UNIVERSAL CALL TO HOLINESS

UNIVERSAL CALL TO HOLINESS

As the Catholic Church celebrates the 50 years of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, it is great to remember the foundational magisterial document from "The Dogmatic Constitution of the Church" particularly those that LUMEN GENTIUM (LG) has highlighted to remind all the baptized of a historical church landmark that recognized in the church documents our universal call to holiness: "All in the church, whether they belong to the hierarchy or are cared for it, are called to holiness."(40) 

According to LG, this call to holiness derives its origin and model after its preeminence in the life and ministry of Jesus.  Holiness is a gift from God that Christ bestow in Spirit upon us so that we would be strengthened in manifesting the God's spirit of "compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness and patience" in daily moments of our everyday lives (LG,40,cf. Col 3:12).  

Holiness, as a way of life, is deeply grounded from the greatest commandment of all, i.e., love of God and neighbor (LG, 40).   As such, our life witness, emanates from and is manifested by own actions according to our individual gifts and talents, as we embrace our dynamic calling to live a life of embodied hope and love in our home, work, and in our various ministries in the Church and in the whole of society. As we manifest genuine compassion, kindness and acts love and hospitality to those around us, we gradually become, not just in the closer to created image of but also, in the likeness of Jesus Christ.

One powerful image that the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church uses to invite deeper us into this universal call to holiness, is that of KENOSIS (self-emptying).  In God's desire to dwell with us and among us, God humbly and intimately entered humanity by embracing all our human situations and experiences, even at the point of suffering and death.  

Thus, in Christ's incarnation, God has not only shown us the greatest and penultimate challenge of love - self-emptying, suffering for and laying down his life for his friends.(LG,42) May we be imbued by God's grace to come closer to Christ's example of living and loving life to the fullest! 

In our recalling and our claiming of our universal call to holiness, may we continue to be inspired and to be seized by the Spirit in our desire to respond to our vocational calling, that is, to be a living sign of God's love and holiness in the midst of our own ordinary everyday lives.

Most often,

it's worth noticing that

if we change the way we look at things,
or if we look a little father from our myopic visions,

we can see  that there are always 
Something Special

in the ordinariness of our life events!

May our lives be always full of God's blessings and surprises!

RESILIENCY IN OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

The "Resilient Tree" at the Fahrnwald Retreat House
by Winnebago Lake in Oshkosh, WI

"Come to the Water all you who are thirsty;
...come to me; listen, and you will live."
Is. 55:1,3

"LORD, EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE

CAN BE A TEACHING

AND A MEANS 

OF COMING CLOSER TO YOU.

GIVE ME THE CONFIDENCE AND THE HOPE

THAT WHATEVER I ENCOUNTER

BRINGS ME CLOSER

TO YOUR WILL AND LOVE."

Meister Eckhart, 30 days with a Great Spiritual Teacher

AN OPEN LETTER TO MY FACEBOOK FRIENDS

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE RITUAL OF REMEMBER-ING

"REMEMBERING is the heart's own way of holding our loved ones close and keeping us in constant touch with those who mean the most."

"What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love becomes a part of us.

-Hellen Keller-

Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year! Friends, thank you all for expressing how you have  been a friend to me!

I am sorry that it took me a long time show up in FB and to have the courage to articulate that I am still alive and that my life has been "different" because my life choices have changed.

I was anticipating that it would not make sense to you that I seemed to have thrashed everything that I have worked for, particularly from what had "symbolized" my total life commitment to God, to all others and to the world. That is to say, my embracing  and leaving my Life Commitment to Religious Life.

In fact, my WHOLE idea of vocation and vocation priorities have changed and I did not know whether you would understand or that you would accept me for this drastic life decision. 

  I now just believed that my Vocation is Our Shared Vocation.

Whether religious or secular life, there is always something greater that happens when we embrace a particular life. I have learned to understand better that OUR VOCATION is more of what of Frederick Buechner's articulation, THAT IS, to be at "the meeting place where we address the greatest world needs and where we most satisfy our greatest need."

I am sorry that, maybe, I did not trust you enough or I just presumed that you would understand that I just have to move on in my life. That means, that I had to temporarily cut off from all my present and past connections . But am sorry that my absence and silence has taken me a long time.

However, going back to Facebook last week made me realize that I may have been totally in isolation.  In your communications and messages, you showed me that you can understand my long silence and my seeming uncaring absence. It's either simply because you might have known me as a genuine friend, who just happened to be different and who have process his life events differently or you just believe that somehow anything is possible on line and that we would connect one way or the other.  

I have chosen to believe that you must have known me well and my pattern of relationships and that you are my true friend.  I usually detach and be out of circulation to see things from a better perspective but I always come back.. however and whenever...  as more more enlightened and profoundly individual. And that I never change, I always carry you in my mind and heart.  

