Not-so-random thoughts and feelings

• When I open the fridge out of compulsion looking for something, though I know there’s nothing inside, I think to myself “I’m just searching for God.”
• Sometimes, I can’t help but wonder why I chose this kind of life; to live a consecrated life.
• During a Lenten Retreat in Tagaytay last 2015, I told my spiritual director that it doesn’t matter where I am or what kind of life I am living; for as long as I know that God will still continue to be at my side, I’m okay. He replied that I am not far from the kingdom of God.
• I’m just on my late 20s. I don’t know if I’m in crisis or depression but I just know I get too emotional about little things. Just like the lyrics of a song, I wonder why everything seems so heavy.
• I feel so emotional but it’s not coming out; it’s trapped inside. It’s like keeping a straight face.
• I was so active in Facebook when I finished my novitiate except this year. I was able to browse all my posts on my profile this year with a few scroll.
• I wan’t to hide yet I post a lot in Twitter. Then, I want to be seen too?
• I feel like Lazarus buried in a tomb but I rolled the stone myself to hide.
• When I am weeping, does God really weep with me?
• As I hit rock-bottom, will the floor cave in?
• Writing this, I remember Nicodemus in the night time asking questions about faith and being “born again”.
• Will I ever hear Jesus calling me to come out too?
• I can’t think of anything to write about in essay form so I just used bullets.
• I created a Spotify playlist entitled The Dark Night of the Soul
• Thanks for reading.

 

What is faith?

As I learned from my previous classes in MAPAC through Sir Francis Castro, it’s interesting to note that life after death was not in the “theology” of the early Jewish tradition. Before, when Jews die, they believe that that was it. The end. No more life after death. Somewhere along the way, they developed this idea of life after death. Notice that in the Hebrew Scripture (Old Testament), only in the second book of Maccabees will you find the word “resurrection”, the rising of the dead, of those who have fallen “asleep” (2 Maccabees 12:43-45). That was in the context of a family who was forced to eat “swine’s flesh” (2 Maccabees 7). For them, to eat pork is to abandon the faith of their forefathers, surrendering to false gods and idols. So when they die as witnesses to their Jewish faith, shall they die in vain? No. These family died with the hope that, through Lord God’s compassion, they will rise from the dead.

Reading Maccabees is teaching me of faith. It is not about certainty. It is groping in the dark. By believing, I surrender to whatever will happen. And through this darkness, God will be walking side by side with me.