Musings...

A New Perspective

Lately, I've thrown a certain...aggression into my prayertime. I make a fierce effort every day to give time to my God, no matter what I have going on that day. By doing this, it's offered me a new perspective on a difficult situation I'm dealing with at the moment.

Before my ferocity for prayer started, I was feeling quite desolate and helpless about this situation. I felt that no matter how much I petitioned, how often I tried to be docile to the Spirit, how desperately I thought about Mother Mary's example, it would still make no difference. I was quite ready to completely give up. But through the power of prayer (sorry about the cliche) I have realized that this is not a cross that fell onto my shoulders by accident, and that I am supposed to bear until someone realizes the mistake and tosses it to someone else. This cross was given to me, specifically. If my love for the Lord suddenly intensifies, and I earnestly want a deeper relationship with Him, what better way to "put my money where my mouth is" than to see every hardship as an opportunity to prove I truly love Him by relying on His providence? What's great about this, is that it hits home. The Lord is allowing for this to happen to show me that the world is not full of people ready to support me in my faith journey. There are obstacles in my daily life set to throw me off the path, and of course, I have stumbled, for sure. But the new perspective I've been offered in my prayertime is this: I'm not stumbling because I'm focusing on the obstacles, my eyes are so fixed on Jesus that I'm ignoring them entirely. And what's a few cuts and bruises if it means eternal life with Him who we seek after relentlessly? 

LWR

The meditation that did it for me this weekend. It's from "Conversation with God", by Fr. Fernandez. These are the excerpts that I wrote down:

"Jesus always listens to us, but particularly when we go to Him completely ready to change, to rediscover our way and to begin once more with a broken and contrite heart."

"The word 'contrition' comes from the Latin word 'contritus'(meaning smashed into pieces, as a rock). It has come to mean sorrow for one's faults and sins in the sense that the heart, hardened by sin, can be said to shatter when stricken by sorrow at having offended God. In everyday language, we use the term 'heartbroken' to describe our reaction to a tragedy that affects us to the depths of our being."

"Contrition consists essentially in a sense of remorse and a sincere detestation of the offence against God, and a firm resolution of not sinning again; it is a turning towards the good, which causes life to blossom anew in the soul."

"Contrition gives the Christian soul a special strength: it gives it back hope, peace, and happiness, and makes it forget about itself and abandon itself in the Lord with greater interior refinement and sensitivity. To approach God with a contrite heart, we need to acknowledge our faults and sins as they are, without making lame excuses, and not be surprises and shocked on discovering defects and failings we thought had already been overcome."

"One thing we can't do as regards to our sins and failings is to accept them as something inevitable and natural, and 'come to terms' with them. What we have to do is always to ask for pardon, and begin again as often as necessary, saying to God our Lord: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before You. I am no longer worthy to be called Your son/daughter. Treat me as one of Your hired servants." And God, who is close to the contrite heart, always hears our prayer."

"Sincere sorrow for sin does not necessarily require having to feel sorry. Just like love, sorrow is an act of the will, not a feeling. And in the same way as one can love God deeply without any emotional reaction, one can also be truly sorry for sin without experiencing anything sentimental. Real sorrow is seen principally in the way one unhesitatingly avoids all occasions of offending God."

"Turn to Our Lady and ask her-as a token of love for You- for the gift of contrition. Ask that you may be sorry with the sorrow of Love."

So yeah, it was a good weekend. =)

Reunited and it feels so....awkward. (oh, and Terrace)

Wow. This site really shows my maturity when I created it. I'm too lazy to change it back, and someone asked me to start blogging again, so I'm assuming he's gonna be the only one that reads it anyway.

so Terrace then. I can't shove 2 years of my life into a small weblog box, but I can give it a try. This was my first major missionary experience, and it was beneficial to me in so many ways. It taught me about who I am as a person, what faith is really all about, and what counts in youth ministry. Living in the north was awkward at first, because I was so used to city life. Everything seemed to move so much...slower there, even though you would probably be doing all the same stuff in the city (i.e. work, go to school, go out on the weekends, etc.) But anyway, it was never dull, that's for sure. You'd be surprised to know (and Richie would disagree with me on this one) but there is always something to do in Terrace. I spent a large part of my time kind of....house jumping, because the house whose basement I was borrowing was church property and it got sold, so then I had a brief stint in the convent that was right next to the church. It was convenient for Adoration, 'cause I could literally roll out of bed in the morning, go downstairs and adore the Blessed Sacrament in my PJs. Also convenient for work, as it was right next door. But then plans were set in motion to demolish it, and as convenient a location as it was, I did not want to be rolling out of bed to a wrecking ball in my face, so I finally settled into my own apartment for the remainder of my time in Terrace. I had a string of part-time jobs as well, seeing as the Trailblazer program is such that you need to be able to provide for yourself. The jobs included: Shoppers Drug Mart, helping out an Autistic man, Petland, and getting a pro-life gig every now and again in Hazelton, Smithers or the Yukon or something (that trip was so fun by the way).

