finding God in all things... even somewhere in Kamuning

FINDING GOD IN ALL THINGS
(EAST ASIAN PASTORAL INSTITUTE, 140907)



PROFESSOR CARMENCITA ROJAS wanted you all to really have an easy time today , so she looked for someone who was not a good theologian. That’s why she chose ME. She was sure I am NOT a theologian. And she knows I am NOT good.

I am just, just like YOU. A student of life. A student of the EAST ASIAN PASTORAL INSTITUTE.

When I was studying here, we had an 8-Day Retreat, and our Indian Retreat Master, Fr. Sebastian, said, “YOU…you go out and choose a tree... YOUR TREE... and you talk to that tree, and then, you listen to it....you listen to YOUR TREE.”

And that’s what we did...everyday..for 8 days...we went to our tree. Then we talked to our tree, and we listened to it….listened for truth and for wisdom… the tree’s truth and wisdom, our own truth and wisdom, God’s eternal truth and wisdom.

But I, how did I choose my tree?

If this Retreat had been 37 long years ago, just after my Jesuit Theology and my ordination by THE POPE and in the midst of our noble crusade for my people’s liberation, against injustice, against Marcos and against Martial Law, then the tree I would have chosen would have been an eye-catching, awe-inspiring, towering, super-giant tree...majestic, unyielding, its sturdy roots gripping the earth, its muscular trunk and limbs and branches vicious, defiant, invincible... before man.. .and God.


Nowadays, however, since I am much older, and I hope, much wiser, the tree that I found very, very enticing was just ordinary… just one of those common trees that YOU see when you look out of our EAPI 2nd floor veranda and survey the plain patch of green between this building and the nearby Bellarmine Hall. Yes, I was attracted only a common tree, a small, frail tree, a tree totally undistinguished to the world and its vanity. Just an ordinary tree--its humble, tiny branches childlikely, yet wonderfully dependent upon its tender, but all-powerful Mother and Creator and Source. .........


And so, my brothers and sisters-- today, and tomorrow, as we pray to find God in every person and in every thing, let us allow ourselves to remember ..THAT ALTHOUGH THE GRACE TO FIND GOD COMES FROM GOD AND GOD ALONE, still it just might help if we WERE humble, and open, and true . To dispose ourselves, there is no need to be a giant tree.
IT IS ENOUGH TO BE OURSELVES.

The lightning and the thunder and all the fireworks are not really needed—in truth, not one of those deceitful, petty props can really touch us nor penetrate us nor transform us. They are more for the shallow, the gullible, the unperceptive, the unbelieving. Because the eternal, silent breeze of God’s authentic presence and inspiration is often a quiet emptiness or a disguised ordinariness, discernible only to the child or the saint, or one painfully purified by the holy spirit of our wise and loving God .

And so tonight, as we begin this recollection, let us just relax where we are, and be open. Let us invite the spirit of God to give us the grace and the vision to see and to find Him, the Divine Majesty, humbly hidden in the persons, and events and things of our ordinary day.


O loving God.. tonight, please switch on your light divine of faith and love, that every one of us may at long last find You in every thing.

Invite us, O Holy Spirit, to see and penetrate into YOUR divine disguises--so common, so unexciting, so priceless that many people, even we, yes, even we, your chosen servants, do not and cannot see your gentle footsteps nor feel your loving touch --- You, our mysterious, playful, wonderful God.

And as in the past, you taught the world through Jesus, and your prophets by means of stories and parables, please teach us , today, again through stories and the parables of our very own so, so human lives. Please open our eyes…. O Lord…we want to see ….Jesus. AMEN. AMEN. AMEN.


And so…My fellow students— of the E.A.P.I.
today , let us begin with a story, a little love story.


SOMEWHERE IN KAMUNING.

Somewhere in Kamuning
there is a girl, a beautiful girl
and she is waiting for me.

And when I come, she will arise
and she will smile and she will come to me
and embrace me. And I …will feel her love.

That beautiful girl is Patricia Mae.
Patricia Mae. . She is 3 years old..only 3 years old.

She is abandoned, abandoned...first, by her Father, and then abandoned by her Mother... who left her with no food, no money, just three old dresses…six months ago ..somewhere in Kamuning.

And I visit her, maybe maybe twice a month… and I‘d see her sleeping on the bare floor, or sometimes sitting on the ledge where Weng and Edna heat and then serve the kaldereta. the Ferino’s bibingka, the dinuguan.

One month ago, undisturbed by the pouring rain, she looked so innocent and so cute, with her graceful, natural curls, and with all her upper teeth gone… then as I left, she whispered to me, ‘FATHER JJ, FOR MY BIRTHDAY, FOR MY BIRTHDAY, PLEASE BRING ME... SOME BALLOONS.’

And so, on her birthday, the 14th day of September, I brought her balloons, balloons of many bright colors, and Patricia Mae was happy,.. and then she said, “Thank you, Father JJ….You know, when I am big na, I will be a Nurse, and I will take care of you, Fr. JJ… I will take care of you, when you are sick.”

And the I turned to leave, and said to her, “Happy Birthday, again, Patricia Mae.”

And she said to me, “And Happy Birthday to you, too, Fr. JJ. I LOVE YOU.” …because September 14 was her birthday… and also my birthday.

Then as I was leaving, she hugged me goodbye, and then softly she said to me, “What gift do you want, Father JJ, for your birthday?”

And I thought a moment, and then I said, “Only your kiss, my little girl, only your kiss.”

Patricia Mae. Three years old. Abandoned by her parents. Left alone, with only three dresses. And nothing else.
Somewhere in Kamuning.
My friends…my brothers and sisters…our epiphanies, our apparitions, our revelations are not always on Mt. Sinai or Mr. Tabor. They may only be, they may only be…somewhere…in…Kamuning.


We cannot always summon the Seven Plagues against and the Pharaohs and the Egyptians of our lives. Very often we are left alone and powerless in the desert of our lives, and we feel very lonely, and very thirsty there.

There is no manna, and there is no Pillar of Fire. And we cannot, like Moses, part the Red Sea. We are utterly alone. And it is terrible to be alone, like Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who was, according to her own words, without God, without God for fifty years. Alone. In our desert. No one else is there. Not even God.


AND YET, and yet, in the desert that is our life, if we are desperate and humble and open, if we wait, and listen, and look, then …we can hear, and then we can see...NOT THE MIGHTY JEHOVAH, but the tiny, little footsteps of abandoned Patricia Mae.... Yes, and we can smile at her beautiful curls and her lovely eyes and her missing teeth. And we will know that when toothless Patricia Mae touches us, it is God, it is God Himself Who touches us.

And when abandoned Patricia embraces YOU and says goodbye to you and whispers “I love you,” you’ll know it.. IS GOD .. saying “I love you.”

And when this Recollection is over, and as you and I walk home, in the eerie silence of our hearts, in the eerie silence of our hearts... we may hear the question, “And you, my child, WHAT GIFT do YOU want?” -- may we all have the childlike purity and the total humility to say, “ONLY OUR KISS, ONLY YOUR KISS, MY GOD!”




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