 I know that this trust should have been a two way street.  I have to trust you as well as a friend, just as you have trusted me that I always consider you as a friend, no matter what.

 I want to start right now, by saying sorry for not having enough faith in you. I also want to thank you for trusting me and for showing me that you are a genuine friend! 

Secondly, I should let you know what you need to hear. In leaving religious life, I did not turn my back from what God had granted me, I am turning toward the direction that God has been daring me to venture on my life's journey.

 I just have known that in my absence, I have missed a lot and this is something that I have to bear and to be sorry for.   I know that I  could not make up for those moments that I missed - like being with my cousin Joel who passed away early this year, being with you on special occasions like our class reunions, and other landmarks in life that I could have shared with you.  I really do apologize for not having to have done better.

The Christmas and the New Year Season is appropriate to invite you to start all over again. Just like how I have been pre-occupied with appreciating the beauty of landscapes and looking at them with fresh lens, I invite you to reframe how we see ourselves, other people, God and the world around us. 

I cannot promise that I would be around always since I have always been a recluse all my life. I am also starting a new phase in my life this year and would move on to relocate somewhere where God leads me.  I just want to touch base and to tell you how grateful I have been for you and for your friendship. I will try be more obvious and would visit FB once in while and would join you in spirits in celebrating our friendships!

Happy New Year to you all! 

FYI, for a long time I cannot read my messages from the Brothers' Intranet Access and had to re-configure my lost internet connections and aquaint myself with the nuances of Facebook and Myspace. Would post every once in a while on my webiste as I would be connecting with my other links soon as time permits. But promise to be around and to check on you as well. Love you all!

"The Lord is in your midst."  Zepaniah 3:17

"You do not have to see the wind

to know that it's rustling gently in the trees;

You don't have to see the bird 

to enjoy it's sweet singing;

You don't have to see God's face

to know He hears all the prayers for you

and smiles upon you now 
with Love!"



HOPE YOU KNOW 
HOW OFTEN YOU ARE THOUGHT OF
AND
HOW MUCH YOU'RE CARED ABOUT!

NEW YEAR'S BLESSINGS!

"O Lord, Your Word is a Lamp unto my feet,

and a Light unto my path!"

Psalm 119:105

GOD LOVES AND CARES SO MUCH FOR US!
HE HAS BLESSED US
AND HAS CONTINUED TO SHOWER US WITH HIS GRACE 
IN SO MANY WAYS WE COULD NOT
EVEN IMAGINE.

  LET US JOIN HANDS IN PRAYING
THAT WE MAY CONTINUE TO BE AMAZED 

BY GOD'S MANY BLESSINGS

ON  OUR LIFE'S JOURNEYS
ESPECIALLY DURING

 THIS NEW YEAR. 

God's plan is good,

His Power is GREAT

and His Best is yet to come.

Matt Anderson

For I know I have PLANS FOR YOU, says the Lord,

a PLAN OF FULLNESS, NOT OF HARM

TO GIVE YOU HOPE AND FUTURE...

Jer 29:11

GOD AS THE CENTER OF OUR LIVES

COILED SHOOT OF A GIANT ANCIENT FERN

"What you get by achieving your goal is not as important

as what you become by achieving your goals" 
-Goethe-

ALL EMBRACING GOD, 
THANK YOU FOR THE REMINDER
THAT WHATEVER I HOLD AT THE CENTER OF MY LIFE

CAN HAVE THE POWER TO INFLUENCE 
AS TO WHOM I MAY BECOME.

LORD, I IMPLORE YOU TO DIRECT NOT MY FOCUS
ON MY FALTERING SENSE OF SOLITARY SELF, 
ON MY RELIANCE ON FALSE POWER AND SECURITY
AND ON MY ATTENTION TO FLEETING HAPPINESS.

RATHER, SET MY HEART ON FIRE WITH LOVE FOR YOU
AND FOR YOUR MYSTICAL PRESENCE 
 DEEPLY PLANTED IN MY HEART
AND IN ALL OF LIFE.

YOU HAVE CONSTANTLY STIRRED LIFE IN ME;

NEVER STOP TO SEIZE ME WITH YOUR CARESSES.
CONSTANTLY SURPRISE ME 
AND KEEP ME IN AWE AND WONDER
AS YOU DRAW ME CLOSER TO YOU.

EVER LOVING GOD,

KEEP MY HEART EVER VIGILANT AND GRATEFUL

AND SO THAT I CAN ALWAYS 
RECOGNIZE & CELEBRATE 
IN EACH MOMENT OF MY AWARENESS
YOUR EVER UNFOLDING SELF-REVELATION
DAWNING INSIDE OF ME AND IN ALL OF CREATION.

O, GOD-WHO-IS-WITH-US,
BLESS ME IN MY UNDYING DESIRE 

TO MAKE YOU THE CENTER OF MY LIFE!