Alright, enough with the jokes. Terrace taught me the importance of connections. Going somewhere completely on your own warrants a certain amount of vulnerability. I knew nobody, didn't know where anything was, and had no idea where to start. (That whole "God doesn't call the prepared" thing? Yeah.) But Terrace embraced me. They embraced me with my shortcomings, failures, and mistakes. They also celebrated my victories with me. They walked beside me during the struggles, and prayed for me at all other times. They meaning every single person I came into contact with. Terrace taught me that every single human relationship (and even some animal ones at Petland) you have can teach you something about God. I tried to return the favour, and hopefully I got somewhere close to equal. Terrace deepened my faith and strengthened my personal identity, and I would recommend at least one missionary experience in your life if you're interested in finding yourself. My "self" just happened to be hiding in the mountains.

Terrace, I miss you.

K Charles, you happy? Haha.

Long-lost Friend...

It's definitely been a while since I blogged last, and since I take great enjoyment from reading other people's blogs, it's only common courtesy to humour y'all with the latest goings-on in the life of Lorna. This will be long, after all, it has been 4 months since my last post.

So Conference 2007 came and went. Ho-lee mo-lee, what an experience! To actually witness how much it touched Terrace, brought me to tears.  You guys impressed the heck out of me, what with your guys' endless maturity before, during, and after Conference. And even though it was short lived, and quite pathetic if based on the quality and level of catching up, my visit with the Vancouver people was incredible. You never realize how much you miss a person until they're in your arms, squealing because they can't contain their delight at seeing you again. Campus...I won't even start, 'cause I'll cry. Just know that I miss you dearly. Please continue to pray for us, Pacific Region. We are feeling a change in the wind...and it's probably C4, so  "feel free to save the world", and continue to keep the youth here in your prayers. I still have my Prayer Intention Dry Erase Board on my wall, and the rest of Pacific Region is still on there =). But yeah, I have to admit, the Conference was awesome! Highlights included the awesome priests and their awesome sessions, the crazy new songs and how well the music ministry pwned at performing them and leading us all into worship, the cool hoodies (Conference isn't Conference without a cool hoodie to buy) celebrating Mass, singing in the Spirit freely and also being able to harmonize for the first time in months, abandoning myself to God, the kids winning soccer (I had NO PART in that victory hahahaha.), and also them winning the Most Inspiring Delegation award...(again, I had no part in that...thank You, Holy Spirit), the talks and especially the girl's session, the praise parade and dance competition, our awesome billets, our main hosts, Tito Art and Tita Monette, and most especially, the memorable ride there and back. SP THANK YOU TO ALL WHO HELPED MAKE C4H AN AWESOME EXPERIENCE FOR TERRACE!

The Vancouver trip also gave me a chance to catch up with my parents. Yup, you heard me right. BOTH of them. I had dinner with my Dad and we cleared the air. It feels SO good to forgive. Praise God for forgiveness. Then I got to see my mum and brother, too, which was incredibly enjoyable as well, and made me miss home quite a bit. But all the youth think she's cool now, so maybe it'll heal my rep for being a nerd...lol. Phat chance, hey?

So we came back, then it was....dun dun dun....my 21st birthday n August 11th. The youth group put on the most elaborate suprise birthday party anyone has ever planned for me...down to every last detail.=) I disappointed them by not crying though. HOW CAN I CRY WHEN YOU GuYS MADE ME SO HAPPY? lol...  let me lay out the situation so we can relive it together...

