Keep on knocking

"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow, it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it - but all that has gone before."
- Jacob Riis
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I just arrived late last night after a work-related, 3-day industry convention at the northern mountain city of Baguio. It was a very draining yet thankfully productive exercise. At one point in the workshop, our committee comprised of five were tasked to draw up IT strategic directions for the year, which we had to present to the plenary the next morning. Our group was basically discussing and intensely arguing on for about three hours during the night but we could not finalize anything. It was very frustrating and I was tempted to move for an adjournment. However, in the next 30 minutes our ideas suddenly jibed together and we were finally able to get a consensus on our presentation. Looking back, I knew it was not exactly the last 30 minutes that led to our results, but the previous 3 hours of continuous discussions that went before.

This Sunday's Gospel (Lk 11:1-13) teaches us the value of persistence when we lift up our petitions to God. Indeed we should keep knocking until the door is opened, yet the reality is we really need countless doors to be opened. We can never live meaningfully without continuously knocking because without Him, we can really do nothing. That is why St. Paul teaches us to pray unceasingly. We must never feel frustrated. He asks us to pray day and night, in joy and in sorrow, at work and at play, without intermissions or adjournments.

Here is an excerpt from Henri Nouwen's "Living a prayerful life", which relates beautifully why we need to maintain a constant, "fearless" conversation with God.

To pray unceasingly, as St.Paul asks us to do, would be completely impossible if it meant to think constantly about God...To pray, I think, does not mean to think about God in contrast to thinking about other things, or to spend time with God instead of spending time with other people. Rather, it means to think and live in the presence of God...

Although it is important and even indispensable for the spiritual life to set apart time for God and God alone, prayer can only become unceasing prayer when all our thoughts -- beautiful or ugly, high or low, proud or shameful, sorrowful or joyful -- can be thought of in the presence of God.Thus, converting our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer moves as from a self-centered monologue into a God-centered dialogue...

So the next time I participate in a convention, I must remind myself that it is not "work-related". Instead, I've realized that when we consider everything we do as "God-related", every moment in our lives takes on a profound significance. It should make no difference whether it is 1 minute, 30 minutes, 3 hours, or even a lifetime. It just feels good to keep on knocking, because every knock counts.
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Prepare na, now na

2nd Sunday of Advent
(Lk 3:1-6)

While I was pondering this Sunday's Gospel, I suddenly remembered that I wrote a related piece just a little over a year ago. My first post in CF actually: on the 1st Sunday of Advent - 2008. Check it out here.

Anyway, it is the second Sunday of Advent 2009, and the gospel is about St. John the Baptist's call for repentance - to prepare the way of the Lord. I want to share part of an amusing poem titled 'Repentance', by the writer-poet Robert William Service.
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If you repent, the pastor said,
Your sins will be forgiven.
Yes, even on your dying bed
You're not too late for heaven.

That's just my cup of tea, I thought,
Though for my sins I sorrow;
Since salvation is easily bought
I will repent . . . tomorrow.
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I guess that poem hits the mark in a sort of satirical way. When John the Baptist, the voice of one calling in the desert, called to prepare the way of the Lord, he meant immediate reconciliation and repentance. The word "prepare" automatically carries with it the inherent quality of immediacy. We simply cannot prepare and procrastinate at the same time. When we prepare our minds and hearts for the Lord, we profess our utmost love as in now, asap, pronto, a segundo mismo. After all, can we say to someone we heartily cherish that: I love you... tomorrow?

With repentance comes true reconciliation, and only then can we be ready and prepared to face the salvation of God. Imagine if today we postponed repentance for tomorrow or the day after, and then right in the very next minute the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night. The adage "better late than never" always poses a huge gamble, especially when we bet with our souls.

From David Pekrul, here is another short poem:

To be on time is not my thing,
For I'm "Procrastination King",
But one day, be it late or soon,
I'll sing a very different tune.

Hmm. I hope the procrastination kings amongst us even get to sing tunes after the long haul. Otherwise, it would more like moaning.
On this, all of us pilgrims will surely need St. Paul's prayer in the second reading:

"---that your love may increase ever more and more, in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness, that comes through Jesus Christ, for the glory and praise of God."

Amen.

(x-posted for CatholicFriends)

The conversion of Saul

"I am not ashamed of the Gospel"

Feast of the Conversion of St Paul
In Celebration of the 2000th year anniversary of St. Paul
January 25, 2009
Araneta Center, Cubao, Quezon City Philippines
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A decisive event in the beginning of the Church.

I guess it would be wrong to present Paul as an evil man who finally finds the right path.
Paul from his youth felt the obsession to dedicate himself to the service of God (see Acts 22:3-4; Gal 1:14), that is why he religiously studied the law in the best Rabbinical schools of his day.
The Jews found Saul dependable and dedicated, and entrusted to him the difficult task of eliminating the new and suspicious doctrines of the followers of Christ. We all know what happened on the road to Damascus. It is interesting that the others with Saul on that road saw the light but did not hear the sound (Acts 9:7). I have heard is said that God's intelligibility is too much for the human mind to comprehend, in much the same way that one could not look directly at the sun - one would be blinded. That is what probably happened to Saul on that road. Paul's conversion also tells us that those who sincerely seek the truth will finally see light at the end of the day.