Weekly Ripple
One day a young boy saw his Mom crying …
Why are you crying, the young boy asked his Mom? “Because I’m a woman,” she told him. “I don’t understand,” he said. His Mom just hugged him and said, “And you never will, but that’s O.K.”…….
Later the little boy asked his father, “Dad, why does Mom seem to cry for no reason?”. “All women cry for no reason,” was all his Dad could say.
The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why women cry. Finally he prayed to God and when God got back to him, he asked “God, why do women cry so easily?”
GOD answered……
“When I made a woman, I decided she had to be special. I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world, yet, made her arms gentle enough to give comfort. I gave her the inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that many times will come even from her own children.
I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going and take care of her family and friends, even when everyone else gives up, through sickness and fatigue without complaining. I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all circumstances. Even when her child has hurt her badly.
She has the very special power to make a child’s mistakes feel better and to quell a teenager’s anxieties and fears. I gave her strength to care for her husband, despite faults and I fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart. I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife, but sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him unfalteringly.
For all of this hard work, I also gave her a tear to shed. It is hers to use whenever needed and it is her only weakness….
When you see her cry, tell her how much you love her, and about all the good she does for everyone, and even though she may still cry, you will have made her heart feel good for she is truly special.
“Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face” (Psalm 24:6)
My wife and I were on our way to the bank one afternoon when I noticed a man pushing a grocery cart. On it was a sofa bed. It was a cold and windy day and he was having a hard time with the cart. As we were entering the bank, to do our errand when all of a sudden the cart and the sofa bed tipped over. From the bank I noticed the man was still struggling with his burden. As we left the bank I decided to help him out. It was our date night and we had dinner plans. My wife suggested that she will go ahead to the restaurant while I helped the man out. After removing the seats and a long struggle, long we managed to lift the sofa into my van.
Along our way to his place, he was very grateful for my help. I found out that he just purchased the sofa bed from Value Village and he offered to give me his remaining twenty dollars, which I declined. I found out that he was staying at a friend’s basement while his parents were on a Christian mission somewhere in Mexico or the Caribbean’s.
When we reached his place and finished unloading, there was a moment where God was the topic of our Christmas, the birth of our Lord Jesus is a manifestation of the Father’s great love for His people who longs to see His face. The humble birth of Jesus in a stable is an indication for us where we look to find His face. Seek the star that illumine the place to magnify His presence.
Pious legend says St. Martin of Tours, originally a pagan Roman Soldier, cut and shared his military cloak with a beggar on a snowy day. That night the beggar appeared to him in a dream as Christ himself.
May the Christmas we just celebrated help us see the Lord’s face more clearly in 2014 and the years to come!
By:
Kit Arcilla
Head – Pastoral Ministry and Finance Ministry
(Re-print from Kit’s Corner, December 2002 issue of the Lightnews with slight adaptation)
On the day the royal wedding of William and Kate took place, the world stood still. It was a union of a commoner and a royalty which everyone saw as a classic example that LOVE conquers all. It made an impact on everyone, young and old. People watched in awe and talked about the fairy-tale exchange of vows. The public display of affection from Will and Kate when they kissed in the balcony of Buckingham Palace received a huge applause from the world.
It took place after Easter while the whole Christian kingdom was still celebrating the victory won by the Cross. And it was also before the great Pope John Paul II was beatified.
For a moment, people forgot the events that were unfolding in Libya and in Syria; the tornado that hit four states in the US, particularly in Alabama, and its aftermath; and other things that put the world in crisis.
This series of events led me to hope and believe that the beauty of God’s love will win our battles in life. It all points to God’s love and His faithfulness.
Therefore, there is no reason to live in fear nor despair from what is going on around us. “For He who has promised is faithful.” (1Thes. 5:24)
Faithful is He who has promised, He will never let you fall, Daily will the strength be given Strength for each and strength for all.
Knowing that our Father watches, Knowing daily strength He’ll give, Victory for each passing hour, This is life, so let us live!
