No more violence

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom...
There is peace, there is joy..."

- 2 Cor 3:17

So goes one of the usual happy happy songs that we tend to sing during Praise and Worship. These words never really struck me, until last week. I was reading Fr Tom Green's Opening to God and although he repeated this truth quite a few times in one of his chapters, I really didn't fully fathom it until Edwina reminded me again during the weekend retreat.

I've been rather unsettled since the Christmas season (almost 4 wks ago?). I didn't have that sense of peace and joy that I usually carried with me. Everything seemed fine, yet there was a growing turmoil that was welling up in me. And I actually attributed this (undiscerningly so) to my inability to surrender to what I thought He had willed for me to do. The vocation question/notion/"call" kept knawing in my heart and I really really thought that I could no longer hide from the "calling". Yet, I never once wondered why there wasn't a sense of overwhelming calm and happiness when I sort of "confirmed" that "call" in my heart. I was churning inside: I am "called" to give up all my treasures, my hopes, my aspirations, my wants (blah blah blah)... yet there was an emptiness and absence that I couldn't explain.

Not that I had a proper prayer life that enabled me to discern this. I knew in my heart that I had to differ all to God, and I was honestly trying very hard to. Yet, it was as if I hit a brick wall... a blank. There wasn't a clear, soothing voice or a clear light at the end of a tunnel. I was still doing my daily routine of prayer and mass, although quiet time became fewer and farther between. I knew God was near... but I think my head was ruling my heart, cos it was the easiest thing to remember without truly believing and internalising that as fundamental truth.

So, prayer time was a time of bashing myself up:
Why can't I accept God's will for me?
Why aren't I living that fullness of life He gives?
Why aren't I devoting more time to prayer?
Why was I feeling tired and frustrated when I should be raring to go?
Why can't I give up those emotions, feelings I have?
Why can't I love all unconditionally without the desire for reciprocation like Him?
Why can't I hold my tongue and keep my temper in check?
And the list goes on...

Yet, God, in His infinite mercy and grace and UNCONDITIONAL love could not bear to see me do violence to myself. He knew I was crying out from the dark. He knew that I was churning in the tumultuous sea of my heart and mind. He knew I was being deluded and deceived.

The YM Leaders' Retreat was my latest Transfiguration experience. I not only learned much about myself, but also about the others in the community leadership, and the need to be unassuming. Yet more importantly, God in His goodness opened my eyes to His will for me. THE HERE AND NOW. He revealed, through Edwina first, then in the silence, that I was worrying too much about tomorrow, just like Martha, fretting about serving the guests and all. I did not realise that all I was called to do, first and foremost, is to recognise the presence of the Master in my midst, and to sit at His feet to listen. And here's the scary part: because I wasn't listening in the silence all these weeks, the evil one was able to deceive me with things that sound very good and Godly. Being called to the priesthood, keeping my distance from others that I had to learn to love unconditionally and in a Godly manner, having to keep busy with God's work, having to give up the supposed "Isaacs" in my life and not realising that these are God's gifts and graces that He has abundantly poured upon me.

It was frightening to realise how easily I was deceived, how undiscerning I became. Satan is the father of lies not without reason. Everything sounded good. BUT these were not what God meant for me in this point in my life. Jesus was so unabashly loving towards me, embracing me in His arms and reminding me of who I am... I am His, wholly His. And then came the calmness of knowing that His call for me in the HERE AND NOW was to love Him, love His people and open my hands in surrender to His will. And these were His truths for me... and these brought me PEACE AND JOY. Unequivocal. As clear as day.

What's more, the retreat reminded me of the fundamental relationship that I was truly called to keep with the Lord in prayer and in quiet. It is also providential that I was able to finish reading Opening to God. God continues to reveal to me the way in which I was to relate to Him in prayer... the way I am called to Him. This drawing process is clear... that God Himself draws us to Him first, and everything else is our response to His love. Although I'm still discovering the way I am made to be drawn to Him in prayer, amalgamating what Fr Green terms as "meditation" and "contemplation", and the highway to God through praying in the Spirit, I know for sure that God will continue to open my mind and heart to Him, for a creature's heart that is truly seeking the Creator will not be spurned by Him.

And as I journey closer to God and embark on my maiden voyages into the interior life of Jesus, I pray that His call and invitation to all to draw near to Him will be answered. As we ponder upon the life of Jesus, and in the process become more Christ-like, may God give us the necessary grace such that we can indeed became the alto Christus and truly, like St Paul, exclaim that "it is not I who lives but Christ who lives in me." (Gal. 2:20)

Rhino5