Saints in the making…

On the eve of the grand feast of All Saints, i thought it would be proper to put in a short reflection on ourselves, as saints in the making..

We all know the canonised saints: St Peter, St John Baptist de la Salle, St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, St Paul, St Faustina, and the newly canonised St Damien of Molokai. But what do they all have in common? Simple enough, they’re all in heaven with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. How do we know? Through the miracles attributed to them, recognised by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.

But what about all those other holy men and women, those who have led holy, pious lives from your own parish or even your own family? These unsung holy men and women could very well be saints too, by virtue of their being with the Father. However, who exactly is such a saint, we don’t know. Perhaps it could be your own grandfather or great grandmother.

The feast of All Saints celebrates, literally, all the saints, both known and unknown. It trumpets the call to us, the footsoldiers of the Lord’s army, to attain sainthood. The call of a Catholic isn’t simply to avoid damnation, but it is to be holy: to be wholly united to the spirit and mind of Christ. How do we do this? The very simple formula are laid out in scripture, and we probably know them well enough by listening to them in Mass. The real challenge is to practise what we hear in Mass and to live out the Gospel values.

However, we always need to realise that saints in the making are ultimately sinners who are trying to be good. There will be times that we fall, times that we choose not to love, but we have to bear in mind that we are not in this alone. Next to us every step of the way is our most loving Father, who picks us up, brushes the dust off, wipes our tears away and sets us back on the path towards our heavenly destination. He loves us and wants us to be with Him, so we can always be sure that He is always on our side. So long as we have the humility to run to Him and let Him deal with all the hurts in our lives, there is always hope.

As we celebrate the feast of All Saints, let us ask them to intercede for us while we are still in the process of improving ourselves, so that we may become saints and join them with God one day.

Our Lady, Queen of All Saints, pray for us.

Love,
Vince

 

Like a silversmith…

Just thought i’d share a little story that came to me inbox.. :)

Malachi 3:3 says: “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.”

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God.

One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn’t mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining Silver.

As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says:  ”He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver.”   She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined.

The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, “How do you know when the silver is fully refined?”

He smiled at her and answered, “Oh, that’s easy — when I see my image in it.”

If today you are feeling the heat of the fire , remember that God has his eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.

*********

Just know that in your time of trouble or need, God always has His eyes and hands on you, making sure that we’re not destroyed in our tribulations. Whatever it is we’re in, if we have our minds and hearts set on God, we’ll come out looking hopefully a little more like Him.

God love you and keep you,

Vince

 

To fall in love with God is the greatest of romances,
to seek Him the greatest adventure,
to find Him the greatest human achievement.

(St. Augustine)

 

“Sustaining our Prayer lives” adapted from Fr. Ron Ronheiser

Sometimes we don’t pray regularly because we simply cannot find within ourselves the energy, the time, the intensity and appetite for active participation that we think prayer is demanding of us. Yet, prayer is meant to respect the natural rhythms of our energy. Praying is like eating. And as we know from experience, you don’t always want a banquet. Eating has a natural rhythm and healthy eating habits respect our natural rhythms; our time, our energy, our tiredness, the season, the hour, our boredom, our taste.

Prayer should be the same, but this isn’t generally respected for too often we are left with the impression that prayer should be high celebration, with high energy, the more variety the better. The longer is better than shorter. That time and tiredness should never be a consideration.

No wonder we often lack the energy to pray and at times, avoid praying.

The answer to sustainance of praying is not so much in new prayer forms and more variety, but instead; rhythm, routine and established ritual. It is the reliance on the familiar, on the expected, the repetitions, the rituals and the clearly defined.

Of course there are times for high celebration and novelty, for spontaneity. There are also times meant to predominate just like our eating habits, for ordinary time, for low seasons, for prayer that respects our energy-level, work pressures and time constraints. Clear and simple rituals carry us, our tiredness, our inattentiveness, our indifference, and even our occasional distaste. They keep us praying even when we are too tired to muster up our own energy.

Likewise, its not going to be love which sustains your marriage but your marriage will sustain your love!

We think that good intentions and energy will sustain our rituals of prayer, but they can’t. Rather, our rituals of prayer, as simple as can be, will sustain our good will and our energy.

Peace,

samantha

 

Prayer in a Busy Life

It doesn’t matter if we’re students or immersed into the working world already, somehow we all face this phenomenon of “i don’t have enough time”. We all struggle with busy schedules and most, if not all, have trouble prioritizing and the most puzzling thing is that somehow when we prioritize, prayer always comes in last place. I’ve always had trouble trying to fit prayer into my life but I realised that it was the wrong approach. I shouldn’t be trying to fit prayer into my life, I should be equipping my life with prayer! So for all those who remember Sister Jessica’s challenge, start your day with prayer and end it in prayer. You’ll see what a difference it makes :)

Here’s something else that might possibly help you as you embark on this challenge. Just remember, God loves you so share it with the world!