By John E. Zoller
(from Godswork.org)
At this time of the year, the annual Canadian Tulip Festival that takes place in Ottawa draws tourists from all over. It is the largest tulip festival in the world.
Historically, Ottawa’s tulip tradition dates back after World War II when the Dutch government and royal family donated over 100,000 tulip bulbs to Canada as a gesture of gratitude for its help during the war. Each year, the Dutch royal family still sends 20,000 bulbs to Canada. [ottawastart.com]
The tulip, also known by its Latin name, tulipa, is a beautiful flower. This bulbous plant is very popular.
As millions of tulips begin to blossom again, they create a very attractive bed of color and beauty – purple, pink, red, yellow, white, orange and other colors. I can stare at them for hours and never get tired.
In this same season, dandelions also begin to grow. These yellow small flowers glow lovely and golden in the spring sun.
But although they can be pretty and fun, only a few people consider them desirable in the spring. They are considered as toxic weeds or herbicides because they can choke a green lawn to death as they take over it pretty fast. Largely, that is the reason most people would rather not have them in their yard, so they weed them out.
These tiny yellow flowers also easily wilt once they are picked. When they wilt, their white seeds float through the air and the seeds fall into the ground from where new ones begin to grow. They propagate by themselves. It only takes one dandelion plant to make more.
But many do not realize the health benefits from dandelion. Its roots are used as a good liver tonic. It can be used as a mild laxative to help relieve constipation and as a treatment for anemia because of its high iron and zinc content. Dandelion roots are also rich in Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Vitamin A and the B complex vitamins, all of which have antioxidant properties. This little weed many consider as a pest has a lot of other health benefits.
The tulips and dandelions are like us. We see others as tulips, beautiful and radiant people. We adore them and fight for them at all cost. While we look up to the beauty of the tulips, we view others as mere dandelions. We ignore them and reduce them into insignificance. We judge and compare them to what a mighty “tulip person” can do. We don’t see their value at all because we are carried away by the beauty of the “tulips.” Intentionally or not, we use our tongue to “weed out” others whom we consider as “dandelions.”
In the eyes of God, the dandelion is at equal footing with the tulip, created though with a different purpose. Small as it is, remember that the humble dandelion is capable of taking over a green yard fast. Lest we forget, sometimes God uses the least of all people to accomplish a great purpose.
St. Paul says it all in 1 Corinthians 12:18, “As it is, however, God put every different part in the body just as He wanted it to be.” He reminds us that each person in the body of Christ is important.
We can either be a tulip or a dandelion. It doesn’t matter. God has a purpose for each one of us.
In the olden times, people had a unique way of communicating with each other.
Popular to the native Indians of North America was the smoke signal. Each smoke signaling system symbolized different meanings. It depended on the location where it was coming from.
According to sources, Ancient China used the same method. The soldiers stationed along the Great Wall would alert each other of incoming attack from their enemies by making smoke from tower to tower. The alphabet or cryptographic messages from smoke was also invented by the Greeks. It became useful to the Japanese and the Germans during World War I. And from the conclave of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican, people await the smoke signal to determine the newly elected Pope as well.
Over the years, communication has transitioned to a high-tech method. E-mailing, text messaging and social networking are just among the few of them. They are so powerful that they are capable of tracing ancestry, reuniting lost family members and many more. But the power of communication has a ripple effect too. It can either make and unmake a person. And depending on the purpose, it can also build and destroy someone.
As Christians, we have a big responsibility not only to unbelievers but to our fellow believers as well with what we say. In sending or receiving the “smoke signal”, our moral obligation in both situations should be at equal footing. How we interpret and react to what we hear from others could sometimes be beyond our control. But since we have many times professed our faith in Christ, we should be able to do so.
We can avoid unjustly judging other people based on what we hear about them if we exercise wisdom. With that, we can spare ourselves from persecuting an innocent one or causing others to fall.
