Mary had not said yes, then the taking on of human form of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity would not be fulfilled.

Now, that does mean that because Mary said yes, we are already saved? Does that mean that it is Mary who saves us?

No!

Then what does it mean?

It simply means that salvation is not only God’s gift to us, it is also our response to God’s invitation.
In the same sense that even if Mary dreamed, in all her sleeping and walking hours to be the mother of God, but if God had not willed it, she would not be the mother of God.

In the same way, if God wanted to take human form, and then the human form refused to cooperate, then God cannot take human form.

So, salvation is actually God’s initiative, God’s gift to us, and then our response to God’s initiative.

If God does not offer, there will be no salvation. If human does not accept, there will be no salvation.

That’s why in Theology we say, God’s gift to us is also our task. When God gives us something, He also challenges us to maximize that blessing.

The plan to make the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, a person, a human being like all of us, was offered to us.

Mary was free to say no or to say yes. Because she said yes, salvation became possible for us.

Continually we are being offered to become mother of Jesus. Continually we are being offered the opportunity to give birth to Jesus. Each time we talk, each time we plan, each time we act. Continually we are being offered to become instruments of the Lord being born into the world. But that offer has to be accepted.

We have to cooperate with the offer being given to us. Then the beautiful story of salvation begins.

Let us thank God today for His offer of salvation.

At the same time, we will acknowledge our failure, our fear, our shame to accept that offer. Some of us are afraid, some of us are lazy, some of us are scared about making a leap into the dark. We will ask Mary today to ask the Father to bless us with the same generosity that She showed to God so that the salvation that happened when the angel Gabriel announced to Her that She would be the mother of God, the same salvation can happen to us.

my reflections on the first Sunday of Advent

Don’t be in a hurry for Christmas...
Today is the first day of Advent and from the point of view of the Church, it is the time for prepare for Christmas.

Since it is the preparatory period for Christmas, it is the time to consider ourselves preparing for the coming of the Lord at the end of time and the time to remember His birthday two thousand and seven years ago.

It is the time that we spend in preparing that makes His birthday celebration very special.

Unfortunately, in my country, as I experienced in the past , for most of us Filipinos, we start Christmas as early as October and when Christmas day comes, we find ourselves tired, bankrupt and drunk.

We dive into the Christmas fever with much external preparation and in the process rob ourselves of a meaningful Yuletide.

How many Christmases have we celebrated and how many December 26s have we found ourselves pennyless, lonely, bored, drained, with severe hangover from liquor and from lack of sleep?

But December 26 is only the second day of Christmas!

Why so?

Because we plunged into Christmas hurriedly, and pushed by the current and popular tide, we felt we were lost and confused as we allowed ourselves to get carried away by the popular crowd. We were carried away by what the others were doing and not really by what we wanted to do.

When Advent becomes a noisy period, the secret and mystery of Christmas is also lost. When Advent becomes a frenzy period of parties and shopping, Christmas also loses its golden value that only prayer and silence and slowing down can achieve.

When we can no longer live with the Christmas spirit in the heart, then we start to give Christmas in the lips, in the songs, in the parties and in the shopping.

Christmas is in the heart, in the heart where Jesus lives. When God wanted to make a paradise for man, He created a garden. But when God wanted to make a paradise for Himself, He created the human heart. Every human heart is God’s paradise here on earth.

It is in the heart where Christmas is born.

The sound of Christmas...
Just for today, let’s reflect on one simple aspect of Christmas.

What is the sound of Christmas to you? Maybe for some, it is the sound of Christmas carols; Silent Night, Joy to The World, Jingle Bells etc.

For the less spiritual, the sound of Christmas is the clinking of cash registers in the shopping malls.

For others, it is the sound of children playing and laughing innocently.

Still for others, the sound of Christmas is one of endless applause. We associate Christmas with sounds.

What is the sound of Christmas? I guess, this question is erroneous because Christmas has no sound!

Christmas means the Word of God was made flesh.

How was Jesus conceived in the womb of Mary? There was no noise. This was done in silent, prayerful contemplation.