Love and God bless,

marianne

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Posted by Dan Burke, 14th Sept 2009

Father John, I am a busy executive and struggle to make time for prayer. What should I do? I do want to improve my prayer life but I just struggle with time.

A: The desire to improve your prayer life is a sign of God’s presence and action in your soul. Be grateful for it and rest assured that God, “who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion…” (Eph 1:6). In other words, as you make the effort, God will guide you (he already is). Trust in that. Then consider four other points:

1. Beware of Perfectionism: Sometimes our desire for perfection is the enemy of progress. For instance, in the spiritual enthusiasm following a good retreat, we can often make unrealistic resolutions, e.g. “I am going to spend a full hour every day in meditative prayer,” or “I am going to pray the entire Liturgy of the Hours before I go to work.” Over-achievers especially struggle with this tendency. Instead of being satisfied with a moderate work out three times a week they feel they are not living up to their potential unless they cram in six hour-long workouts every week – as if they were still training for elite track meets instead of raising a family and running a business. With that attitude, they never get regular exercise at all; their unrealistic ideal of perfection keeps them from the basic maintenance work out that they really need. So, ask yourself: am I being unrealistic in my expectations for what constitutes a healthy amount of time for prayer, considering my life-situation?

2. Consistency, Consistency, Consistency: Work on quality and regularity rather than quantity. It is probably realistic to take ten minutes a day to speak heart-to-heart with Christ. Choose the same ten-minute slot each day, as best you can. Then add in another daily prayer commitment – maybe a decade of the Rosary on the drive home, or a 2-minute stop at the statue of Mary in the Parish parking lot before you pull into your driveway, or five minutes thanking God for the blessings of the day before you go to sleep (this is a beautiful prayer to pray together with your spouse). Along with your daily prayer commitment, have another one each week – a holy hour (or a holy half-hour), a family Rosary on Saturday evening, arriving 15 minutes early for Sunday Mass, one extra Mass each week (maybe during your lunch hour on Thursday)… Then add something extra for each liturgical season: a family visit to a nearby Marian shrine in the Easter Season, a morning of reflection during Advent, a retreat during Lent… Once you have identified reasonable commitments, do your best to stick to them. Keep track of you how do, and at the end of each month, adjust them – adding or subtracting commitments, increasing or decreasing time, as necessary. Remember, these are commitments you are making to Christ, and he knows your schedule, so if you’re simply making a decent effort to stay united to him, you will be growing and he will be pleased. It’s an ongoing thing.

3. Find Good Resources: One of the biggest obstacles to growth in prayer is not knowing what to do once we actually get to our prayer time. Busy people need a good resource to help focus their attention on Christ. The Better Part: A Christ-Centered Resource for Personal Prayer was designed to be exactly that, a resource to help busy, active people go deeper in their prayer life. The Magnificat booklet also has material that can be very helpful. My own Order produces daily meditation guides distributed by email. Keep looking for material that helps you connect quickly and deeply with Christ, and that fits into your scheduled prayer commitments. Ask around, try different things… Prayer is like walking: we all follow the same basic principles when we do it, but we each do so in a very personalized way.

4. Work as Worship: Turn your work into prayer. Remember that the goal of our prayer is to know, love, and follow Christ better and better. There is not meant to be a Maginot Line separating our prayer and our life activities. As the Catechism says, “we pray as we live, because we live as we pray” (#2752). Pursue excellence at work as a way of glorifying God and helping your neighbors; treat your peers and employees as Christ would treat them; make all that you do an offering to God; live virtue in the midst of temptations as a way of “glorifying God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20)… Striving to make all your work, hobbies, family responsibilities, and relationships into the “aroma of Christ for God” (2 Corinthians 2:15) is in itself a prayer pleasing to God. It helps live more and more in Christ’s presence, bringing prayer and life closer together (though it never eliminates the need to dedicate time exclusively to God in prayer).

Much more could be said, but the key thing is just to keep trying to improve. Don’t think you’ll find the perfect formula – there is no such thing. It’s a question of constancy and perseverance in our efforts, all the while trusting that God is always guiding us.

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC

 

The fruit of Silence is Prayer.
The fruit of Prayer is Faith.
The fruit of Faith is Love.
The fruit of Love is Service.
The fruit of Service is Peace.

