Three days ago i promised myself to start blogging reflections on the daily readings. I thought of starting it today, monday. Everything is ...
Three days ago i promised myself to start blogging reflections on the daily readings. I thought of starting it today, monday. Everything is set and ready for uploading but it seems to me that i have to set it aside for a while.When i checked my email early this morning I came across with the news from our neighbor that my mom was taken into the hospital and that she had a highblood pressure yesterday and a vein in her brain exploaded, causing her to be mute, unable to eat, semi-paralyzed. I was in the state of shock but calmly tried to call the one who was taking care of her in the hospital. It was only during the personal prayer that i started to cry and to live the words that i have just written in the reflection for tomorrow that i was supose to post in Facebook... that in th end, i decided not to post and postpone the apostolate for the folowing week.
The cross symbolizes suffering but at the same time life. It is part of everyday's life. Sometimes it comes light and sometimes it is so heavy and drags you to the ground, leads you to a different state - from standing to fallen. Today, on the feast of the exaltation of the cross, i realized what is sacrifice. I felt the pain of embracing this kind of life, the limits of myself and my personhood, the real meaning of poverty, of relationships, of family life, and most of all - of love. A love that divides but unites; a love that gives freedom and that enslaves; a love that is found in pain and in joy.
The blessed mother, specially her figure as Lady of Sorrows is a figure very dear and very close to me because of the tradition my family - tenemos una caroza de esa figura en Legazp City (una hermandad como en Sevilla pero es propio de la familia). And its very dear to me because, as a Claretian, I am consideed to be a Son of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary. My reflections for the feast was related to the sufferings of the mothers around the world whenever their son/daugther is in pain. But perhaps i have to say it the other way around.
I know my mother was badly hurt and she had a lot of spears in her heart when our family went through bad times; when i'd been to far from her; when i told her that i would like to be a priest; when i left her alone in the house and i came here in Spain. I know it was terrible for a mother once their children chooses not to be in their side when they needed them. I know how they look for affection from their son/daughter but in the end never get it. And many more. But perhaps today, i would say, it is not only our mothers who are broken hearted when they see their children suffer, when they are being pushed or silenced, when they start to leave them alone, but it is also a fact that in one way or another, in different forms we children of theirs feels that pain and the sorrow that they suffer when our own mothers suffers too (no matter how terrible experiences we have had in the family for others). Our mother will always be our mother. I firmly believe that it was not only Mary who had her heart speared with seven swords but also His son seeing His Mother suffering underneath His cross, seeing him suffering in pain, dying. I feel that pain right at this very moment specially that I am too far and there is "only a posibility" and not certain that i can go home to the Philippines.
These two feasts that we celebrate this 13th and 14th of September are days that i would never forget in my life. It had been incarnated and lived. Four years ago, on these same dates, my grandfather and grandmother had their final blessing on the very church where they use to take the Dolorosa every Holy Week for procession, and bade goodbye to the world as couples who always loved each other until the end of their life.
As I end this post, i pray, together with my prayers for my mom, for those who are suffering because of Christ, becuase of the presence and love for the Cross, because of ther passion to serve the Lord. I pray too for all the mothers who are in pain seeing their child or children suffering, in pain, etc. I pray for all those childern, for all of us sons and daughthers of our parents, no matter how they had formed or cared for us, or brought us up in this world, let us always recoginize or parents, love them, cherrish them, and tell them that we love them, let them know while they can hear and not when they are no longer around. I pray that we can become better children and be thankful for our parents, be thankful to God. No mater what, our parents will always be our parents. That will never be changed.
And lastly, I pray that the will of God may always be done. Thank you Lord for the lessons i have learned today from you and from my mother.
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