The Uy Family, which consists of Terrace's parent coordinators, and Tyrene, Tinzel, and Tanya, were leaving on a family trip on August 11th, so I was saddened that they would miss out on the festivities...but they shrugged it off like the good natured folks they are. Tita Susan, in her seeming dedication to service, really stressed that I be there for the CFC meeting on August 3rd...so here I am, all prepared to pray and hang out with some Titas and Titos, when I get to Tanya's house and only a handful of couples are there...and I was late! I was thinking, "Man, they stressed that I should be here on time, where are they all?" Then all of a sudden, all these youth started filing up the stairs behind me carrying green balloons...then after like 30 or so of them were up the stairs, they all yelled, "Surprise!" and yes, I was quite surprised. I had mentioned to Tanya in passing that I wanted a bathroom shelf organizer for my birthday, and that I would probably just ask my mom, but she led me down the stairs to unwrap my new Rubbermaid 4-shelf organizer, with wheels! And in each shelf, there was a different gift! In the bottom, there was a box of my favourite chocolate bars (Cookies 'N Cream! mmmm...) and in the next shelf up there was a ticket to the duck race, because First Prize was a car and I was sick of bumming rides off of everyone around town...(I didn't win...oh well, they tried!). Second shelf from the top was a CD/ DVD they made for me..the CD was called "Christian Music That Isn't Hillsongs " and was exactly that...and the DVD was a slide show/video show of the youth group year in review...complete with a 30 second opening segment that had so many bloopers, Bloopers became the next part of the DVD haha. Now, I need to sidetrack a bit to explain the gift in the top drawer...this was on Saturday, but on the Wednesday of that week, my cell phone got stolen right out of my bag, and I was very bummed about it, because I had to buy a new handset without a contract, which was quite expensive on my less-than-extravagant income. But the gift in the top drawer was an envelope filled with what everyone pitched in to cover the cost of my handset! I could not be more grateful and attached to you all here, than you for the beautiful party! After we opened the gifts, we played Disney Scene It? and Soccer....perfect ending to a perfect day.

So a little older, hopefully a little wiser...thank You, Lord for blessing me with one more year of devotion to You on earth.

So now reality is kicking in as the summer draws to a close...I'm taking two Psychology courses this semester as well as next, continuing work at Shoppers and the Church of course, for one more year. Every year before school starts, I alwasy get anxious, and start having recurring nightmares about school, involving not completing a huge project worth like my entire grade whereas the rest of the class knew and had months to prepare, showing up naked to class, not knowing anyone in a huge campus....the situation changes each dream, but it always has me quite upset over it. I know it's just harmless back-to-school jitters, but at the same time, I guess it really brings my fear of failure to the surface, and shows me how much more I need to rely on God to help me through it, or at least provide me with the strength to do it. I know He will. God has already done amazing things in my life, why should I worry?

Youth group activities are really taking off. I'm going to the Yukon (Whitehorse area) from Sept. 21-24 to give Pro-life talks to the youth there, along with Don Coburn and a Pro Life woman from Smithers, who will guide the Pro Life Committees there. Please pray that the trip is fruitful and successful, I hope to connect with some CFC there, so we can hopefully take one step closer to C4! Also, a parish in Prince George has shown interest in YFC, so we're gonna make a mission trip out of the last weekend in September and go down there and spread the Love! So if you could, please pray for the Spirit to guide that as well. Busy busy busy for the Lord!

We had a youth Mass today as well...and the Homily really struck me. The Gospel was on the Banquet, and how if you are invited, you should take the lowest seat at the table, so the host will say, "Friend, move to a higher seat" and you will be honoured in the presence of all, as opposed to assuming you get the highest seat, and being told to move by the host because someone more important than you arrived...and being publicly shunned. Also, when you're hosting a banquet, better to invite the poor, the crippled, and the lame, rather than your friends and family, 'cause if you invite your friends and family, they will , at some point, invite you over to repay the favour, which you come to expect, whereas the poor, the crippled and the lame cannot repay you, and thus you'll get repaid tenfold in Heaven. Another quote from the Gospel was "...for the exalted shall be humbled, and the humble shall be exalted." The Homily was all about humility...and I think that's something I definitely need to work on. Father Roberto (Fr. Terry is in Peru right now on mission, so Fr. Roberto, his friend, is filling in) said that if you're humble, you don't say "I can't do anything." you say "Everything I have has been given to me either by God or by someone else", and you acknowledge your talents without stomping about proclaiming you have them. He also mentioned how we are so quick to place the blame on others, when really it is us who are afraid to admit we made a mistake. For me, personally, that's something very hard to admit, so it was a great Mass that taught me a lot! =)

Well, can't think of anything else really new going on...oh! I have a set of fake nails...I HAVE NOT BITTEN SINCE AUGUST 2ND, AND I'M STILL GOING STRONG! This time, I'm breaking the horrible habit once and for all! But yeah, other than that, just livin' life and trying to make the best out of it! Enjoying it, too! Hope all is well with you guys, and don't be shy to e-mail me or call....Vanessa knows my number, and my new e-mail is lrich615@telus.net . Don't be strangers!

Lorna Batung Bakal