- Blessed Mother Teresa

 

Who Do You Say I Am?

13 September 2009

24^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings can be found at http://www.usccb.org/nab/091309.shtml

FAITH and DOUBT

As we’d shared about this week’s Gospel on Jesus asks Peter, his disciple, “Who do you say I am?”, He too is asking us that very same question 2000 years down the road.

At times, the deeper we search for answers, the greater our doubts arise. But are these doubts an enemy to our faith?

One of our members shared, faith not a warm fuzzy feeling, it’s not a state of being, but a choice you have to make. Always remember that you are never struggling alone with doubt!

Here are some additional articles for you to reflect on for the week:

#1

The Mother Teresa We Never Knew

October 2007

http://www.fcsministries.org/up/up/200710.html

#2

Faith & Doubt

Now, there are probably some people who’d boo me right out of the pulpit for saying that. They’d say that there’s no place in church for doubt, because that shows weakness and a lack of commitment to God. They’re the people with the bumper stickers on their car that say, “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it!”, people who aren’t afraid to tell you what’s wrong with your belief and what’s right with theirs.

But the Bible has in it a rich history of doubters, and Thomas is just taking his place alongside other folks whose faith grew through doubt..

Clarence Darrow once wrote, “Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.” I don’t believe in a doubtless faith. To have a doubtless faith you either have to be perfect, which none of us are, or so narrow-minded that there’s no room for questions, which none of us are, either. We’re all like Thomas, we all have faith, we all want to believe, but sometimes we need something more than words or books; we need to experience Christ. Doubt is not a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of a strong, vibrant faith, a searching and active faith. Frederick Beuchner once said, “Doubt is the ants in the pants of faith. It keeps us awake and moving.”

I think all of us, when faced with the story of the resurrection, respond at some level with incredulity. How can you not? What we’re talking about is physically impossible..

I think our world has made us jaded to the miracles around us like technology and flight. We’ve come to expect those things to happen without a second thought. And when it comes to resurrection, we’ve heard the story so many times that we’re prone to hear it without realizing the magnitude of what has happened. You have to put yourself in Thomas’ sandals. If someone came up to you and said, “The guy we watched die on cross three days ago is walking through walls and bringing us words of peace,” how can you respond with anything but, “I don’t believe it”? This is not expected, this is not the same old stuff, this is anything but ordinary..

In a sense, that’s what Thomas does. After expressing his doubt, he’s not shunned or ridiculed. He’s not told he just needs to have more faith. Jesus takes his doubt seriously and answers Thomas. He comes to him and says,” See my hands? See my side? See what I did for you? Touch and believe.” And Thomas responds with the greatest statement of faith in the whole Bible: “My lord and my God!”

Despite his doubts, or maybe because of them, Thomas did find a deeper, richer faith. …

… Can we still make the same confession now that we made last Sunday? A naïve faith can’t do that. I believe only a faith that has asked the tough questions and persevered in the search for answers can proclaim Jesus as messiah eight days after Easter. I bet those were a long eight days for Thomas. Some folks probably won’t make it that far; the crowds are already thinning out from last week.

But I believe Jesus built the church around folks like Thomas. People who doubt are the cornerstone of the church, people who hear the Good News and scratch their head and say, “Risen? No, I can’t believe it.” Christ’s church is meant to be made up of people with ants in their pants, whose faith is kept awake and moving by their questions and the search for answers.

And I believe Jesus answers us. Just as Thomas was given the invitation to touch and feel, we are given the invitation to taste and see. Each time we come to communion, we are reminded that the risen Christ is among us, bringing peace, offering forgiveness, sharing the Holy Spirit. Communion is our opportunity to ask our questions, name our fears, hear words of assurance like “This is my body, broken for you,” and then to respond faithfully. When you taste the bread, when you drink the cup, that is Christ saying to you, “I am here.”

There’s one more quote from Frederick Beuchner worth sharing. He said, “An agnostic is someone who is not sure whether there is a God. That is some of us all of the time, and all of us some of the time.” If he’s right, and my experience tells me he is, at some point in our lives, we all doubt. Look at this world we live in. How can we not at times have doubt? If Thomas, who was there, still doubted, how can we, even the most faithful among us, not doubt when faced with the reality of life?

I hope you have doubts. I hope you have persistent questions about God. I hope you never are faced with the awesomeness of God’s work and say, “Yep, I believe it.” I hope you keep asking questions and voicing concerns and expressing doubts until one day you experience something so wonderful, so amazing, so life-changing, that your only response then will be “My Lord and my God!” Maybe, as we come to the table, that day will be today.

