Do you know what I thought? I thought I went to the ocean, took off all my clothes, walked across the beach, put my toes in the water, walked into the water until it was up my ankles, then my legs, then my chest, then my neck. Then I started swimming. I even tried swimming under water. I came back out on the beach, put my clothes back on… and I said to some people there: Water? What water?

I once read a Jewish proverb that goes like this: “The last thing a fish sees is the water.” Now really! Nor can the bird see the air they live in. but depriving them of it…then see how they flounder.

Don’t you know that we are like fish and birds much of our lives and only become aware of water and air, once we are deprived of them?

Perhaps this is Gods somewhat drastic way of revealing himself; out of consideration for our immaturity, he reveals himself negative. The truth is, we do not perceive His presence when all us going well, but we shudder when He us not there or falls silent.

K ind

H umble

I nquisitive

M eek

I guess that’s how my name spells hehe

Very few people (or maybe none) know the real me … but I guess we all feel like that to some extent.

“One of the greatest in anybody’s developing experience is when he no longer tries to hide from himself but determines to get acquainted with himself as he really is”

‘St.’ my dear questor, doesn’t mean ‘Saint’; it is a abbreviation of the four letter word ‘Sent’. Khim-who-is-sent or Sent Khim. I have to be sent before I become a Saint.

1000

A brother called my attention: “Khim, the offerings”

Yes…I remember, I was in charged to send it off to Fr. Procurator’s room. I got all the money and placed it in a red basket (not as little red riding hood placed her goodies for her grandmother.)

Then…

A kid approached me: “Kuya…naay 1000 nahulog, ato na lang ning I offer.” (Kuya, I found 1000, were just going to offer it).

“Ok”, I replied

At a moment, my mind began to digest the child’s innocence. I wonder if I, a seminarian, would do the same.

Maybe or maybe not.

I was thinking 1000 will be so good for Sunday outing. It would be a great idea to treat friends at Mang Inasal’s unlimited rice, or ice cream afternoon, or having a bunch of groceries, or a new pair of clothes perhaps.

Sigh… Yes, evil is with in me and I cannot deny it.

Sometimes it is embedded in me, so identified with my own reality, that I can no longer distinguish in its essence. Am I ‘cancer’ unto myself? Or is it a cancer I can excise with a scalpel and get rid of? Usually I perceive it as something other than myself, and I give it a name, as the gospel gives it a name, and I fight it as a mortal enemy.

Oh…before I took the bait, I hurried my steps, and knocked at Fr. Melvin’s room…

Sigh…what a relief…what a loss!

Life here on earth is a preparation for life eternal.

If only we convince our heads with this truth then it’s easy for us to live as  Christian. Yet sadly, people become too arrogant and take God away from the equation of their lives. And worst, they are blinded with their wickedness that they consider themselves  no little less than  gods.

Silly indeed!

Reflection on Luke 13:22-30.

Being a seminarian is not an assurance to live a happy-ever-after-in-heaven-. In spite the fact that I choose the unusual path- the path of holiness- their still a big chance that I would lose along the way or I may fall on a trap and drag myself to hell.

Indeed, Prayer is the key to salvation, yet prayer is not enough. If I will not exercise my prayer it would turn me scrawny in the eyes of God. In order to attain flesh and spiritual muscle, I must go beyond praying.

Every day we meet Jesus- in face of a stranger who looks for blood donors, in a beggar who asks food to fill his tummy, in a fellow seminarian who has a problem and need someone who would listen. How do we respond?

Perhaps, I cannot say that I always did it well. There were times that I forgot my identity, my purpose. There were times that I would plunge myself in a corner of little concern. There were times that I was convinced with someone who’s on authority who said, “Gamay ray ihatag nila… sige ra bitaw na silag balik-balik” (Just give them little, besides they’re just going to come here always”).

How erroneous this mentality is!

To end my reflection, allow me to quote Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “I don’t know what heaven is like, but I do know that when God judge us, He will not ask how many good things you’ve done, but He will ask how much love you put on what you did”.

Why I enter the seminary?

Heresy, Father?

“Yes, heresy, Khim, for no matter what you may think, the tradition of the Church, the teachings of the Fathers, the Councils, the Doctors, and even downright common sense tell us that God does know all things. If He did not, He would not be God. Don’t give it another thought.”

