I sent this email to the RCIY groups but I didn't add in my personal reflection...
things I got out of the homily during mass today: Love, Suffering, Cross
To love God is not an easy task. Loving God is not a bed of roses but instead, it comprises of suffering. We have to suffer in order to love God. If we do not suffer, either we are very blessed or we are subconsciously not taking up His cross and following Him.
I have always wondered the intentions of people when they kiss the crucifix. Is it because it is the norm for them to do that or do they understand the significance of kissing the crucifix? When one kisses the crucifix, it means that one readily accepts the cross and embraces everything with a total love for God. This total love is complete and self-fulfiling and is totally entrusting to the goodness of God. So when one kisses the crucifix, it means that one is embracing the cross, willing to suffer for the great love of God.
It dawned onto me about the friendship problem I am facing now. If ever, that friend and I get an opportunity for a chat, I will not know what and how to approach the conversation. But now, I know what to do. I will love that friend and instead, be the one stretching out my hand to help. My friend needs help but my friend hurt me. In fact, I have half the mind to screw that person upside and down but this approach is not going to help to reconcile this friendship. I have forgiven that friend and I am no longer angry. Rather, it is the painful hurt that remains ever so piercing.But I know my friend needs help and I am going to give him the love I have received from God to him.
I can only hope the 2 of us can approach this issue wisely, responsibly and on a common love, based on Christ.
I guess ultimately, what is really intriguing is the cross. I wish to embrace the cross but I am finding it difficult to do that. I mean... how can I say I love the crosses God has given me? But I pray, when the crosses come, may I have the grace to embrace them and proclaim "My God, My Lord!" in total adoration, praise and worship.
Dear St John of the cross, I wish to know more about you. Pray for me that I may grow in the understanding and love for God just as how you loved God. Amen.
Dear all,
Just wished to share with you guys this saint... today is the feast day of this saint St John of the Cross. I used to hear people say that his saint is rather special. But only today, during mass, I could understand how special he was.
What intrigued me so much about this saint is how much he so willingly embraced the cross. In other words, he embraced suffering. I mean, how can people be so happy embracing suffering? Who wants to suffer? But St John, through his daily life situations, accepted each event and incident so willingly. He took up his cross, renounced himself and followed Jesus.
The capacity to renounce oneself is not possible without the love we have for God. It is only through love for God that we have the grace to overcome our weaknesses and to completely embrace and submit to the presence of God in these incidents.
I am indeed envious at the amount of love St John of the Cross have for Jesus and for his neighbours. I do not think I am able to share the love St John has for God and for his neighbours BUT I am sure that if I pray to God and ask Him to teach me how to love like St John, I will be able to partake in a simple offering of love. Most importantly, by loving the cross, I am fully embracing the presence of God in my life and His holy will for me.
The following is something I got from the internet. I think it is worth the read. Do read it. Hope St John inspired you just as he inspired me.
God Bless,
Hazel :o)
St. John of the Cross
Feastday: December 14
Born in Spain in 1542, John learned the importance of self-sacrificing love from his parents. His father gave up wealth, status, and comfort when he married a weaver's daughter and was disowned by his noble family. After his father died, his mother kept the destitute family together as they wandered homeless in search of work. These were the examples of sacrifice that John followed with his own great love -- God.
When the family finally found work, John still went hungry in the middle of the wealthiest city in Spain. At fourteen, John took a job caring for hospital patients who suffered from incurable diseases and madness. It was out of this poverty and suffering, that John learned to search for beauty and happiness not in the world, but in God.
After John joined the Carmelite order, Saint Teresa of Avila asked him to help her reform movement. John supported her belief that the order should return to its life of prayer. But many Carmelites felt threatened by this reform, and some members of John's own order kidnapped him. He was locked in a cell six feet by ten feet and beaten three times a week by the monks. There was only one tiny window high up near the ceiling. Yet in that unbearable dark, cold, and desolation, his love and faith were like fire and light. He had nothing left but God -- and God brought John his greatest joys in that tiny cell.
After nine months, John escaped by unscrewing the lock on his door and creeping past the guard. Taking only the mystical poetry he had written in his cell, he climbed out a window using a rope made of stirps of blankets. With no idea where he was, he followed a dog to civilization. He hid from pursuers in a convent infirmary where he read his poetry to the nuns. From then on his life was devoted to sharing and explaining his experience of God's love.
His life of poverty and persecution could have produced a bitter cynic. Instead it gave birth to a compassionate mystic , who lived by the beliefs that "Who has ever seen people persuaded to love God by harshness?" and "Where there is no love, put love -- and you will find love."
John left us many books of practical advice on spiritual growth and prayer that are just as relevant today as they were then. These books include:
Ascent of Mount Carmel
Dark Night of the Soul
and A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ
Since joy comes only from God, John believed that someone who seeks happiness in the world is like "a famished person who opens his mouth to satisfy himself with air." He taught that only by breaking the rope of our desires could we fly up to God. Above all, he was concerned for those who suffered dryness or depression in their spiritual life and offered encouragement that God loved them and was leading them deeper into faith.
"What more do you want, o soul! And what else do you search for outside, when within yourself you possess your riches, delights, satisfaction and kingdom -- your beloved whom you desire and seek? Desire him there, adore him there. Do not go in pursuit of him outside yourself. You will only become distracted and you won't find him, or enjoy him more than by seeking him within you." -- Saint John of the Cross
In His Footsteps:
John of the Cross believed it was just as dangerous to get attached to spiritual delights as worldly pleasures. Do you expect to get something -- a good feeling, a sense of God -- from prayer or worship? Do you continue to pray and worship when you feel alone or dry?
Prayer:
Saint John of the Cross, in the darkness of your worst moments, when you were alone and persecuted, you found God. Help me to have faith that God is there especially in the times when God seems absent and far away. Amen