[for the full sermon: http://revkory.wordpress.com/2009/04/19/this-weeks-sermon-faith-and-doubt/]

 

Jesus Heals

As we continue to grow in our desire to know Jesus more intimately, we come to a week of reflection upon Jesus, the Healer.  This week’s prayer brings us to see several important aspects of God’s love for us in Jesus.  Most of all, we enter more deeply into the heart of this man for others and come to understand a love that heals.

This is not about contemplating the divine power of Jesus or how he repaired the bodies or lives of a number of people during his three years on earth.  This is about our coming to know more deeply this week another aspect of who Jesus is.

Jesus is able to heal because love heals.  The more complete the love, the more profound the healing.  Jesus’ love is penetrating.  He doesn’t hold back any of himself in loving.  He is neither put off by disfigurement or fear of contamination or even religious conventions that place limits to his loving.  He is not afraid to touch and touch deeply. His heart is full of compassion.  Jesus can so suffer-with the one who suffers that he enters into the depths of – even the roots of – the pain of those he loves.  Jesus loves so deeply he can understand and love the paralysis that causes the paralysis, the blindness that underlies the blindness, the leprosy that breaks out in leprosy.  Jesus heals by embracing.  Jesus embraces the inner illness that seems so untouchable or rigid or is hidden in the darkness of denial.  Jesus can love the whole person into wellness, precisely because he loves the whole person in brokenness.  With such great love Jesus the Lover can say, “Get up and start moving freely again,” or “Open your eyes and see again.”

This week we let ourselves become more deeply fascinated by, enthralled with, the way Jesus loves.  The readings at the right are our entry points into being present to those scenes of healing.  However, the depth and power of our prayer this week, in the background moments throughout our days, will be how we become more and more aware of how Jesus loves in the real scenes of our life.  We will come to see the meaning of love and concrete ways we are being drawn to be with Jesus in his loving.  Who throughout our day seems diseased or paralyzed or dysfunctional or blind or outcast by others?  What external disorder or inner infection needs penetrating, embracing love?  And, especially where I can’t imagine myself loving that deeply and completely – because I taste the inner resistance of it – I can imagine Jesus’ desire to love and heal.

Each and every day this week, we can be amazed and in awe as the Healer reveals the limitless love of his heart.

[credit: http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/r-archive3.html]

 

Five Ways God Uses Problems

By David Langerfeld July 31, 2004

The problems you face will either defeat you or develop you – depending on how you respond to them.. Unfortunately, most people fail to see how God wants to use problems for good in their lives. They react foolishly and resent their problems rather than pausing to consider what benefit they might bring. Here are five ways God wants to use the problems in your life:

1. God uses problems to DIRECT you.

Sometimes God must light a fire under you to get you moving. Problems often point us in a new direction and motivate us to change. Is God trying to get your attention? “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6

2. God uses problems to INSPECT you.

People are like tea bags. If you want to know what’s inside them, just drop them into hot ever water! Has God tested your faith with a problem? What do problems reveal about you? ”When you have many kinds of troubles, you should be full of joy, because you know that these troubles test your faith, and this will give you patience.” James 1:2-3

3. God uses problems to CORRECT you.

Some lessons we learn only through pain and failure. It’s likely that as a child your parents told you not to touch a hot stove. But you probably learned by being burned. Sometimes we only learn the value of something by losing it. “It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.” Psalm 119:72

4. God uses problems to PROTECT you.

A problem can be a blessing in disguise if it prevents you from being harmed by something more serious. Last year a friend was fired for refusing to do something unethical that his boss had asked him to do. His unemployment was a problem – but it saved him from being convicted and sent to prison a year later when management’s actions were eventually discovered. “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good” Genesis 50:20

5. God uses problems to PERFECT you.

Problems, when responded to correctly, are character builders. God is far more interested in your character than your comfort. Your relationship to God and your character are the only two things you’re going to take with you into eternity. “We can rejoice when we run into problems… they help us learn to be patient. And patience develops strength of character in us and helps us trust God more each time we use it until finally our hope and faith are strong and steady..” Romans 5:3-4

Here’s the point GOD is at work in your life – even when you don’t recognize it or understand it. But it’s so much easier when you surrender to HIS plan for your life.

In faithfulness, 
Fides

 

Hearts on Fire!

Dear Friends,

If you would like to be a part of the first Youth Rally jointly organized by NUS, NTU & CSS, you may

#1 Register as a participant at http://www.heartsonfire2009.co.cc

#2 Join as a helper on the day of the rally by simply sending an email to fides@smu.edu.sg 

We hope to see you there!