How time marches on...it seems like it is only a few years but this year, I would be thanking God for my 12th year in full-time ministry in Divine Retreat Centre. I can honestly say these have been years where I felt more joy in being part of the Divine-Potta ministry than all the achievements I had in my 16 years in the corporate world. It has been a life lesson in understanding the phrase - "Happiness is from the outside but joy comes from within."
January is the month when we usually have our Annual Retreat for Preachers, Counsellors & Volunteers who serve in Divine Retreat Centre. This year our retreat which was held from 27-31 January, 2016 was based on the theme - GOD'S MERCY. The theme did not surprise me. After all, Pope Francis declared the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy - "MERCIFUL LIKE THE FATHER" in the universal Catholic Church that began from 08 December 2015 and will be until 20 November 2016.
First, I would like to share something that I believe is most important for every baptized Catholic to realize. Each one of us is called for a mission by Christ. This means we need to open our hearts to learn and understand what it means to live a vibrant life of faith in the Church, family life, school life, work life and community life - in fact in every aspect of our daily living. We cannot compartmentalize our Catholic faith to only the times we celebrate Holy Mass in church or serve in church ministries. We are always ready to attend training to improve ourselves in our secular jobs (for a very finite life on earth!), I often wonder why it it is so difficult to encourage even Catholics serving fulltime or in church ministries to make it a priority to "be still" for God to work in our hearts and lives for just five days annually in a spiritual retreat. We plan for holidays well in advance but mention a retreat and all sorts of reasons and excuses will abound as to why it is not possible to plan to attend an annual retreat even in one's own city or retreat campus. We are ready to spend time building human relationships at work and in our social circles but to make time to deepen one's relationship with Jesus? That is not a priority. We are very good at asking Jesus for countless personal petitions but it is a one-sided relationship; forJesus rarely has a chance to speak to us as we have no time for Him to do so!
When does God have a chance to speak to our hearts in an intimate way? When will I listen to what God wants of me and not to assume that I know what God wants me to do? The start of our retreat really confirmed to me personally why a retreat is so very important to my spiritual growth. I find the two retreats I attend yearly truly recharges me for my personal ministry. Spiritual discipline comes from God's Wisdom not from my human wisdom. Our retreat began on the importance of each of us to desire and to attain God's Wisdom as we focussed initially upon the Word of God Matthew 9:13 - ""Go and learn what it means that I want mercy and not sacrifice" and on the Book of Wisdom.
What a start to the retreat! I have to confess I never really reflected deeply on this Word of God or on the Book of Wisdom. As I heard our lay retreat director, Bro. Thomas Paul, begin by stating, "All we need to preach and all we do must be of the Mercy of God", I knew Our Lord's Hand had already begun to mould my heart.
It dawned upon me that Mercy is the Love of God in its highest form because when we are merciful, it is not possible to be judgemental, condemning or lacking in love. I had to examine my heart in all the ways I have the Pharisee-nature to be judgemental and self-righteous instead of being merciful to others. To be honest, even at this early point of the retreat, I realized I needed to truly open my heart for Jesus to give me the graces I needed to be a "Channel of His Mercy". Perhaps that is why I have felt so drawn to Pope Francis as millions of people around the world (Catholics and non-Catholics alike) are too. Pope Francis early on in his pontificate said, "Mercy is the LORD's most powerful message." And in our Holy Father, the Merciful Face of God the Father is being exemplified to each of us. All of us in the Catholic Church worldwide are challenged to be merciful - to stop being within the comfort zone of our own churches and ministries but to reach out to those who really need to hear the Good News of Christ and to experience Christ's Love. It has been something that had been stirring in my heart these past few years and in this retreat, I got the re-confirmation in my heart that it is definitely God's Call to me. Our Lord is revealing His Plan as I pray and discern with spiritual guidance. One of the things I have learnt in my ministry is to have the patience for when it is God's Time to do something. When the time is right, God blesses all the plans.
It dawned upon me that Mercy is the Love of God in its highest form because when we are merciful, it is not possible to be judgemental, condemning or lacking in love. I had to examine my heart in all the ways I have the Pharisee-nature to be judgemental and self-righteous instead of being merciful to others. To be honest, even at this early point of the retreat, I realized I needed to truly open my heart for Jesus to give me the graces I needed to be a "Channel of His Mercy". Perhaps that is why I have felt so drawn to Pope Francis as millions of people around the world (Catholics and non-Catholics alike) are too. Pope Francis early on in his pontificate said, "Mercy is the LORD's most powerful message." And in our Holy Father, the Merciful Face of God the Father is being exemplified to each of us. All of us in the Catholic Church worldwide are challenged to be merciful - to stop being within the comfort zone of our own churches and ministries but to reach out to those who really need to hear the Good News of Christ and to experience Christ's Love. It has been something that had been stirring in my heart these past few years and in this retreat, I got the re-confirmation in my heart that it is definitely God's Call to me. Our Lord is revealing His Plan as I pray and discern with spiritual guidance. One of the things I have learnt in my ministry is to have the patience for when it is God's Time to do something. When the time is right, God blesses all the plans.
