see u around :)

Well... got a new job, a good great God-blessing job... but because of my new responsabilities I don't really have that much time to bum around the internet, so you might see me less... but I'll still be around from time to time. God bless!

Good News all around :)

More than a year ago my family and I were in a foreign country being inmigrants once again. Circumstances took us there, to the other side of the world, alone and looking for employment.

there...a priest befriended us.

I approached him asking whether he knew about any Young Adult Ministries... he didn't...but he invited us over for dinner.

A series of dinners, and late-into-the-night chats came into being. Joy and fraternity and care. Him shouting and hitting the table expounding his big BIG opinions about politics/religion/spirituality... us looking, and commenting against or in support of, food, great food and him being a father to us.

our attempt to immigrate to that country came to nothing. We had to leave. As a father, he took us to the airport and said a quick goodbye. For a while I thought it was cold... now I think he probably was fighting back tears.

We exchanged a couple of letters...

but distance was too much.

and we didn't hear from each other in a long while...

UNTIL TODAY!!!

A beutiful e-mail. (praise God for the Internet!)
short, sweet and full of him, the priest who was a father to us, loud yet deeply deeply spiritual.

I'm so happy today, with memories of that summer that marked my life forever.
In the most beutiful city I've ever been at, besides the most beutiful souls I've ever met!

And as I laugh and laugh and dance and thank, and God laughs and laughs, with a deep, shoulder shaking, belly laugh!! Thank God for fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and friends and random people that we stumble up in our path!!

awake

Last night (at around 11p.m) I was at Adoration when an interesting character walked in...young, strong, dressed in immaculate black with his pure white collar. He kneeled in a perfect 90 degree angle in one of the kneelers and opened his breviary. The guy looked like a soldier, his face was stoic and his movements planned and carefully measured. The guy oozed discipline!

then

he proceded to nod off.

poor guy! he was seriously passing out. He would look at his breviary, briefly close his eyes and pass out. Then he would jerk back his head, blink twice and open his eyes wide trying to wake himself up. (I know I should have been watching Jesus and not this guy but I just couldn't help it!)

I've seen him before, I don't know him but I've heard about him. He is the son of a family here in town. He went off to join some order (jesuits? legionaries? Opus Dei? one of those) and comes to visit like once a year. I don't think he is ordained but he wears clericals.

Everytime I've seen him he looks extremelly disciplined, walking like some gentleman/warrior of old, he ain't more than 30 years old...

but this time, I saw him nod off and pass out in adoration.

and it touched my heart deeply.

Just to know that it doesn't matter how disciplined, how "strong", how brave, how holy... at the end we are all weak children of our Lord.... that no matter how much effort, we will pass out and fall asleep... but that He won't. He will stay there, lovingly looking upon us.

Singing lullabies to us.

Being faithful and staying awake.

lukewarm lovers...

Yesterday I was thinking.... there is nothing worse than a lukewarm lover!

Maybe you've been in a relationship where you were the most emotionally involved of the two... you know how it goes. You think and think about this person and long to see them and when you finally see them they have a "oh-you-are-here" reaction... And you realize they weren't as thrilled to see you as you were to see them... by far...yeah. A real disappointment. Unrequited love. They might love you/like you, after all, you are in a relationship together, but your heart is broken anyway for the fire in your heart is not mutual. Love desires two things, self-gift and union...and if the union is not there...wow, it hurts.

and I thought of The Beloved.... with what ardor He loves us! He loves my soul passionatelly, in fact He thirsts for me, longs for my love. "I was eager to eat this passover with you"(lk 22:15) He is eager.

But when He approaches me, in prayer, through my bethren... am I also eager? or am I lukewarm lover? when I receive him in the Eucharist do I have a "oh-you-are-here" reaction? when He comes to me through one of my bethren that need charity...does His heart break when He meets my coldness, my indiference?

I would never have the following conversations with a boyfriend:

bfriend: (holding my hands, very lovingly) I want to spend time with you

me: uhh..well ... I don't really have time... (taking my hands away from his and checking my planner) what if we see each other at the end of the day (when I am absolutely exhausted) for about 15 min?

or

bfriend: I love you (holding my hands, stars over us)

me: oh, thanks. that's cool... btw, are you gonna eat that?

yet, many times conversations like these ones go on between my Soul and Him Who Loves Me.

forgive me, Beloved, for being a lukewarm lover!!

