A Short Prayer in Urgent Needs

I have employed a short prayer formula that worked in very urgent situations. This formula is the set of one "Our Father", one "Hail Mary", and one "Glory Be". This formula is just the combination of the usual short prayers we have known and recited from grade school. I have tried it a few times and it did worked to my advantage.

The way to say it is to dedicate the prayers for a certain soul to benefit in purgatory. Alternatively, you may offer it for the sake of the sins of the world. Mentally say to God that you offer it in exchange for a very urgent petition. You don't just recite them like we used to do in grade school. You need to say them, even just mentally, but you need to mean every word that is in them. In my case, I tried to pray with them repeatedly every time I was bothered, dedicating each set to a soul in purgatory. That way, you are not only helping yourself but also making other entity benefit from your effort, in this case, the soul.

On one hand, the prayer, "Our Father" is supposed to be a very powerful prayer because it was taught to us by Jesus in the Bible. On the other hand, the "Hail Mary" is a meditation of God's plan of salvation and deliverance through Mary and Jesus. The "Glory be" is the proclamation of praise and honor due God in the person of the Trinity. These prayers, however, are often taken for granted by us Christians most probably desensitized of their importance because of their prevalence in usage. We need to remember, though, that they are not ordinary prayers but ones which summarize the story our salvation.

At times, at the end of each set I would include a short prayer of offering taken from the chaplet of mercy:

"Eternal Father, I offer you the body and blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, for the atonement of our sins and of the whole world. For the sake of Jesus' sorrowful passion have mercy on us and the whole world.Amen".

Bear in mind that you do not abuse the prayers to a petition that you think is against the will of God.

When One Falls

Throughout our whole life, we always have fallen in terms of our spiritual life. Even though living in the grace of light has always been a desire there never was a time that we haven't fallen in the holes of darkness. Literally, there were always times that we sinned grievously, then doubted. It usually results from our weak and selfish human nature. As a consequence, we tend to lag behind in our pursuit of the spiritual grace. In other words, we stop attending church, we cease to pray and we pretend that we are alright. However, deep in our hearts we do feel remorse yet we tend to fight back because of our pride. At times our guilt would have us say "I'm too ashamed even to talk to God!". By this, we are assuming our own fate as sinners, that we no longer deserve to have a place before Him, that we have no hope and that we will, for the rest of our life, rot in hell being sinful. However, this attitude is not going to help us in any way, and that for being steadfast in these assumptions, we surely will rot in hell! To sum up, we make our pride rule our life and this pull us backward from God's grace. For sure, none of us wants to be in the eternal fire but forget the simple truth that we can actually escape that punishment. Well, we do know how to be spared from condemnation - that we just need to get up, feel sorry, take the sacraments and try hard not to commit the same sins again. Nonetheless, we still find it hard and lose patience with the cycle that repeats itself. We lose count and think that God's "seventy times seventy times" have but all ran out. We go on living a wretched life, unable to regain the grace that's supposed to be free, abundant and impartial. We fail to get up from the fall and choose to crawl. We refuse to lift our hands to God always eagerly waiting to pick us up. We choose to do so, because we lack one basic attitude - humility, which is one thing that God wants from us.

The True Christmas

A country with a long christmas celebration, the Philippines, is currently in the mood for the season. Everywhere, there are a host of ornaments symbolizing the christmas spirit. Christmas trees stand in homes, government and commercial establishments differing in sizes from a few inches to incredible tens to hundred feet tall. It is good to see this tradition as a way of promoting goodwill. There have also been a lot of Santa stuff that are visible everywhere in the form of posters, toys, and individuals dressed in Santa clothes. Amazingly, there are motorized or automated santa mannequins smiling, waving hands, or twisting their robust body at the delight of the kids. They are something to be acclaimned in effecting temporary relief especially in these times of grim life brought about by the current world economy. However, what comes to my mind is that it would be a lot better, and of course, more meaningful if people would promote the real symbol of Christmas, the Nativity Scene. People should have erected Nativity structures as big as the towering christmas trees, and as splendidly lighted in the night. They should also have put some creative touch to them to capture peoples' hearts. Supposedly, people should have been amazed at them more than they should be with the other symbols because it is through the scene that we see hope. It is depicted through the scene that we are made the most significant creation, uplifted in spirit and branded as true children of God. The scene tells us the best and fitting story about christmas.

To Grow in Spirit

This morning, while I was saying my routine prayers a question suddenly popped on my mind. As if talking to God, I asked Him how much have I really grown through these years not just in spirit but in my relationship with Him. A thought came to mind as if He was answering my query. It didn't directly addressed my question but trod on what one should do if he is to grow spiritually with God. I was enlightened that by persevering in prayers asking for the spiritual grace, one can slowly attain growth. Prayers, as food for the soul, can be compared to the physical food we eat everyday to nourish our young body and attain physical growth as we get older.

Writing this post, I am reminded of our past senior college recollection when the priest explained to us that there are three kinds of food for the soul namely: Prayers, the Word and the Bread (communion during holy mass). I have then concluded that growing in God means putting all these in our life. It is like nourishing our body with the three essential food groups namely: protein, fat and carbohydrate. They are the basics but must be constantly taken for the rest of our life.

I have come to know that I needed to take these three essential food for my soul in order to grow further in relationship with God. With that, I have implied that I haven't gone far after all. Unlike physical growth, spiritual growth is a lifelong process and should be seen in the virtues that we develop all along and practice in every day living.

God in My Work

Four years ago, I had second thoughts when I finally decided to work in my first line of profession, Nursing. I always loved my second course, compsci., and dreamed it can give me the peace of mind I always wanted to have in my work. Unexpectedly, I ended up deciding to work in the former. I was hired, observed some amount of discipline and tried to cope with adjustment. It did work for some time but waned as days passed by. Eventually, I had to quit supposedly to invest my whole life in the field of technology. I was happy about my decision to take the risk. The weeks that followed then was a series of trials, confusion and finally bouts of depression. That investment was as frustrating as I could imagine.
Now, I'm back working, or rather, training as an ICU Nurse at one of the government hospitals in the city, VSMMC. So far, everything went well and I'm almost finished with the three-month training without a hitch. Wow! I couldn't almost believe I stayed that far. The past feelings of resistance has now been replaced with a fair amount of enthusiasm in this field of work.
When I first started, I doubted if I could ever finish the training because I was apprehensive about it. I could do no less but trust God. I had to be bold, I had to be witty, so I told myself . I did some sort of mental conditioning to arm myself with the challenge. However, the most effective tool was not in the conditioning but in the ability to focus on my daily tasks and offering every action I make to God. I look at my patients each day as brothers in need of my care and tender attention, I look at them as a reflection of Jesus in want of our affection. That way, I changed the way I had to deal with the challenges of this profession. It changed my atittude and the focus has changed from self to God ( through my patients ). I must admit, though, that thinking about self is still there but the bigger part is for God, this time. Undeniably, I feel a sense of fulfillment every time I get out of the hospital every day, thinking I had used eight (8) hours of my day dedicated for HIS glory. It's all about putting God first in my work.