Coconut Rice Chex Bites

 

Coconut Rice Chex Bites

1 banana smashed

6 dates chopped finely

1 1/2 cups sweetened coconut flakes 

2 cups Rice Chex crushed coarsely 

Mix all the ingredients. Refrigerate for around 30 minutes Shape into balls. 

Charming Baras

 

The most charming place I visited during my last trip in the Philippines is Baras Rizal.  The sightseeing tour of this small town was part of the activities in the multi site APAMS meeting. It was organized by the Rizal System University in Morong Rizal which hosted the first place of this extensive meeting. The other places where the meeting was held were UPLB, Los Banos Rizal, Batangas State University and Eastern Visayas University in Tacloban, Leyte  

UPLB

Batangas State University 

At the end of the meeting at RSU,  we were driven to the municipal building of Baras where we were met by two wonderful guides.  We transferred to a bus furnished by the municipality of Baras.   Our first stop was a magnificent church in the neighboring town of Morong Rizal.  The church is St. Jerome Parish Church which is also known as Morong Church.  Built in 1620, it is one of the oldest churches around Laguna Lake.  Note the beautiful facade and bell tower and its overwhelming number of steps. 

.

I carefully went up the steps of the church holding to my husband Bob's hand for support.  Inside, we were greeted with many religious figures that one finds in most churches in the Philippines.  Among them is the statue of Jesus lying in a display case after his death.  An elegantly clad Blessed Mother was in another part of the church.  Beside the altar is the statue of St. Jerome himself.  He is shown with a lion since it was claimed that he has tamed a lion by curing its paw. 

We were then treated to a merienda (food break) consisting of Barbecued Plaintain doused with syrup and Banana egg rolls or turon.  I have been hankering for these delicious sweets since I have arrived in the Philippines but those available in the streets where I stayed at my brother's place were considered not too sanitary.    Too bad I did not take pictures of these awesome desserts but I obtained photos online, as shown below. 

What made the break even more enjoyable was it was at the serene Kasarinlan park of this town.  I love seeing children fishing with their parent in the fish pond.  In the back of the fish pond you can see people fishing leisurely without any cares in the world.  I actually picture these scenes on days I want to be relaxed.

The next stop was another church, St. Joseph Parish.  The Franciscans started to build the church in 1595.  It is one of the oldest churches in Rizal, and was completed in 1686.  The Jesuits administered the parish from 1616 to 1679. The altar and lectern were constructed with stones that were unearthed from beneath the site of the church. These stones were left as they are and not plastered or painted.

Most of us went up the steps at the side of the altar that leads to the statue of St Joseph. I was too tired to climb the steps but my husband did. 

When we were outside the church we saw a group of children who were eating their lunch. When I found out they were members of the children’s choir, I requested them to sing. They obliged by singing the the Our Father guided by their choir leader. I took the video of them singing and can be viewed in the link below. 

https://youtu.be/72vRVPIbU6o

We visited other places in Baras but these ones stood out the most for their serene charm. I would like to thank the two wonderful guides, RSU and the municipality of Batas Rizal. 

Embracing the present moment

 1.  Prayer

A Prayer to Savor the Moment

O Holy God, Loving Jesus, Blessing Spirit

You have made everything for its own time.

Help me open the gift of this moment,

A present from your heart to mine.

Draw my soul to your presence,

Grace me with acceptance for what is,

Bend my will to be present in the present,

Release my urge to control,

Unclutter my mind, quiet my spirit.

You are all I need in this moment.

As I see your beauty in this time,

I feel your eternity in my heart.

Amen

2.  Meditation

https://youtu.be/xr_H18UcQCo?si=GBUa2S-5NNb-QRnv

3.  Song

https://youtu.be/jYrx5nYjLhc?si=kqZegsWcCliylbLW

4.  Narrative

Monday, November 20, 2017

Most religious people I’ve met—from sincere laypeople to priests and nuns—still imagine God to be elsewhere. Before you can take the “now” seriously, you must shift from thinking of God as “out there” to also knowing God “in here.” In fact, that is the best access point! Only inner experience can bring about a healing of the human-divine split.

Transformation comes by realizing your union with God right here, right now—regardless of any performance or achievement on your part. That is the core meaning of grace. But you have to knowthis for yourself. No one can do this knowing for you. I could tell you that God is not elsewhere and heaven is not later, but until you come to personally and regularly experience that, you will not believe it.

