‘Our Faith is an Adventure’ by Rev. Fr. Dr. Rodel G.Balagtas (Pastor), Monsignor Lorenzo Miranda (Director of the House of Prayer for Priests), and Sister Leanne Hubbard, Faculty at St. John’s Seminary.
Three powerhouses of theological theory and practice seduced me to devote a Friday evening (a surprise favor from my hubby to drive me, wait for me and later, dinner) and an entire April Fool’s Day for a lenten retreat.
The day started with a bright orange sunrise bidding us all to be joyful as Thanksgiving is due to the Lord. How many times did we ignore a God so loyal to us?
300 folks anointed this Lenten retreat by praying for us to be filled by the Holy Spirit, said Msgr. Miranda, with beautiful sacred songs sung joyfully, in harmony and on pitch, by the Heart of Jesus choir group – a stellar group of musicians which greeted us. Friday, 49 came and Sat, 69 attended.
The altar was spectacular inside the school Auditorium. It was decorated with white and pink flowers reminiscent of April’s cherry blossom season, a wooden carving of Jesus on the cross, and a line of lighted candles.
Even better was the registration table manned by staffers and volunteers who were warm, courteous, and welcoming us with smiles, genuinely conveying we are happy to see you.
A folder, a journal, a green pen and an agenda were given. It was a full day of prayers, lectures, small group discussions, sharing with larger group and plenty of songs to uplift us all plus lyrics of water, winds, and more to dance with. It was as if our hearts are being awakened.
Even the breakfasts and lunches were carefully chosen: yogurt, granola, fruits, zucchini cake; tuna, ham and cheese, and vegetarian options with salads, fruits, chips and cookies. Those were just perfect choices!
Lent is time to pause and asking what’s going on with my life – the crux of my existence.
By noon, the answers came to me in the form of a beautiful prayer of a reflective, somber, meditative Jesus about to lose his life (as hundreds and thousands now being lost in Russia-Ukraine wars and in over 200 schools where random massacres happen in America, and multimillion deaths from #CoronaVirus that have occurred in the world, in no less than 200 countries combined – my add) and on the back of the prayer card: thoughts exhorting us to reach out to those different from us, encountering humanity, praying for unity, praying to end divisions in the world, realizing we are not better than others, praying for gift of dialogue and recognizing the brevity of life and the cultivating the capacity to listen.
It was as if we are being re-taught in prayers, in thoughts, in discussions, in our actions to be morally aligned in the practice of radical love and radical listening and ultimately, a sense of humility.
Msgr. Miranda, a tall, thin built and joyful man, shared many manifested miracles in his life, including appearances of his mother and his brother whom he lost to a tragic accident. His mom said to him that she will always be praying for him while his brother said, “I made it.”
I was curious about how the apparitions occurred, he heard those through his heart, through the ears of his soul. It gave him a feeling, instead of sorrows and sufferings, feelings of upliftment and a sense of peace. “When you listen to Jesus, burdens become beautiful to carry.” I believed his testimonies as the radiance reflected on his face, as the warmth in his being, an extra lift, if you may, to keep sharing animatedly.
“It is time to discover humility, he said, “a friend of truth. Who am I really? You can’t find God if you don’t face your truth. Humility is the number one trait to have a relationship with God, it opens the gates of heavens.”
“Lent is the happiest season because that’s when God wants to heal us from our sufferings and underneath our sufferings are our spiritual treasures. The heart of our faith comes out of the Eucharist. It is the summit of Christian life and everything must be brought back to the Eucharist,” he said.
In our small group discussion, a mother shared her son, Jaime was diagnosed with a hole in his heart. She prayed fervently for 120 days. On the 120th day, she heard, as she was half dozing:”Daughter, don’t worry. Your son is healed.” Come the day of her son’s surgery, the hole in the heart had closed.
I am sharing the illustrations from Sister Leanne which simplified Incarnation, Redemption, the Paschal mystery and the Journey of Purification descending to the depths of heart, God’s love for humanity.
She shared her feelings of being less than, of running away from dark places in her heart, but when faced, she said to ask for grace so you are not hiding anything from God and allow the Lord to do His work in you.
