Back to the Waiting Room

There was a waiting room that I entered a few months ago, and then I thought it was no longer mine.

Then I saw it again, and so I knocked. The door was opened. I walked in. And sat. And waited.

I did not know what I was waiting for.

Then somebody came, with a set of questions I must answer, before I could proceed to the next waiting room.

I have not given her my answers yet. It may be that I do not know the answers. I wanted to be given the key to the next room. Or at least the password. But this is what I got, and I should do my best to respond.

Paolo Coelho wrote that if you want something bad enough, the universe will conspire to give it to you.

I do not talk to the unknown universe, I talk to a personal God everyday. I asked Him for something specific. So whatever was given to me, I knew came from Him.

So I shall go forth with great courage.

A-S-H Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the Lenten season for Catholics.

My officefriends and I walked to the neighboring building to hear mass and receive the mark of the ashes on our foreheads. The priest encouraged us to think of A-S-H as:

A: Abstinence and Fasting
S: Self-denial
H: Hidenness in Prayer

It is a beautiful summary of what Jesus taught in today's Gospel reading:

Gospel  

Mt 6:1-6, 16-18

Jesus said to his disciples:
"Take care not to perform righteous deeds
in order that people may see them;
otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.
When you give alms,
do not blow a trumpet before you,
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets
to win the praise of others.
Amen, I say to you,
they have received their reward.
But when you give alms,
do not let your left hand know what your right is doing,
so that your almsgiving may be secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.


"When you pray,
do not be like the hypocrites,
who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners
so that others may see them.
Amen, I say to you,
they have received their reward.
But when you pray, go to your inner room,
close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.


"When you fast,
do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.
They neglect their appearance,
so that they may appear to others to be fasting.
Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you fast,
anoint your head and wash your face,
so that you may not appear to be fasting,
except to your Father who is hidden.
And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you."

My prayer for you, dear friends, is that you may all draw closer to Jesus and find that grace is sufficient this season to be one in prayer with Him. May your fasting and almsgiving be fruitful.

I have listed some personal sacrifices this Lent. They will remain hidden in my journal. But if you want to share your Lenten sacrifice, just feel free to leave a comment and I will pray for you these 40 days, that you may fulfill your promise joyfully and wholeheartedly.

This Christmas...

My prayer is for the victims of typhoon Sendong, for practical, spiritual, and emotional support;
My wish is for a deeper spiritual life, one that involves sitting still in the middle of a green meadow, listening to the distant brook and feeling the gentle breeze on my face;
and My gifts are an open mind and a believing heart, that Jesus may come and save me, so I can help others more.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!

Galadriella
Gadget Girl
The Obiter Master ;)

Update on "The Waiting Room"

In a previous post, I wrote about doing something towards expanding my territory and not being anxious about it.Well I forgot to write about the rejection when I got it, probably because my heart was not really in it in the first place. THAT's why I was so detached.

So yes, the plan did not pan out. At least not now. At least not that way.Whether I will get it someday is another matter.

A lot of changes are happening to the people around me. Friends are getting new jobs, dates, husbands, degrees, and careers. I am happy for all of them. A lot of them are leaving. I am staying behind for a reason.

And the reason is, I don't know what I want. Maybe I do, but I don't know how to get it. But then again, maybe I do know how to get it, but I am just too damned scared and lazy to do it.

So the person and the reason I am waiting for, after all, is within me.

I hope God would speak to me on the matter. And I hope to re-learn how to listen. And how to write again.

The Waiting Room

I'm the girl with the waiting issues, as I have been blogging about since 2003. Of late, however, it seems like I have finally learned an ounce of patience.

I have a particular prayer request and I do not feel impatient towards God at all. Okay, at least not yet. I am willing to wait for this one.

I did my part. I aimed for the stars, and they are my kind of stars. God will know where to find me after this: at the waiting room, smiling.

If it doesn't work, then it's back to the drawing boards for me. At least I tried.

I hope I don't change my mind about this tomorrow.

Just a Question

I want to say Yes to God. But what is the question?

A Quote from James Joyce

I know it's been a while. To say that I have been busy is an understatement.

Anyway, something blog-worthy is my amazement at this paragraph from a chapter of great book I am reading, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.

It was strange too that he found an arid pleasure in following up to the end the rigid lines of the doctrines of the church and penetrating into obscure silences only to hear and feel the more deeply his own condemnation. The sentence of saint James which says that he who offends against one commandment becomes guilty of all, had seemed to him first a swollen phrase until he had begun to grope in the darkness of his own state. From the evil seed of lust all other deadly sins had sprung forth: pride in himself and contempt of others, covetousness In using money for the purchase of unlawful pleasures, envy of those whose vices he could not reach to and calumnious murmuring against the pious, gluttonous enjoyment of food, the dull glowering anger amid which he brooded upon his longing, the swamp of spiritual and bodily sloth in which his whole being had sunk.

These words seem to come from deep within the writer; indeed, this book is based on his real life experiences. I stared at the paragraph and read it again and again. Such truth. Such a magnificent way of stating the truth.

Walking with Jesus This Holy Week

It is Palm Sunday, a day we remember Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Of course we all know that by the middle of the week, the people would change their minds about him and would want him to be hanged. But that is getting ahead of the story.