St. James teaches how to communicate in James 1:19 (NIV), “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.”
Sure, we can send the “smoke signals,” but with caution. Otherwise, we can cause a “fire.”
One of the most beautiful hearts belonged to a simple woman who lived with the sick, homeless and rejected people. At a very young age, she already felt strongly the call of God to be a missionary. She was Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Macedonia in 1910 from an Albanian couple, she left her hometown at the age of 18 to join an Irish community of nuns, the Sisters of Loreto, with missions in India. After her training in Ireland, she was sent to India where she took her vows as a nun.
While in India, the sufferings and poverty that she saw led her to leave the convent and devote herself to caring for the poorest of the poor. With practically nothing but her missionary spirit and her belief in the Divine Providence, she founded “The Missionaries of Charity.” She carried out its mission with the support of volunteer helpers and financial help from all over.
Mother Teresa’s works of mission have been an inspiration to all peoples of the world. I have always admired her. Likewise, there is another woman whom I also admired like her from my hometown in the Philippines.
Known to many as Tita Neneng, her missionary works may not be of equal footing with that of Mother Teresa’s. But she also selflessly devoted her last days on earth helping and serving the poor, needy and hungry.
Tita Neneng, also known as Trinidad Mangahas, loved God and had shown that by helping many people in need. When she and her best friend Tita Julie, also a good servant of God, were concessionaires of a hospital cafeteria, Tita Neneng put many kids from poor families to school. She used her income to provide scholarship grants to some deserving high school students in her hometown for many years. Many people ran to her for all kinds of financial help.
When she had given up her business, she decided to serve at a place for the poor and the abandoned, known as Anawim.
In Anawim, which was founded by LOJ’s leader Bo Sanchez and nestled at a tiny little town of Montalban, Philippines, the elderly and the orphaned kids found hope each day from the company of Tita Neneng. They were fed with love and the foods served from Anawim’s kitchen. Every food prepared from that kitchen was from Tita Neneng’s ideas and menus. She loved cooking and it was in the kitchen where she had best used her gifts to serve the Lord.
Donors and visitors of Anawim had always been greeted by the welcoming smiles of Tita Neneng, its staff workers and orphaned residents.
When I used to visit her at Anawim, she would always have lots of stories to tell. She would recount what she did for the day and how she enjoyed living with the elderly residents there. She loved to tell about Omar, an abandoned boy taken in by Anawim from the street. Many times over, she said she was happy and contented with her life and would not trade Anawim for anything else.
I loved that woman. She taught me a lot of lessons in life. She, in fact, led me to know Jesus as my Savior. And I had literally seen in her what Jesus told a man in the Bible: “He answered: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'” (Luke 10:27, NIV).
In 2008, our Lord took her from us. She succumbed to a massive heart attack. I felt I had lost one precious person in my life, who had helped me in many ways too. I would always remember her for her charity and compassion.
For me, she had the same beautiful heart that Mother Teresa had. And their best legacies were charity and compassion.
“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. I do not agree with the big way of doing things.” – Mother Teresa (1910-1997).
My mother was the epitome of a religious woman. She was a devout Catholic who heard mass every day, practised her devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, was devoted to her prayer and bible time, never missed a prayer meeting, commandeered us to pray the rosary at precisely 6 p.m. every single day, and wore a brown scapular. She was a self-sacrificing mother who would never utter a word of complaint no matter how tired and weary she was from doing chores, and again doing more chores when she came home from work.
She was not a materialistic person and her one simple wish was to see where Jesus was born. “When I see the exact place where Jesus was born, I can already die.” Even as a young girl, these were words that would echo in my ears over and over again. This was her dire wish. And when I grew older, I’d tell her in retort “be careful what you wish for, you just might get it quicker than you think and you might not be ready to meet your Maker.”
