My Reflections on the first reading for January 25, Sunday Acts 22:3-16 (The Feast of Conversion of Saint Paul)

My Reflections:
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul. What has Saint Paul done to merit this great favor from God? To think that he was the number one persecutor of Christians during his time. He even took an active part in the killing of Saint Stephen, the first Deacon and the first martyr of the church.

This is a puzzler to all of us, why was he chosen by God to spread the gospel among the gentiles?

While on his way to Damascus he was blinded by a light then he heard a voice saying: “'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” then Saul asked: “Who are you sir?” and Jesus said: “I am Jesus the Nazarean whom you are persecuting.”

Upon reaching a certain point on his journey God used a man named Ananias to heal the blindness of Saul. Thereafter, he was filled with the Holy Spirit and began his mission of evangelization to the pagan nations.

The conversion of Saul was not his doing it was God who converted him to be His disciple. However Saul did his part also on his story of conversion for he was a changed man when he regained his sight.

Like Saul’s conversion, we too have heard a lot of stories of transformation from bad to good, from an atheist to an ardent believer, from a hardened sinner to a Saint. Perhaps we can relate to their stories of conversion because once upon a time we were sinners too. And we heard God’s call for us to follow Him. We were swept off our feet by God and we were never the same again for we have converted for the better.

Let us therefore be an instrument of conversion for those who have not yet heard about the good news that is Jesus.

The Four Ends of the Sacrifice of the Mass

Please click on the link:

http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2009/01/quick-liturgical-catechetics-four-ends.html

My Reflections will be back again not later than December 31, I hope you'll visit me again...

One Simple Carpenter.

To all:

You may want to see this video One simple carpenter.

Diaconate

Frequently Asked Questions About Deacons.

Deacons.

Sacrifice of the Mass

All Souls' Day.

Dark nights of faith in our lives. by: Fr.Ron Rolheiser, O.M.I.

When the memoirs of Mother Theresa were published they revealed that for the last 50 years of her life she had struggled painfully to feel God's presence in her life. Her critics felt a certain glee: Underneath it all, they now believed, she was an agnostic, doubting the existence of God. Her devotees were confused: How could this happen to her? How could a woman of such exceptional generosity and seeming faith not be secure in her sense of God's existence and providence?

What underlies both reactions is a failure to understand an experience as old as faith itself, that of being inside a dark night of the soul. Looking at Mother Theresa through the eyes of Christian mysticism the better question might be: How could she not experience what she experienced? She was an extraordinary woman, a spiritual athlete, someone who had given her entire freedom over to God; might we not expect this to happen to her? Wouldn't you expect her to experience a dark night of the soul?

What is a dark night of the soul? A dark night of the soul is an experience where our felt-sense of God dries up and disappears. At the level of feeling, thought, and imagination, we are unable to conjure up any sense of security or warm feelings about the presence of God in our lives. We feel agnostic, even atheistic, because we can no longer imagine the existence of God. God seems non-existence, absent, dead, a fantasy of wishful thinking.

But notice that this takes place at the level of the imagination and feelings. God doesn't disappear or cease to exist. What disappears are our former feelings about God and our capacity to imagine God's existence.

God exists, independent of our feelings. Sometimes our heads and hearts are in tune with that and we feel its reality with fervor. Other times our heads and hearts cannot attune themselves to the think, imagine, and feel the existence of a God who ineffable, unimaginable, and Other (by definition) and we experience precisely a certain absence, depression, or void when we try to imagine God's existence and love.

We should expect this in our lives; Jesus experienced dark nights of the soul. Just before he died on the cross, he cried out in anguish, expressing feelings of being abandoned by God. But inside this seeming agnosticism something beyond his feelings and imagination held him steady and enabled him to give himself over in trust to Someone whom he could no longer imagine as existing. This wasn't doubt, it was real faith. Faith begins exactly where atheism assumes it ends.

If this happened to Jesus, should we be surprised that it happened to Mother Theresa. Henri Nouwen tells how shocked and surprised he was at the deathbed of his mother, a woman of extraordinary, when she began to express anguish and feelings of abandonment by God: "How can this be happening to my mother?" Later, upon reflection, it made sense. His mother had prayed every day of her adult life to die like Jesus. God simply took her prayer and her offer seriously.

Understood correctly a dark night is not a failure in faith but a failure in our imagination: Imagine sitting down to pray one day and having the sure sense that God is real, more real in fact than anything else. At that moment, your faith feels secure both in your head and in your heart. Then imagine a different scene: You are lying in bed, in the dark, one night and, with every ounce of sincerity, intelligence, and will-power, you try to imagine and feel God's existence and come up empty and dry. You are haunted by the fear: "I don't believe! Deep down I'm an atheist!" Does this mean that in the one instance you had strong faith and in the next you had weak faith?

Not necessarily. In the first instance you had a strong imagination and in the second you had a weak one. In one instance, you were able to imagine the existence of God and the other you weren't. Neither determines whether God exists or not. Dark nights of faith have to do with feelings and the imagination and not with God's reality or presence to us.

Why are dark nights of faith given to us? Why does God seemingly sometimes withdraw his presence? Always to make us let go of something that, while it may have been good for awhile, an icon, is now causing some kind of idolatry in our lives.

Whenever we cry out to in faith and ask God why he isn't more deeply present to our sincerity, God's answer is always the same one he gives in Scripture, time and time again: You will find me again when you search for me with your whole heart, your whole mind, and your whole soul, that is, when you let go of all the things that, right now, in your mind and heart you have mistaken for God!

I provide tailor made Spiritual Recollections and Retreats: Marino J. Dasmarinas

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My Reflections on being sick

I’ve been sick for the past three days. I am coughing heavily, I have a migraine and my joints are aching. I did not see the need to go to a doctor because I know what to do when I have this sickness. I just bought an antibiotic (Ampicillin) and a pain reliever. So far I’m doing ok; my coughing is not that heavy anymore, my migraine has lessened considerably and my joints are not that painful anymore.

Since I have a valve defect in my heart I distinctively remember what the cardiologist had told me way back during the early nineties: “If you have a cough or sore throat immediately take an antibiotic so that you will not have any infection in your heart’s valve.” I’ve taken the advice seriously and I’ve been doing it since then, so far so good.

To be sick is a part of our life’s cycle no matter how careful we are we will still get sick. It is also a reminder of our mortality. At an appointed time our mortal body will gave way to sickness and we die. As Ecclesiastes 3:1 says: “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.”

Tomorrow I’m scheduled to serve at our 6:00 am Mass. I pray to Jesus that I’ll be well tomorrow so that I can serve at His banquet.

I also need your prayers, thank you in advance!

Meaning of Pharisees

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11789b.htm

My Gospel Reflections for Saturday: September 27, Luke 9:43-45

My Reflections:
In a subtle way, Jesus was already telling the disciples what will happen to Him: His passion and death on the cross. He choose to tell it to them in veiled language so that they will not argue with Him. Otherwise if He told them directly what He will go through. They will naturally protest and say: “We will not allow it to happen to you.” Simply because of the many miracles that He does for them.

Sometimes, our love for Jesus is anchored based on His miracles and not on His Divinity.