Palm Sunday also ushers in Holy Week. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "holy" as:

1 : exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness
2 : divine
3 : devoted entirely to the deity or the work of the deity
4 a : having a divine quality
b : venerated as or as if sacred

The priest, after hearing my confession, said that my invitation is to walk with Jesus in his passion and death in this week, which by definition is to be devoted entirely to Him anyway. I consider it as not asking too much of my time; for one week, out of the more than fifty-two (52) weeks in a year, devoted to prayer, silence, veneration, recollection, meditation, and even solitude. The priest said I might want to ask the Lord, "How do You want me to walk with you?"

I asked Jesus during the anticipated Palm Sunday mass yesterday. Then after that, I saw an answer. I was reminded of my personal cross. I will hoist it above my shoulders and carry it, like my Lord did. I will take up my cross, even embrace it, to follow Jesus.

I could go to the mall, the beach, the pool, the hotel, the resort, on 51 other weeks this year. In fact, I already did some of that. It is time for God, and God alone.

Our parish has this schedule for Holy Week. I invite you to check your parishes as well, and take part in this week, so that we will all feel Easter on Sunday.

• Holy Monday = Recollection after the 6 p.m. mass
• Holy Wednesday = Kumpisalang Bayan (Went to confession already to avoid the queues.)
• Holy Thursday = Chrism Mass, 7 am at the Cathedral (I want to attend for the first time.)
• = Commemoration of the Institution of the Eucharist and Washing of the Feet
• = Start of Easter Triduum
• = Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament
• Good Friday = Veneration of the Holy Cross
• = Procession
• Holy Saturday = Easter Vigil
• Easter Sunday = Salubong Mass (I will serve at this mass, my earliest assignment ever.)
• = Easter Sunday masses

How about you, how will you walk with Jesus this Holy Week?

The Girl on the Last Row

When I sing songs about standing before God's throne, or entering His courts, or being in His presence, I see myself running late for a time of heavenly worship and proceeding to the very last row. In fact, when I am viewing this image I often see that I am crawling to my place in the huge hall and wishing God would not notice me. Kind of like the daughter who got in way past her curfew, tiptoeing through the living room and hoping to get to the stairs unnoticed.

As if that were possible. God not noticing me, that is. But that is a recurring image. Usually I would be carrying heavy stuff - musical instruments, song sheets, journals, bibles, notepads, pens, fans, and every other load for the whole congregation - and I would see myself trying to avoid making a noise or inviting attention to myself. Good thing that this always takes place in heaven, where the others with me would be fixing their eyes on Jesus and His majesty, and not being disturbed, really, by my lateness. Or my extra luggage.

Last Sunday, I modified the image. Well, it was probably a daydream by then, because while we were singing during mass, I saw myself playing the guitar, again in the Worship Hall in Heaven, but from the very back. It was a glaring image of my feeling of unworthiness. In my limited imagination, I could only see the Catholic saints surrounding the Throne, followed by the good people - the missionaries, the priests, the nuns, the teachers, the mothers, and the fathers. In that hierarchy, the humble, selfless, and generous people would be on the next circle, and so on and so forth. I would be grateful just to be in the same room as those souls. But I would be playing music, faintly, from my inconspicuous spot. It is a daydream because I play the piano and not the guitar, although I own two of the latter.

The image, or the vision, depending on who sees it, has stayed with me for several days now. Me, wanting to be close to God, but thinking I do not deserve to be in His presence. And the growing answer within me is that God is not like that. Or heaven would not be exactly like that.

God would know where I am at any point in time, so it would be useless, really, to try to enter the Hall unnoticed. Like what I do some Sundays when I am not serving for mass and I get delayed by some trivial thing.

God is inviting me to sit close to Him. Or wherever I am in the room, I would feel His presence and His love, which is no less than the love He has for the saints and the angels. In fact He is said to rejoice at every sinner who turns away from their evil ways. So it is possible that I would bring joy to my Heavenly Father just by trying to be with Him even with all my baggage and distractions.

A long time ago, I thought I would be in Row 1 in heaven. Regular confession and daily communion. Service that cost blood, sweat, and tears. Lengthy prayer time. Spiritual books and music, alone. Spiritual friends all around me.

But I have stumbled and continue to do so. Christian life has become more meaningful when I acknowledged my weaknesses and imperfections. Right now I see myself, the times when I think I would be able to enter Heaven at all, on the very Last Row. But it should not matter. It does not matter.

Because God sees me and is with me even when I am on the Last Row.

"And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” (Lk 13:30, ESV)

Creating Space for Lent and Easter

I attended a seminar on the Easter Triduum given by a liturgist today, and was utterly fascinated. If only all the people could hear, understand, and appreciate why the Mother of All Vigils is done that way. (If only I would stop being a fence-sitter, and start doing something about it.)

I enjoyed the seminar as much as much as I did the weekly Scripture Study with our parish priest that I used to be able to attend, before my classes were scheduled on the same night. I soaked up all the historical and traditional background, the relevant teachings of the Church, the writings of the early Church fathers, the theological significance, and the practical application. Even the bloopers that were caused by overzealousness, or overeagerness, by some people, were interesting. I liked the way the speaker, Dean Marc Martin, gave the cultural and social context to many of the Lenten observances, and taught us how to focus on the essential matters alone.

It was great just to sit and listen together with my fellow lectors and commentators, as well as the lay ministers. I prayed for a more meaningful Lent and a joyous Easter, and to be the kind of servant who would create space for these two beautiful seasons.