In 1996, at age 69, her wish came true. She joined a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and included in the itinerary was a visit to the Birth Cave. This is where Christians gather to see the place where the Baby Jesus was born. On the floor could be seen a silver star with 14 points symbolizing the 14 stations of the Via Dolorosa. There read the following inscription: “Here, of the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ was born.” As soon as she saw this, she was ready to go home. She grew weary from all the walking and sightseeing that somebody literally had to carry her so that she could catch up with the group.
A week after she came home, she was rushed to the Lung Center and was hospitalized for pneumothorax. This refers to a condition in which air builds up under pressure and usually totally collapses one or both of the lungs. In her case, it was a partial collapse. The pressure that built up in her lung cavity slowed the return of blood to her heart from the veins. Because her heart had little or less blood available to pump into the main arteries, her blood pressure dropped. She stayed in the hospital for about a week. When her medical history was taken, the doctors found out that the main cause of the collapse was not the ‘trip’ but the harmful effects of 40 years of second hand smoke inhalation since my father was a heavy smoker. The trip only triggered the collapse.
When her condition improved and she was given the go-signal to come home, it was decided that she would come and live with us. We had two helpers and one could be assigned to her for her special needs. Her illness had progressed into emphysema, and she needed to be attached to an oxygen supply tank 24/7 to help her breathe. She couldn’t be away from her supply longer than 10 minutes. This went on for 2 years.
On January 28, 1998, she died in her sleep, all serene and peaceful with a smile on her lips, a rosary on one hand with the other holding on to her brown scapular. True to the scapular’s promise, I know that at the hour of her death, the Blessed Mother interceded with God for her to obtain the grace she needed to remain in the state of God’s friendship and to save her soul. Two hours before her death, a priest came to administer the sacrament of Extreme Unction. She was well on her way to her next trip…….. bon voyage!
One dreary night, we woke up to loud echoes of “Mom! Dad! Hide me, there are monsters running after me”, “Stay away from me, evil monster!” ,”No more, I can’t take this anymore, don’t let me die!!!” We thought our son was having a nightmare but he wasn’t. Oh how we wished he was. The reality was, he was high on weed.
We came to Canada thinking this was the safest and best place to raise our children. So how did this happen? God, what are we to do? What went wrong? We don’t have the answers but we know we are His children and as such, He protects us and our security is in His power and in His name.
Our worst fear then was if our son wouldn’t be able to get out of that ugly and evil world he was in. What we used to see on television had now become a reality for us. In our 21 years of marriage, I’ve never seen my husband shed tears. But as they say, there’s always a first time for everything. He hugged our son while I held his cold and trembling hands.
Psalm 46:1 says, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble”. We invoked the Holy name of Jesus to cover him with His most precious blood, prayed the Lord’s Prayer, rebuked the evil spirit that was within him, whispered beautiful memories we shared as a family, told him to think of the friends he left back home, reassured him of how much we love him and how much God loves him. For four hours, this was all we did until he finally succumbed to sleep. Even in his deep slumber, I never let go of his hands.
When he finally woke up, all he could remember were monsters chasing after him. He could vividly recall that we were holding his hands and consistently praying to drive away the bad spirits that were running after him. He confessed that was the first time he tried the stuff but now he doesn’t see any reason why he’d want to go through that harrowing experience again. ” NEVER AGAIN!” he said , “the Lord’s unfailing love has surrounded me and rescued me from the pit of darkness and I don’t ever want to go back again.”
My husband Caloy and I have been blessed with 3 wonderful children – JC, 21; BA, 19; and Jay, 9. During the formative years of our children, Caloy was away working so I took on the role of both father and mother in his absence. I was alone to nurse their little aches and pains. I taught all 3 of them how to bike, brought them to swimming, basketball and dance clinics, cheered the loudest during BA’s hockey games and JC’s figure skating competitions, drove them to and from school, taught the 2 older ones how to drive, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
When Caloy came home after his stint in Iraq in 2007, our roles were reversed- I worked and he stayed home. This was his chance to make up for all the years he was away. Since I was a Quality Coach at IBM Daksh, a call center, I had to work at night when everyone else was asleep and slept when they were awake. We were together but we were living in different ‘time zones’.
