The season of Lent

REPENT! and BELIEVE in the Gospel..

The season of Lent

View more presentations from Pablo Cuadra ..

At the top of Mt. Batulao

ANYWAY...

People are often unreasonable,
irrational, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.


If you are kind, people may accuse
you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.


If you are successful, you will win some
unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies;
Succeed anyway.


If you are honest and sincere
people may deceive you;
Be honest and sincere anyway.


What you spend years creating
others could destroy overnight;
Create anyway.


If you find serenity and happiness,
some may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.


The good you do today,
will often be forgotten.
Do good anyway.


Give the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give your best anyway.


In the final analysis,
it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.




--Mother Teresa

sand and stone...

A story tells that two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand: "TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE."

They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one, who had been slapped, got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After the friend recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone: "TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE."

The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?"

The other friend replied: "When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."

LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND, AND TO CARVE YOUR BENEFITS IN STONE

love_and_time

Once upon a time, there was an island where all the feelings lived: Happiness, Sadness, Knowledge, and all of the others, including Love. One day it was announced to the feelings that the island would sink, so all constructed boats and left. Except for Love.

Love was the only one who stayed. Love wanted to hold out until the last possible moment.

When the island had almost sunk, Love decided to ask for help.

Richness was passing by Love in a grand boat. Love said,
"Richness, can you take me with you?"
Richness answered, "No, I can't. There is a lot of gold and silver in my boat. There is no place here for you."

Love decided to ask Vanity who was also passing by in a beautiful vessel. "Vanity, please help me!"
"I can't help you, Love. You are all wet and might damage my boat," Vanity answered.

Sadness was close by so Love asked, "Sadness, let me go with you."
"Oh . . . Love, I am so sad that I need to be by myself!"

Happiness passed by Love, too, but she was so happy that she did not even hear when Love called her.

Suddenly, there was a voice, "Come, Love, I will take you." It was an elder. So blessed and overjoyed, Love even forgot to ask the elder where they were going. When they arrived at dry land, the elder went her own way. Realizing how much was owed the elder,

Love asked Knowledge, another elder, "Who Helped me?"
"It was Time," Knowledge answered.
"Time?" asked Love. "But why did Time help me?"
Knowledge smiled with deep wisdom and answered, "Because only Time is capable of understanding how valuable Love is."

Giving + Self = HUMAN

Giving is at the heart of human relationships. It enriches our human experiences and makes our life worth living. But sometimes it’s hard for us to understand or to accept this fact, that when we do not give we become less human, and when we become selfish we become unhappy because we make ourselves less of what we. Human beings are the only one among God’s creatures who consciously share. All other creatures fight for themselves or more through instinct. And it’s sad that sometimes we forget what giving really means. Why do we give gifts, anyway? For me giving gifts means giving yourself. We give a gift, and the gift stands for our self. Gift could be extensions of ourselves. That’s what is behind birthday gifts and Christmas gifts and all the other things that we give to each other. They are all symbols of ourselves. We often give gifts, but we forget that our self has to be given along with the gifts, and this is now the tragedy in giving gifts. It is the self that goes along with the gift that makes it beautiful but we forget about it. One philosopher says that the only true gift is a part of yourself. God gave us the greatest gift of all – He gave us Himself. He gave us His Son. Christ is giving us Himself every time we share in His Eucharist. We give a little bit of ourselves to God when we spend a few minutes in prayer, when we go to mass, or when we go for confession. That’s why I’m here in the seminary to give myself to God and offer it to Him as my gift.

The gift itself isn’t very important. It could be very simple, very small, or very inexpensive. That doesn’t matter, because the essential gift is the gift of the self. Let us always remember that every gift has to have something of the self in it. We can give time, that always involves the self and it is sometimes what we neglect. We can give support, we can give love, and we can give prayer. They don’t cost very much in material term, but they mean a lot because they are true gift of self. For me the best gift of all is the gift of forgiveness.

Let me end with this very short story: one day a man complained to his angel, “Give, give, give… nothing but give. I’m tired of giving.” “Okay let’s make a deal,” replied his angel. “You stop giving the moment God stops giving you”. The man just kept quiet for he realized that what his given is nothing compared with God. I hope that we do not stop giving especially our selves to others and remember that everyday is a wonderful time of giving but let us give gifts – those that really come from us, from our hearts.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH and GOD BLESS US ALL!!!

mother knows BEST...

I would like to share with you one of my favorite short story about our mothers. This story entitled: “Mother’s Letter Trick” and it goes like this: there are two sisters who live in the same part of town but they hardly ever see each other. Whenever their mother writes to her daughters, she would always ask, “When did you last see your sister?” The daughters would answer three months ago, so the mother decided she was going to do something about it. And so, shortly afterwards, each daughter received a strange kind of letter. Their mother wrote a letter to both of them but sends to one of them pages one and three while the other received pages two and four. Ever since then they each get a half a letter a month. And now they are glad about it because it makes them take time out and spend evening together. Only a mother could do that!

This short story struck me because even though the mother was far from her daughters and the daughters are far from each other, the mother had found a way to make the two sisters meet even though they had difficulty to see each other at last. The mother shows her love to her daughters because in a little way, she helps her daughters to overcome their difficulty.

This story is most likely the same as my conversation with our Mother, Mary. She always has a way of reminding me even if sometimes I forget pray to her or neglect her. I remember when was in second year high school; I started my devotion to her by praying the rosary. I pray my rosary everyday. Since my first period in high school was at 6:45am, I would leave home at around 5:30am and after saying goodbye to my mother and kissing her, I would start praying rosary. I prayed even if I was walking or while I was on the jeepney going to school. Whenever I’d meet my friends while walking they usually say, “Ang seryoso mo namang maglakad!” then I’d just smiling at them saying to myself, “Di nyo lang alam nagdadasal ako ng rosary!” I find it weird praying on my way to school because there were a lot of nuisances that I encountered during this time like the noise of the jeep, the noise of the people in the jeep I’m riding on, and many more. But despite of this I realized that this is the appropriate time for me to reflect and pray because it is morning and my mind is still fresh. And this is the only time that I could talk to Mary because I usually don’t have any time after school because I had to do my assignments and my projects and also help my brothers in their assignments.

I got this tip from one sister with the name of Sister Soledad, during our formation as Altar Server, she said her story to us and I noticed that kind of habit and I started imitating her. I guess Mama Mary made sister Soledad an instrument for me to remember God through her words. I experienced change in my life. I can say that I am more dedicated to our Mother Mary than I was before. I start offering my days today, and I give her a minute a day. I think this is the challenge for us in these novena days in honor of Mary Assumed into Heaven, to really deepen our devotion to her. To pray to her seriously and with love. Our daily rosary is a means of communication to her. And I guess she doesn’t neglect our petitions. Let us always remember that whenever we have problems in life, or in our vocation, she has always a solution to our problems because Mary is our mother and mothers definitely know best.