Unconditional Love

 During the homily of the priest this morning, my attention was greatly caught by his mentioning of God’s unconditional LOVE for each one of us. He made example of the parable of the Prodigal Son. The story of the son who went away and spent all his wealth as his share from the family’s wealth. To cut it short, the son was left with no other choice when he had nothing on his pocket that he decided to go back home.

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          Nevertheless, the father never got angry with him nor reprimanded him for his decision to leave. Instead he instructed his people to prepare a banquet for the son who was once dead and now has come back to life. 

          There were several areas for reflection on this parable yet I would like to dwell on the attitude of the father as shared by our priest. GOD is similar to that father in the parable. No matter how sinful we are yet in His eyes, we are and will always be special and loved. 

Can we do the same to our loved ones? Are we able to forgive someone dear to us when he/she commits mistakes? Does our love for others especially for our families are rooted in the deepest part of our hearts? Or is it full of conditions that we will only love our children if ever they will do good in school or when they behave according to our standards?

May we always be inspired by the examples of the forgiving father in the story of the prodigal son. After all, we, in ourselves, are also sinners yet still placed in a very prominent place in God’s love.

Extend Your Helping Hand

 Everyday as I read online news and hear stories from friends on social networking sites such as facebook, twitter and others, I realized how many wounded hearts are out there waiting for somebody to reach out to them.

Some of my friends have common problems and it is such a joy on my part to lend a helping hand and ears to them. Most of those heartaches are exactly dealing with their relationships with their partners. And when I listened to them, I began to understand that at times  the problem is with one’s pride. The pride takes over the love for each other.

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When pride comes in, both partners can easily tend to forget how deeply they love each other. And the longer that the conflict is not taken cared of, the deeper the wound would be. And when both partners’  hearts are hardened that forgiveness can’t come in anymore, then other factors of the relationship will start to be affected. Things will become messy and emotions will flare up thus allowing the gap and conflict between them to intensify.

Hence I tried to extend my heart and hand to my friend by expressing to her that there should be genuine forgiveness on each of their hearts. Genuine in the sense that when one asks forgiveness, it should be coming fom the heart and not just mere words. Moreover, it should be coupled by deeds so that the remorse will also become visible through actions.

Finally to keep the flame growing and going in a relationship, prayer should also become its center. Consequenly other factors will just follow naturally when prayer comes in consistenly in the relationship. Let us help save marriages and let each day become a very special day for both husband and wife.

More Blessings from God

Each day, we continue to trek this life journey. We encounter various turns along the way, crooked roads, narrow exits, intersections and many more. Side by side, hand in hand, we journey like we have the same route yet in reality, we realize that we are on separate ways. At the end of the road, we will be judged in such journey by the attitude we give to it.

          As such, I am so lucky to have my family and other significant people in my life as my co trekkers on this life journey. Separately or not, I am confident that I could be strong in this journey through the love and support coming from my loved ones. Moreover, I am fully aware that I have this responsibility to share my gifts with others aside from my family. Doing that sharing, I can feel the real happiness deep inside of me.

They are the very concrete expressions of God’s love for me. Whatever the result of this journey, I know that I will be happy and contented at the end of the road. My dreams along with those of my loved ones are the reasons that drive me to be exciting each time that I face fresh trials. In return, I am also positively sharing my time and resources most primarily to the welfare of my family. 

As We Welcome a New Season

 I was struck by the message shared by our parish priest last Sunday when he talked about Jesus who is giving a good advice regarding banquet etiquette. It was such a relevant one relating it to our welcoming a new season which is spring.

As we say goodbye to winter, we embrace with warmness this new season as it brings us a warmer weather and atmosphere. We are happy to embrace this new season with warm attitude as it also brings us awareness to opportunities for new growth of love and peace among us.

Going back to the gospel last Sunday, what I heard from our priest is that since the best place at table may have been reserved for someone with greater importance, everyone else should choose the lowliest place. Then maybe the host will invite him/her to take a seat  at the head of the table. Jesus taught them a lesson on humility: “Everyone who exhalts himself will be humbled and the man who humbles himself will be exhalted.” (Lk 14.11).

Actually the priest said that this is a glimpse of God’s heavenly banquet, which shows hospitality and equality to all of those whom the world has excluded: the marginalized members of our society, the poor, the beggars, the flood victims, the oppressed etc..  He further said that God’s gift of salvation is not only for us because of merit or good fortune but for all.

I was personally struck by this point from Father Vincent since this is very relevant nowadays. And even with those very prominent countries, one could still see some inequalities from them- the very presence of  those unfortunate members of the society is overwhelming. Though the intensity would differ from poor countries on which there is a large percentage of marginalized group like those living in slums, those who don’t have the resources for education, food and shelter, those who are unloved and many more.

Apart from this, there is an invitation for all of us to extend our love to this unprivileged group through our means like extending financial help, sharing our resources such as clothing, toys, and by offering petitions for them to be at constant peace and safety.