Since Caloy was just helping out his father run their family business, he, more or less, had control of his time. This meant more quality time with the kids, especially with Jay. He helped Jay with school work, took him to the barber shop, brought him to swimming classes, biked with him around the village, fed him and prayed with him before he slept at night, which, by the way, included praying for the approval of our visa for permanent residence here in Canada. Both father and son shared a special bond.
Last Father’s Day, Caloy received the best gift ever from our little Jay. He received what Jay called Father’s Day coupons. He received one that promised to help him wash dishes, another to let him borrow some of his money (yup, this one brought the house down), a third to help him do stuff like washing dishes and the best of them all – a back massage. These are all simple little things but they brought tears to Caloy’s eyes and truly touched his heart.
Below is an excerpt from the poem ‘Fathers are Wonderful People’ by Helen Steiner Rice. It simply says that although fathers put up a tough act’, they have emotions, too. And most of all, they need LOVE.
But if you look inside Dad’s heart,
Where no one else can see
You’ll find he’s sentimental
And as ‘soft’ as he can be…
But he’s so busy every day
In the gruelling race of life,
He leaves the sentimental stuff
To his partner and his wife…
But Fathers are just WONDERFUL
In a million different ways,
And they merit loving compliments
And accolade of praise,
For the only reason Dad aspires
to fortune and success
Is to make the family proud of him
and to bring them happiness…
And like Our Heavenly Father,
he’s a guardian and a guide,
Someone that we can count on
to be always on our side.
***This Article is re-posted in celebration of Fathers’ Day. Greetings to all fathers and praise be to our Heavenly Father! – From Your Web Team
On the first week of December, my wife would start to tell me to bring out the Christmas tree and its decorations from the garage and to put it up. Getting the huge box of the Christmas tree and the ten huge boxes of Christmas decorations requires the supervision of a safety manager to safely retrieve the boxes from the garage shelves and carry them into the house.
Once the boxes are inside the house, putting up the Christmas tree requires the services of a project manager. The tree itself has to be assembled, then the Christmas lights have to be installed, and finally the shiny Christmas balls and glittering trimmings have to be put up. Aside from the Christmas tree, of course, we would be putting up a Belen, depicting the night of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. All these decorations are lit up by kilometers of flashing Christmas lights.
I am sure that this process of Christmas decorating is replicated in countless households in Canada. Houses all over have elaborate, shiny and flashing decorations to remind us that it is Christmas time. However, in our parish churches, there is one Christmas item (I would not call it a décor) that seems to be out of place… the Advent wreath. It is not shiny, nor is it flashing with Christmas lights, nor is it noisily spewing out Christmas carols. It is only a simple wreath with five candles on it.
It is a very simple Christmas item but it is a summary of the full meaning of Christmas. There are five candles and each one is lighted at each Sunday during Advent. The first candle represents Hope in the coming of Jesus as the Saviour. The second candle represents Love as manifested by God the Father giving us Jesus Christ, while the third candle represents Joy as what the Shepherds felt on seeing Jesus in a manger. The fourth candle represents Peace, a fruit of Christ’ coming. The fifth candle in the center of the wreath represents Jesus, and reminds us that Christ is the center of Christmas. The circular garland represents eternity, while as a whole, the candles together represent the coming of the LIGHT of JESUS.
And so being members of the Light of Jesus Community, the Advent wreath should have a special meaning for us. In the last few days of Christmas time, just like the Advent wreath, let us light up our own inner candles of Hope, Love, Joy and Peace to warm and uplift our hearts and souls during this cold and maybe dark winter of our lives, and bring the same Hope, Love, Joy and Peace to our spouses, families, friends and community.
“Blessed are you, O Lord our God, king of the universe. You sent your Son to be the Light of the world and to spread His light of love to all.” (From the Prayer of the Blessing of the Advent Wreath)
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