Yesterday afternoon I was taking a walk on Campus... The tall trees poured their leaves like a waterfall, and the sun was gentle, the sky was big. A beutiful clear afternoon... I dialed in my cellphone the phone of my granparents (who live in another country) and my granma picked up.

When I heard her voice suddenly all the beuty of the trees, the sky and the evening disappeared. She was having a dementia episode... everything became grey.

Her voice over the phone made want to break into tears. She recognized me, but she couldn't remember where I was ( I moved away 7 years ago yet she kept being surprised about me not being in our hometown).... she sounded scared, nervous, confused, yet, being the proper lady she is she tried to mask it saying "oh! we are all fine!" I talked to her a little, but she was too nervous to hold a conversation. She kept asking over and over where I was and when I would tell her she would say worriedly "oh! you are so far!" It broke my heart. My throat became a knot.

we said our goodbyes and she hanged up hurriedly.

I stood there in the afternoon. wanting to weep. and lifting my soul "Lord!"

I kept walking. The trees and the grass and the sky were so inviting and seemed memories of an inocent carefree time. And suddenly, I felt Therese present.

Hallo! it was like she had said and started walking besides me.
We didn't say anything... but somehow her prescence made me remeber her dad.

Therese of Liseux's dad died of dementia.

He was a a sweet and strong father and a holy man that raised 4 carmelites, one of them an extraordinary saint....

I sighed and pictured him, young again, strong, manly and holy walking besides me and his daughter Therese... and I asked him to take care of my own poor granma...

Even though I can't see them... I bet he looked kindly upon me and nodded.

Today a friend told me he was praying form my granma, out of the blue....

Thank God for the Saints.

the Kingdom

The kingdom of God does not mean eating or drinking this or that, it means righteousness and peace and joy brought by the Holy Spirit. Rm 14:17-18

Some days ago the priest in my parish said that the Kingdom is here and now. That Christ said "the Kingdom of God is among you" and that we should be trying to enter and be in the kingdom right now right here, and stop thinking about it being something that "happens" after death. (of course it is, but you get what I'm saying)

and then the Beloved shows me this verse....

Righteousness. Following the commandments of God and the precepts of the Church. Fulfilling our vocation, and not only that! It means having a "right" heart. A pure heart, a selfless heart, a virtuous heart.... This is our part of the deal. It is working, fighting, bleeding for a right heart. It is having spiritual discipline. It is prayer, mortification and the practice of penance and virtue.

Peace. This is a fruit of Trust. The true Peace comes from Trusting that God is a loving God that cares for us. That whatever happens He is God and since He is Good and Loves us...it will be ok. This part of the kingdom requires us to have Trust in Him...and His part is the fruit of that Trust... Peace.

Joy. This is a fruit of Love. It is a response of knowing ourselves Loved... supremelly Loved by Him, the most beautiful of the sons of men (psalm 45), the Beauty ever ancient-ever new. It comes from a dialogue with the Beloved, it comes from sitting under the stars resting in His chest, listening to His heart beat, while His warm pierced hand rests in ours, as He kisses our forehead.... it is Joy, it is the Joy of being loved by Love himself! But in our world, specially in our culture and time when despair, desperation, loneliness, suicide, tears are so common, and for those of us for whom despair is a temptation, as enticing as any drug, we are called to make a choice for Joy. To make the choice to listen to His whispers, to accept His love, so we can have Joy.

Prayer, Mortification, the Practice of virtue (purity, patience, selflessnes, LOVE), Trust in Him that brings Peace, and allowing ourselves to be loved that brings Joy...

summed up: Living a life of Love with Him and with them (our brothers and sisters)... THAT IS THE KINGDOM! HERE AND NOW!

"Only if we look to Christ, if we love him, will we overcome laziness and love of comfort, will we emerge from the ivory tower that each of us tends to build for himself, will we make many blind people see Christ, many deaf people hear him, and many cripples walk beside him. God needs our cooperation." In Conversation with God. Francis Fernandez.

Artwork by Macha Chmakoff

He taught them as one who had authority

Mark 1:22

"Jesus doesn't expound just a mere opinion, nor does He show any sign of uncertaint or of doubt. He does not speak like the prophets, in God's name, because He is not just another prophet: he speaks in his own name: I say to you..." In Conversation with God. Francis Fernandez.