That settled that. God knew I was a seminarian. The fear that one day, as He was benignly observing His world, He would spot me in a diocesan habit and question, “How did you get in?” was dispelled by the sage advice of my Uncle.

It would be difficult to say how it started. As news got around I was planning to enter the seminary, many people raised questioning eyebrows that screamed, “You won’t last!” When these doubts become the query, “Why do you want to become a priest? The reply would be cynical enough, “Oh I’m getting little tired of having girlfriends.” That always stopped them cold. Perhaps the answer might be a simple statement of the fact: “No girlfriend problems.” But to the sincere, those who seriously wondered how a mixture of an avid online gamer, Arthur Bernard Dolino Liu-Pio and his Hale band, and St. John Marie Vianney would fit into  the routine and spiritual climate of a diocesan community, the answer came equally sincere, “I think it is what God wants me to do.” No sentimentality, no how-wonderful-to-stroll-beside-a-creek-and-meditate idea.

It was a hard reality, and I wondered myself how I would fit in. I was older; I loved my family very much, I had been out in the world- all these things would make hard to adjust. Then, too, seminarians were so gentle and holy; I was neither and far from it. However, if this is what God desired of me, I knew He would supply me the grace necessary for any sacrifice, provided I did not hold out on Him. Furthermore, if it were God’s will that I serve Him as his future priest, I knew that no matter how long I resisted His call, even should I eventually silence it, I would never find peace of soul and I would end up by defacing the years He has allowed me on earth. I was well aware that a priestly vocation is an invitation, one which we are free to accept it or reject it, but I was equally aware that this freedom determines, not so much our life in time, as our life in eternity. These convictions were reached in a rather round-about fashion. You can say it happened this way.

Like most first graders, as soon as I saw the priest celebrating the mass, the goal of life had been determined. How nice to wear a long dress all the time, and to be able to scold people legitimately during your sermon. The seed had been sown. My mother was so good. Never once can I remember her asking me for her duster I used as alb (a long linen robe worn by priests), although I’m sure she found it absurd that her only son wearing those.

That reminds me…The Family. Well, it wasn’t exactly what one call pious- not even remotely so. We abstained from meat on some Fridays, went to mass on Sundays- please do not misunderstand. What I mean is that we did not say the family rosary, we argued over who was going to say the grace at meals, we did not indulge in spiritual reading or any of those, but we did have a lot of fun as well as our share of heartaches. We lived in a wooden three-room house. Probably the best of it was the front yard. There the whole neighborhood would gather on summer evenings to talk, or sing, or listening to the radio.

Technically speaking, the family by blood numbered five, but a couple of years ago a man came to live with us and has been there ever since. We also “adopted” a young woman; my sister’s classmate, added to the pride of our otherwise renegade household. One summer there were ten people living in our house. Where did they all fit? I don’t know, but there was never a dull moment.

The seed which was planted in the early years was not fostered by this conglomeration of people I called family. In a few years the vocation reposed, silent, in the depths of my soul, not to emerge again with any insistency for a number of years. This lovable, thoroughly maddening and slightly hysterical piece of society was a little uncomfortable when a priestly vocation suddenly sprang up in its midst, but no more surprised than the recipient. We both accustomed to it, though.

A public high school education cannot be called a nursery for religious life, except the negative sense. There were no signs around to remind one of first Fridays, oftentimes no prayers before the class, no teachers exhorting one to frequent Communion. If you did these things, you did them on your own, gaining merit thereby, perhaps. I cannot say I always did them. During these years I can only trust that the seed was sinking deeper and deeper and will some day result in the tree growing taller than a superficial planting would allow.

Childish and the ways of the younger years simply did not go over. In an institution of 500 students, one meets and deals with all kinds of people, many good, some not so good. I did all things that people do during the carefree period of life, living for the present, little thought for the future. Much of my spare time was spent in the virtual world and of course with virtual friends.

College life can be so simple at times and then again so complex: simple in terms of the curriculum, complex in terms of extra-curriculum. The boards and chalk produced a nostalgic reaction, and once again spare times were spent at the virtual world, cramming in Mathematics, much to the distress of the professor. Life went on normally enough- normally, that is for a college student. A curtain was drawn or the door closed whenever priestly life was mentioned. Fighting? Yes, fighting lest the young shoots show themselves at all.

