The Lord has been very
good to us this year with the gift of life, health, family and community. In
our Christian life, through our community in CFC, we have serve and attended a
lot of teachings, formation and conferences, not to mention series of one on
one session.
What have all these
activities done to us? Did it made us more loving?
If I may ask, how many
Sunday masses you have already attended since you have memory? This is not even
counting the weekday masses you have attended. What did these masses did to
you? Did it transform you? Have you become a better person?
I am asking these
questions, because it is important for us to know that service should be
transformative or else it is useless and meaningless. When we do service, it
should change us for good. It cannot be that we are not change when we are in
the service of God, or else it is but a show or for personal fulfillment. Then
it is no service at all.
Service changes us, and
not just the person we are serving. Service is selfless, it therefore connotes
an exchange of selflessness and therefore transformative.
Discernment
It is in growing in
holiness while serving the Lord through our community that we become more
attune with God. This is what we call the growth in personal relationship with
Him. We can listen to Him and we can know if He is the one talking because we
have grown deeper in our friendship with Him. Every time we have decision to
make, big or small, it is easy to discern Gods will for us.
So, one thing I hope
every one of us is growing is in the area of discernment. Overly used word but
very important and crucial in our stage of life. SFC is a discernment age. In
this stage of our life, we are more concern about our vocation, career and even
faith. We ask, what job will I take, am I for married life, religious vocation
or single blessedness, and or we ask, why am I feeling lonely and incomplete, where
am I going, what am I going to do?
I remember one time I
felt so inspired while was praying that after I finished I walked back home
feeling so high admiring at the tress and grass on the side. I asked the Lord,
“Lord, is this you inspiring me or satan deceiving me?” Remember satan is the
father of deception and lies. (If you
want to know more about this, I highly recommend to read the Spiritual
Exercises/Discernment of Saint Ignatius)
There is a need for a
closer and deeper relationship with Jesus so that in our discernment we will
truly hear the Lord and not someone else.
It is only in a
relationship that has taken root can we know if Jesus is the one talking to us.
Only in a genuine
relationship can we truly know each other.
Only if we are anchored
in this relationship with Jesus can we truly “Love More’ than what we can
imagine.
We have so many
teachings on “Love More” this year. So, have we loved more? In loving more,
have we grown deeper in our relationship with the Lord? So that in our discernment
we can truly hear the right voice and therefore make the right decision?
Love Beyond
After loving more, our
challenge is to love beyond. Loving beyond is to be discerning and discernment
becomes fruitful only if we have a deeper relationship with Jesus.
Decision with God is
discernment while decision without God is forecasting. If we decide without God
we are like forecasting weather, errors abound.
Service
All of us are here
because at some point someone ask us to lead and we discerned and decided to be
leaders. I hope so.
Why are we serving? Why
are we planning? Why did I say yes to this?
3 Reasons:
1. Some say, it is a distraction “good distraction”
from work routine.
2. Others say it’s
finding fulfillment, a deeper meaning of life and existence.
3. Others still say,
they genuinely want to have a deeper relationship with Jesus and put His
teaching into practice in their lives.
These are all of course
in our point of view. But in Gods point of view, He had always been seeking us
out, extending His love to us, saying “Only in me can you truly find joy and
meaning in life.”
So no matter what our
reasons of serving, or planning or just being here; be it a distraction from
work, a fulfillment or a genuine desire for relationship with Jesus is but our
response to a God who loves us deeply and cares for us passionately. Then our
service becomes more of an excuse for us to grow in this relationship that
finds its fulfillment and fullness in Christ.
Rejoice Pray Give Thanks
This deeply rooted relationship
with Jesus is very evident the Letter of Saint Pauls’ to the Philippians 4:4-7.
Saint Paul was
imprisoned when he wrote this. Yet in this same letter, the joy of Saint Paul
was so evident even while he was in prison. He exhorted them to rejoice! Have
no anxiety but instead ask God with thanksgiving! Then you will have peace in
your heart, he said.
Only a man with deep
relationship with Jesus can have a joyful attitude while in prison. I would say
this is because He knows Jesus! He knows that everything He said He will do and
that suffering will not have the last say. Jesus will!
He knows he will never
be where God is not, because if he looks at his past, he was never been where
God was not.
That is why, wherever we
are or will be: whether in prison, in work or out of work, in agony, in
breakups or breakthroughs, and or in dilemma over some decision to make, we are
never be where God is not. Because if we look back at our own lives, we where
never been where God was not.
Therefore we are joyful
in whatever circumstances we are in.
Reflection Question:
What does the Letter to the Philippians 4:4-7 means to you personally and as a community?
by aats