To be merciful, I have to firstly have a heart and mind filled with God's Wisdom. It is not possible to be so from my human wisdom. Well, to have Godly Wisdom, I need to have a deep, meaningful prayer life so that the Holy Spirit can give me a new understanding in my heart of God's Wisdom. Only then will I experience the radical change needed in me for my transformation.
Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-11) is a bible passage I have read in my personal meditations and heard many times in the Gospel readings during Holy Masses. Yet, I never understood until this retreat, how Jesus was actually explaining the Ten Commandments not just from the perspective of law (that the Pharisee took pride in following to the letter!) with a focus on "Thou shall not.." to how the Beatitudes begins, "Blessed are the...". The Beatitudes are all about God's Love and Mercy. It is how every Catholic should focus to live our faith so that we can truly say our lives are "Christo-centric".To be honest, only during this retreat, did I realize why the Sermon of the Mount is central to Jesus' teaching! It was like the "scales in the eyes of my heart" fell away so that these Word of God penetrated deep into my soul. "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." (Matthew 5:7) is so clear that I cannot expect God's mercy upon me unless I have mercy for others. Well, this is defintely a wake-up call not to take God's Mercy for granted. To think I take it so lightly that God should forgive me when I want Him to but I have not made it my Christian aim to be merciful to others.
Bro. Thomas Paul got us to reflect upon the fact that we are all called to be saints and our work for Christ does not end with what we do here on earth. To be a saint, we will always be working in our eternal life for the salvation of souls. We must have a clear understanding of what we want to do after our death for there will be a lot to do - we need the Wisdom of God!
The main purpose of a Christian is not going to Heaven but the main aim is to bring the Kingdom of God -'Righteousness, Peace and Joy of the Holy Spirit" (cf. Romans 14:17) into our hearts on earth and to continue it in heaven. This Word of God has been real to me for I have seen in the Vincentian Fathers and in my fellow lay volunteers here in Divine that when this Word of God is alive in us, we never feel tired and are full of zeal, peace and joy to do our ministry. After all, where is the Kingdom of God? It is in our heart - yours and mine - for God lives in us. Praise God!
As Catholics, we at times have the tendency to focus on sin because then we need to remember those sins to go and confess them in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We need to change our perspective and not to focus solely on the sin (punishment) but on the Grace of God we will receive. Let us cling to the Promise of God - "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God." (Matthew 5:3) When we turn to God in repentance, "poor in spirit" means our "nothingness" allows the Grace of God to fill our hearts so that we are spiritually strengthened.
Let us truly heed the call of Pope Francis in "Misericordiae Vultus" - Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy - Feast of Divine Mercy (11 April 2015):
13. We want to live this Jubilee Year in light of the Lord’s words: Merciful like the Father. The Evangelist reminds us of the teaching of Jesus who says, “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36). It is a programme of life as demanding as it is rich with joy and peace. Jesus’s command is directed to anyone willing to listen to his voice (cf. Lk 6:27). In order to be capable of mercy, therefore, we must first of all dispose ourselves to listen to the Word of God. This means rediscovering the value of silence in order to meditate on the Word that comes to us. In this way, it will be possible to contemplate God’s mercy and adopt it as our lifestyle.
Wisdom, Faith, Love, Peace, Mercy - in this Jubilee Year of Mercy, I pray for each one of us (myself too) that we will open our hearts and mind for a deep infilling of the Holy Spirit so that we will be a "New Creation" in the image and likeness of Christ. In a world where there is so much hatred, negativity and "bad news", it is only when we share God's Mercy with everyone that the Light of Christ can overcome the darkness in our world. I cannot give up or expect the change for good to be done by others. The change begins first in my heart. For when I can live exemplifying God's Mercy, then I know that God's Love, Peace and Joy is also within me shining out to others.
This has been a blessed and enriching retreat which has given me much to ponder and reflect upon over the coming months. i thank God for Bro. Thomas Paul whose joy and zeal for our Lord is so palpable, he is an inspiration!
This has been a blessed and enriching retreat which has given me much to ponder and reflect upon over the coming months. i thank God for Bro. Thomas Paul whose joy and zeal for our Lord is so palpable, he is an inspiration!
The words of the late Nelson Mandela who had been a living inspiration to me best captures why God's Mercy should be an intrinsic part of my life from this day on:
"It is what difference we have made to the lives of others
that will determine the significance of the life we lead."
-Nelson Mandela-
May the YouTube music video below, "WE ARE CALLED" by David Haas, touch your heart as it did mine!
No comments:
Post a Comment