I have moved on and who says God did not love me?

To recap and to really just want to refresh your memory, just for the heck of it yeah, (at least to those who may have found me online and those who have been following me all this time) that I joined the Benedictine Monastery of Christ in the Desert in Abiquiu NM, USA so I became monk in year 2002, took my Simple Vows in year 2003, and then completed my monastic formation in Simple Vows three years later.

In year 2006, I received monastic blessings from my Abbot Superior when I professed my Solemn-Perpetual monastic Vows. But I just want to remind you before I skip and totally forget it that prior to that, I have started blogging in year 2004 which is why my published posts were dated back in that particular year. In year 2008, my superior sent me to the Catholic Seminary of Saint Meinrad Theological Seminary in Indiana, USA to undergo Seminary studies and burn midnight candles to be able to get through  with my Priestly Formation Program.

everything happens for a reason

I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together...

to get by

For all these years, I've lived under the illusion that, somehow, I made it because I was tough enough to overpower the abuse, the hatred, the hard knocks of life....

I was wrong. I would rather say, I really made it because God's love is so powerful that tiny little doses of it are enough to overcome the pains of the worst things that life dished out on me. 

Toughness was a faulty coping mechanism I devised to get by. But, in reality, it has been God's love that strengthened my ability to cope up, never give up, to keep seeking His love, and  to make that love last long enough to sustain strength in me. That’s what has gotten me by.

moving on...

Hurting people often hurt other people as a result of their own pains. If somebody is rude and inconsiderate, you can almost be certain that they have some unresolved issues inside. They have some major problems, anger, resentment, or some heartaches they are trying to cope with or overcome. The last thing they need is for you to make matters worse by responding angrily...So, keep your cool!

Also, a lesson without pain is meaningless  simply because no one can gain without sacrificing something. But by enduring that pain and overcoming it, he shall obtain a powerful, unmatched heart. A tough heart.

Lastly, the past does not haunt us. We haunt the past because we allow our minds to focus in such direction. We open memories and examine them. We re-experience emotions we felt during the painful events we experienced because we are recalling them in as much detail as we can. So, try to get over with the past and move on...

learning to be better

 

What I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is essential for every human being to forgive herself or himself because as we continue to live, we will make mistakes. That  is inevitable. It is part of our human frailties. 

And once we do and we see the mistake, then we should forgive ourselves and say, "Well, if I'd known better I'd have done better" ..... 

We say to people who, you think, you may have injured and offended, "I'm sorry," and then you say to yourself, too: "I'm sorry." 

And if we all hold on, too long, to the mistake, then we won't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. 

We can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end, the real forgiveness is in one's own self.  I guess, young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves... 

When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too ugly or too sexual or too asexual, then that's rough.

 But we can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how we think about ourselves... 

it's meant to be

People say that sometimes one can  imagine that everything could have been different for each of human being, that if only one had gone right one day when one chose to go left, one would be living a life he/she could never have anticipated.

 But at other times one think there was no other way forward--that one were always bound to end up exactly where one have...and that is, predestination, and is meant to be...

And I guess, one really, will have to make it through that violent storm in his/her life. Yet, no matter how symbolic it might be, still it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. We will bleed there, and I will bleed too. And then, as I try to catch that blood in my hands, my own blood and the blood of others seem to mix together and it makes the pain lesser. 

And once the storm is over no one won't remember how it was made through, how one managed to survive, how I managed to get it through. 

But still we won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When we come out of the storm we won't be the same person who walked in anymore.

The Power of Faith

Catecheses by Cyril of Jerusalem, c. 315-386

The power of faith is enormous. It is so great that it not only saves the believer: thanks to one person's faith others are saved also.

The paralytic at Capernaum did not have faith. But the men who brought him to Jesus and let him down through the roof had it. The soul of the sick man was ill as well as his body. That is made clear in the Gospel: "And when Jesus saw their faith he said..., 'Rise, take up your pallet and go home'".