Authentic Christianity overcame the “God-is-elsewhere” idea in at least two major and foundational ways. Through the Incarnation, God in Jesus became flesh; God visibly moved in with the material world to help us overcome the illusion of separation (John 1:14). Secondly, God as Holy Spirit, is precisely known as an indwelling and vitalizing presence. By itself, intellectual assent to these two truths does little. The Incarnation and Indwelling Spirit are known only through participation and practice, when you actively draw upon such Infinite Sources. “Use it or lose it!”

Good theology helps us know that we can fully trust the “now” because of the Incarnation and the Spirit within us. It’s like making love. We can’t be fully intimate with someone who is physically absent or through vague, amorphous energy; we need close, concrete, particular connections. That’s how our human brains are wired.

Jesus teaches and is himself a message of now-ness, here-ness, concreteness, and this-ness. The only time Jesus talks about future time is when he tells us not to worry about it (see Matthew 6:25-34). Don’t worry about times and seasons, don’t worry about when God will return, don’t worry about tomorrow. Thinking about the future keeps us in our heads, far from presence. Jesus talks about the past in terms of forgiving it. Some say forgiveness is central to his whole message. Jesus tells us to hand the past over to the mercy and action of God. We do not need to keep replaying the past, atoning for it, or agonizing about it.

Yet, as practitioners of meditation have discovered, the mind can only do two things: replay the past and plan or worry about the future. The mind is always bored in the present. So it must be trained to stop running backward and forward. This is the role of contemplation.

Gateway to Silence:
God is right here right now.

Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Living the Eternal Now (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2005), CD, MP3 download.

In the realm of time, so swiftly passing,
Life’s brevity, it leaves us gasping,
An internal clock, ticking away,
A countdown to seize each moment, each day.

There’s dreams to chase, places to explore,
People to love, yet unknown, for sure,
Memories waiting to be etched in our hearts,
Photos to capture, future joys to impart.

Sometimes it feels like a burden, a weight,
Anxiety creeping, our minds in a state,
But let’s remember, dear reader, today is here,
This moment, right now, let it be clear.

The future may beckon, with dreams yet to come,
But let’s not forget, where we stand, where we’re from,
For today is where our power lies,
In the memories we make, the love we’ll devise.

So let’s slow down, embrace the now,
Not stuck in the future, we’ll allow,
Our feet to be grounded, our heads held high,
In this present moment, let our spirits fly.

Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is yet to be,
But today, dear reader, is where we’re free,
To make the most of each precious day,
Spreading love, kindness, along the way.

So keep your head where your feet are planted,
In the now, let life be enchanted,
For life is too short, a fleeting chance,
Embrace the present, in this joyful dance.

Hope you liked the poem.

Dancing Elephant author Kennedie post beautifully expresses the journey of rediscovering the joy of life, building relationships, and embracing new experiences. Read on to understand the blessing of having a sisterhood.

5.  Meditation

https://youtu.be/p3CzxrSQGcQ?si=IIdKIlD9S6M0siv8

6.  Sharing

7.  Prayer and Intentions

Vessel of grace-
throughout your brief journey
you entered every moment of life
and embraced it completely-
knowing it was there
that you would encounter the face of God.

You trusted in
Divine protection,
Holy guidance,
and graced nourishment

-just for today-
recognizing that the present
is the only place

where God can be revealed.

How much of my own time is wasted
outside of God’s shade,
worrying about yesterday
and planning for tomorrow.

Release me from these anxieties
and my own need to control…
Free my soul to fly with the Spirit
in each breath that I take,
reminding me that all I have is NOW!

8.  Song

https://youtu.be/9MoLLtZIxdE?si=uoWRsyTCDrV-UiOC

Searching for Meaning

 1.  Prayer

Searching for God

by Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)

O Lord, my God, teach my heart this day where and how to see you, where and how to find you. You have made me and remade me, and you have bestowed on me all the good things I possess, and still I do not know you. I have not yet done that for which I was made. Teach me to seek you, for I cannot seek you unless you teach me, or find you unless you show yourself to me. Let me seek you in my desire; let me desire you in my seeking. Let me find you by loving you; let me love you when I find you. Amen.

2. Meditation 

https://youtu.be/HK6T685I8gg

3. Song

https://youtu.be/JKioQPEW4do

4.  Narrative

Monday, October 15, 2018

During the next two weeks I will reflect on suffering and how we might recognize God’s image and likeness in people even—and perhaps especially—during hard times. Some of the greatest wisdom has come from those who experienced unspeakable trauma and harm. Holocaust survivor and respected psychiatrist Viktor Frankl (1905–1997) offered guidance for anyone who suffers. Rabbi Harold Kushner explained in his foreword to Man’s Search for Meaning:

The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life. Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times. Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it. . . .

Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you. [1]

Etty Hillesum (1914–1943), a young Jewish woman who died at Auschwitz, shared an intimate glimpse into her own experience through her journals:

June 14, 1941: More arrests, more terror, concentration camps, the arbitrary dragging off of fathers, sisters, brothers. We seek the meaning of life, wondering whether any meaning can be left. But that is something each one of us must settle with himself and with God. And perhaps life has its own meaning, even if it takes a lifetime to find it. . . .

June 15, 1941: For a moment yesterday I thought I couldn’t go on living, that I needed help. Life and suffering had lost their meaning for me; I felt I was about to collapse under a tremendous weight. . . . I said that I confronted the “suffering of mankind” . . . but that was not really what it was. Rather I feel like a small battlefield, in which the problems, or some of the problems, of our time are being fought out. All one can hope to do is to keep oneself humbly available, to allow oneself to be a battlefield. [2]

This is what it means to hold the contradictions and the pain of the world, as we do in contemplation. Hillesum accepted her destiny. She believed, as I do, that we are called to be both the agony and the ecstasy of God—for the life of the world. For me, to be a Christian means to accept that battlefield, to accept and to somehow participate in the mystery of death and resurrection in oneself and in the universe. It is a process of “oneing” with Foundational Reality, which some call at-one-ment.

Social psychologist Diarmuid O’Murchu writes:

Creation cannot survive, and less so thrive, without its dark side. There is a quality of destruction, decay, and death that is essential to creation’s flourishing. . . . And the consequence of this destructive dimension is what we call evil, pain, and suffering. Obviously, I am not suggesting fatalistic acquiescence. Indeed, I am arguing for the very opposite: an enduring sense of hope, which it seems to me is not possible without first coming to terms with . . . the great paradox. It is . . . the unfolding cycle of birth-death-rebirth. And it transpires all over creation, on the macro and micro scales alike. [3]

Yes, I know, sisters and brothers, suffering is and will always be a mystery, maybe the major mystery.

References:
[1] Harold S. Kushner in his foreword, Victor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Beacon Press: 2006), x.

[2] Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941–1943  and Letters from Westerbork, trans. Arnold J. Pomerans (Henry Holt and Company: 1996), 29, 30-31.

[3] Diarmuid O’Murchu, Incarnation: A New Evolutionary Threshold (Orbis Books: 2017), 152.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, True Self, False Self, disc 5 (Franciscan Media: 2003, 2013), CD.

5.  Meditation 

https://youtu.be/c8n3LtQygEc

6.  Sharing

7.  Prayer and Intentions 

Prayer

 

Holy God,
We bow before you, awestruck by who you are. You are light and life, grace and mercy, just and right, and filled with love and power. Let our hearts draw near to you today. We seek you with all our hearts because we know that our desires are found and fulfilled in you.

 

We want to know you, Lord. You desire relationship and so we say, yes. Yes, Lord. Reveal yourself to us today as we seek your face. Without you our becoming loses its fire and our doing loses its purpose. Guide our steps and our hearts ever closer to you. Help us to know your voice and respond when you call.

 

In Jesus’ name,
Amen

8.  Song

https://youtu.be/J7rhojTnlOk

sr paula's meeting

 

https://youtu.be/zU2-WqCJpF4?si=f1sWUbHCIjwDnEDc

Everything you Do is Sacred

                                    Hafiz

Now is the time to know

that all that you do is sacred.

 

Now is the time to understand

that all your ideas of right and wrong

were just a child’s training wheels

to be laid aside

when you can finally live with veracity and love.

 

…Now is the time for the world to know

that every thought and action is sacred.

 

This is the time

for you to deeply compute the impossibility

that there is anything

but Grace.

Lord, my God

when Your love spilled over

into creation

You thought of me.

I am from love,

of love,

for love.

Let my heart, O God,

always recognize, cherish

and enjoy Your goodness in

all creation.

 

Direct all that is me

toward Your praise.

Teach me reverence

for every person, all things

energize me in

Your service.

 

Lord God, may nothing

ever distract me from

Your love….

neither health nor sickness

wealth nor poverty

honor nor dishonor

long life nor short life.

 

May I never seek nor

choose to be other than

You intend or wish.

Amen.