How was Jesus born in the manger on that first Christmas night? It was in silence. The angels came later on. Everything was done in prayerful contemplative silence. The Word became flesh in silence.

If our Christmas celebration is purely going to be singing, partying, clapping and noise making, we will hardly appreciate the mystery of the Word becoming flesh.

We will have family reunions and school and office parties for the next two weeks. We will enjoy good food and the company and well wishes of our students, co-teachers, office mates, friends and loved ones. But give your time to the Word to take flesh.

Give time for some contemplative silence with nobody talking to you, with nothing to listen, with nothing to read, and with nothing to watch. Just be with God in a contemplative silence. Then and only then, can the Word become flesh. And then and only then, you can experience the real Christmas in your heart!

Give ourselves a good Christmas. Let us allow the Word to take real flesh.

Have a blessed First Sunday of Advent to all of you my friends.

stay awake, let not the noonday devil devours you...

The Church's monastic tradition sees as one of the most dangerous enemies of the spiritual life what the psalmist calls "the noonday devil" (Ps 91:6). We, monks, took this phrase as an apt description of the lethargy or fatigue we battled at about midday.

By that time, we had already risen early for prayers, returned to prayer a number of times, and still had a good chunk of the day ahead of us. We were tired, of course, but not just physically. We were spiritually tired — weary of prayer, exhausted with the things of God.

The noonday devil precipitated thoughts of "What's the use? This is pointless." Thus, in the Eastern tradition, Psalm 91 was prayed at midday, to ask for strength against this assault. "Stay awake," Our Lord says (Mt 24:42).

And we can hear His words as a warning against the noonday devil. They echo the psalmist's plea for wakefulness: "Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; lighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death ... Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law" (Ps 13:3; 119:18).

Our Lord and the psalmist both refer not to physical sleep (our bodies need rest at some point) but to that spiritual drowsiness and slumber that deaden us to God's presence, goodness and truth.

Once we have fallen asleep spiritually, then all kinds of mischief creep into our souls. Dozing off spiritually brings about a much greater destruction than falling asleep at the wheel.

Stay awake." Our Lord's words caution us against sloth — that capital vice that brings about spiritual slumber.

Sloth is not, as many think, simple laziness (although that is usually a side-effect). Instead, it is a sadness about the good set before us, a boredom with the things of God, a failure to respond with the proper repentance, joy, zeal or love to God's works and goodness.

Sloth is a spiritual "ho-hum" or "whatever" in the face of Christ crucified. Once this spiritual languor sets in, we can easily become lazy louts — because we see no reason to make an effort.

But the slothful monk can also be tremendously busy. He fills his time with activities to avoid the difficulty of reflection and thought, of facing his sadness with the divine.

This describes our culture as well.

We are constantly on the go, but at the same time bored with the most important things. We rush around in what we call the "real world," as a way of avoiding that most important reality.

We resemble the people in the days of Noah: "they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark. They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away" (Mt 24:38-39). They did not know. They were busy enough, alright, but asleep to the very things that matter. And in the end their slumber undid them.

We do not need to look far to find sloth's damaging effects.

Sloth first robs us of the energy needed for the moral life, so we fall into sin more easily.

Further, spiritual boredom leads us to seek pleasure elsewhere, in various forms of immorality.

If God's works bore us, we will find our happiness in lesser things and make them gods.

Sloth also deadens our sense of morality because the drama of good and evil, of right and wrong, tires us. So sloth not only deters us from seeking moral excellence, it also keeps us from perceiving moral truth.

"Stay awake." Our Lord wants us to avoid spiritual slumber.

The solution is simple, but not easy. It demands, first, that we fill our minds with thoughts of the divine.

The many trivial, worldly thoughts we take in each day leave little room for the supernatural thoughts that inspire us.

Accordingly, the battle against sloth demands perseverance in prayer — not just reciting prayers, but mental prayer.

We need to reflect deliberately and often on the truths of our faith, the attributes of God, the events of our Lord's life, etc.

And when, not if, we grow tired, we need to look to Our Lord and push through the difficulty. We need to remain with Him and not fear the one who lays waste at noon...