Then it happened.

But before I tell you why I become a seminarian, let me check off some of the reasons that did not influence my decision. First of all, let me say that I become a seminarian not because I wanted to. Nor was I disappointed with love. There was no parental influence forcing me, and the life did not appeal to my youthful romantic notions. None of my friends were entering religious life, so that did not impel me to make my decision. Definitely, I didn’t have the desire of becoming a priest- but the Lord had other plans. Like practically every other normal boy, I, too, dreamed of a family of my own, so I did not enter seminary after high school graduation because I had a warped outlook on life. If there are any more false notions about why a boy enters the seminary, cross them off, too. The truth of the matter is that I, like many others, did NOT want to be a seminarian.

It took time and though and much prayer that all things are in God, that without Him there is nothing. This is so true. The real wealth is not in having money, but rather in living a life that is profitable as God measure it. It was mine to decide, but decision was difficult as long as I did not want what God planned. Now, indeed, I thank Him for the inestimable grace that, though no merit of mine, He conferred upon me; for He it is who calls each individual soul to follow Him. But no one has to accept the invitation: it is for each one to decide. Indeed, vocation is a paradox- one is both called and sent.

And what I have found?

I have discovered-faintly though it may be- the joy and peace to be found in God, and now the life that once seemed complex, so filled with myriad cares and concerns, has taken on a new proportion; and the complexities have resolved themselves to suit the proportion of harmony. Somehow all the thousands of little daily events seem no longer trivial, and my life seems no longer merely individual, but rather all activity and my own individual life are part of the great whole.

Many times in past two years I have said that if I had any regrets about entering seminary life there would only be one: that I had not entered sooner. But happiness leaves no room for regrets, and happiness is what I have found.

Why did I enter the seminary? Because it was God’s plan for me, and He showed me this by giving me the desire to help others, and through them to help and love- Christ.

Monks!

It started on my childhood days. The desire to live in a monastery on the top of the mountain, where I could indulge  myself contemplating God’s creation.  Where I could be silent and still…

Anyway, I once stumbled on this site and I found something interesting…MONKS!

copy & paste from www.vinceleste.com

My first notion about monks was too broad, generalized and really a different idea from what I have now. Monks were the people who live in the forest alone and secluded. The cloisters they have do not accept visitors openly and they lived as farmers and beggars. Yet it is common for them as simple people, living their vows with austerity. They were tagged as ascetics, hermits, old people to mendicants, beggars, who can also be found in the cities. I met the founder of a newly established local congregation under a Bishop, and he said that they are the modern mendicants. Being a monk follows with the world’s trend, from old to modern, and they exist at the edge of the society. When the world is getting modernized, globalized and chaotic, where is the simplicity and how they can live the challenges of the modern lifestyle?

Religious life is a 24/7 life, and a monk lives a unified and well-integrated life. He is not being disturbed nor affected with the world’s change, faithful and is calm; he is being in contemplation, having a constant attitude of being a religious monk whatever their professions or works. This should not be misinterpreted with the activities of being a monk will make a monk. The identity is being changed from “practices” to “being” not for showing only. Like the virtues of the vows, give way to a constant intimate communion with God in every events of everyday dealings. This is greatly demanding and yet a privilege to a monk to be wholly and well-integrated being. Monks continually exist in spite of having nothing, a realization that even without any securities and social identities, continue to evolved and seek transformation and conversion in Christ, whom we always find our identity; it is spirituality.

Every Christian is called to follow Christ, this is religious life; since everybody is consecrated to God by virtue of being adopted brothers and sisters of Jesus. Thus we are always the “people of God” and that encompasses everything. This gives life to a new way of monasticism in our modern time, being integrated with every individual and communities; from our families of our own to our professional career, on how the values of the monks are lived. The new communities of Christians are gift to everybody and it is being welcomed gradually. We can see the changes of Christian life in our local churches being re-energized with the challenges presented by religious life in the modernized and more secularized world. It started from people’s need, local churches as how the early monastic life was born, spread all over the land.