In our small group discussion many more shared their revelation of hearing God in their deep reflections in response to the question of encountering Jesus in the Paschal mystery.
Dave described what a priest who was a clinical psychologist told him about his experience of apparition, and others chimed in, too.
* If it’s God, it’s all good
* there has to be synergy in you and what you encountered, not dissonance
* it flows, there’s harmony
* it has to bring you closer to God, and others
Last question for reflection is “What does it mean to live in the spirit? Can you drink the cup, as Henri Nouwen wrote, in a beautiful homily for Palm Sunday by Fr. Rodel, shared in advance to us? Go to the website to read its entirety – it’s beautifully written, excerpted in part:
Nouwen argues that these questions have the power to crack open the hardened heart and lay bare the tendons of the spiritual life.
And so, as we start Holy Week this Passion Sunday, I’d like us all to reflect on these questions. I’d like us all to raise the cups of our lives—holding them, lifting them, and drinking them to the full in all their joys and sorrow, success and failures, peace and anxieties.
As we raise them, I’d like us all:
–to say “yes” to our sufferings and pains as Jesus did on his way to Calvary
–to say “yes” to keep living and serving bravely despite life’s uncertainties
–to say “yes” to leading courageously, stepping into the arena of life in all its complexities, messiness, and insecurities
–to say “yes” to surrendering our lives to God, allowing him to take care of everything!
I want us all, faithful parish members, to say a firm “yes” to our vision of being a joyful, welcoming, and faith-filled Catholic Christian Community as we journey together to eternal life with God.” -Fr. Rodel Balagtas
In essence, he asks: can you descend and ascend life? Its challenges, its triumphs? Can you live in hope, despite uncertainties? To bring life to another?
To me, are we transmitting the Risen Christ to others?
One question caught my attention:”How have you experienced yourself as saved?”
It created a dilemma for me, ‘saved,’ as if we become arrogant Catholics free to sin again because Christ has died for our sins. That feeling of superiority leads some to be arrogantly judgmental towards others, particularly if they don’t parrot the teachings, as stated verbatim in the bible.
A fellow attendee re-asked my question and rephrased it: “Can you say, with and in humility, that you are saved?”
One recent convert to Catholicism said in annoyance ‘to just accept it as a gift’.
I was not content with that answer until Sister Leanne said that we are saved this moment in time. Why? It makes us lazy unconscious Catholics to simply say we are saved, but what about others? The rest of mankind?
For me, we progress daily asking for that grace, living in kindness and in humility to stay in that sacred zone of grace, that moment in time that we are being saved.
I wrote ten pages of notes. I could have written more but, my right hand was getting tired.
As I kept writing, my reflections would jump out as my own experience of Juan Diego’s apparition to me at Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2000.
I was sobbing as I lighted the candle. I felt a weariness from battling white male supremacist’ hyper scrutinized, toxic workplace in a state agency. A guy wearing a burro hat, thin muslin white shirt approached me and patted my shoulder: “Things will get better,” he said, as he handed me a small prayer card to Our Lady of Guadalupe. He smelled of both gardenias and sampaguita. When I looked up, a feeling of lightness and burdens uplifted came over me.
Fast forward to November 2022, I paid homage to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City by joining a five day pilgrimage headed by Fr. Joel O. Bugas who starts our daily pilgrimage with a prayer to the Holy Spirit and a Holy Mass.
My takeaways: TRUST, STAY PRESENT, SURRENDER, PEACE and REST in God!
I wrote a letter to the Lord in my journal, another shared her poem composed in that journal exercise.
It was an extraordinary gift of best intentions from the Trinity of retreat masters: Fr. Rodel, Msgr. Lorenzo and Sister Leanne.
Friday evening, Fr. Rodel spoke of his Lenten season’s gift from the Lord of being more prayerful, of looking forward to being still to hear the conversations from God. As if by synergy, the first line in MIHO museum’s website is about prayer and prayer symbols. Then, just before bedtime, my book about ‘Goddesses in Older Women’ is about Sophia hidden in the bible, the Goddess of Mystical and Spiritual Wisdom and that “feminism is anchored in spirituality.”
What a beautiful gift of Lenten retreat from the Holy Spirit. Even my latte from Proof Bakery had double hearts.