home

"Another summer day
Has come and gone away
In Paris and Rome
But I wanna go home

May be surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
Just wanna go home
Oh I miss you, you know

And I've been keeping all the letters that I wrote to you
Each one a line or two
"I'm fine baby, how are you?"
Well, I would send them but I know that it’s just not enough
My words were cold and flat
And you deserve more than that

Another aeroplane
Another sunny place
I'm lucky I know
But I wanna go home
I got to go home

Let me go home
I'm just too far from where you are
I wanna come home

And I feel just like I'm living someone else's life
It's like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right
And I know just why you could not
Come along with me
This was not your dream
But you always believed in me"


The song above is sung by Michael Buble entitled "Home". And as I was listening this song from the jeepney I rode from Calamba to San Pedro last Holy Tuesday in time for our Holy Week break, I was strucked by the song.

Yes, another summer day has come indeed and I really missed home, my home in San Pedro. For all these months I rented and stayed in a dormintory here in Calamba near Letran campus. My life became truly different.

But more than just missing my home and my family, another thing I missed was my community in Lingkod Alabang.

I went to a point that I became a "wandering servant" a wandering lingkod. Though I had served San Pablo at attending Los Banos a few times, still, there was a yearning to go back to where my relationship with the Lord grew, honed, and pruned, and that is in Lingkod Alabang.

Yet during these "exiled" times that my Christian life was formed in another way. Inspite that I do not regularly attend to the prayer meetings of Lingkod either in San Pablo or Los Banos, I was trying my best to be faithful to the Lord through my work in Letran Calamba.

I really missed our community and I pray that soon I'll be home again. My contract with Letran Calamba will be due this March 30 and with the new work prospect in another school which is near my home in San Pedro, there is an assurance that I could serve regularly Lingkod Alabang.

Please pray for me as I prepare myself for my new work and in a new workplace ahead of me starting this summer, near my home, near our home in Lingkod Alabang, until we reach our true and heavenly home with the Father and Christ.AMEN+

God bless

- Dan

Go to the Deep

Last Sunday, I together with the other brothers from GMMAQC attended a retreat at the Franciscan retreat house in Tagaytay. Tito Eddie conducted the retreat. The theme of the retreat is to go into the deep. How can I go the deep when my hands and legs are weak? Maybe I can’t even go the shallow if that’s the case.

There are three important points that I learned in that retreat and these are:

Weakness

- Identify your personal weakness. Each of us have a personal definition of what weakness is all about. It is an internal struggle that affects our ability to decide and act. It maybe an outcome of our past, present environment and personal choice. Peter the rock, also had a breaking experience. Its like turning rock into tiny granules of sand. Weakening and destroying the strong rock that he is which may also happen to us.

Openness

- The process of knowing and eventually conquering our weaknesses will not be possible without the realization that we are weak. It is acknowledging that such weakness/es exist.

Working with others and oneself

- It is happy to know that there are people whom you can share your weaknesses. Be honest and open no matter what this admission of your weaknesses will mean to them. Talking about your weaknesses is not an easy thing to do. Seek sincere people who are willing to listen and offer you advices to help you get over those weaknesses.
- Working with oneself. After knowing what to change comes the stage of decision, action and evaluation. This is not an easy thing to do without asking God to help you. Think long term, think of God and ask for the grace to conquer it. Ask also for the decision to remain strong and the grace to remove the stumbling block of weakness in your daily behavior. After the action stage comes evaluation which is a daily process of monitoring if there is a need to fine tune things. Sure sin may come again as our weaknesses reappear. Through monitoring and evaluation, we can be proactive and reactive when we fall back into our old ways. Repent and do something to prevent our weakness to resurface.

As we continue in our walk as real brothers and sisters in Christ, it will be helpful to remember the WOW strategy to conquer our personal weakness.

God bless and WOW your weaknesses away!!!

Yel

He is my Light

Early this morning at around 8:00 we were on our way to the Feast for a mass and a talk where the speaker was Bo Sanchez. I was in the car seated at the back seat. My sister was driving and seated at the shotgun was my mom. We were free of thinking any house chores and work related-activities. For me it was a perfect sunny Sunday morning. We prepared our hearts on our way by sharing our short personal prayers. While seated at the backseat of the car, I was thanking God for the blessings He has given our family. I thanked Him for providing us the car, the gas and even the fastened seatbelts that we were using. I thanked Him for so many things. I also thanked Him for making us able to finish all the things that we needed to do for the week by Saturday, and making Sunday a day dedicated for Him. That short moment remained in my mind right now as the day is ending. It was simple and short story of my life but I really felt His presence filled our hearts because I felt calmness in my heart. This night was really a good time to reflect. He has provided a lot of things in my life that I cannot count of. And so I reflected on the Gospel for today which was taken from the book of Saint John 9: 1-41. In the Gospel, it was written that He was able to heal a blind man and made him restore his sight. The focus of the Gospel was not about healing the blind man’s physical blindness, but rather it was about God explaining that He alone is the Light which brings more than physical sight. Many times we reject accepting the Light God has given us. We refuse to accept and do not believe of His blessings and His love. We tend to have an ungrateful heart that brings loneliness and sadness in our hearts. I really believe that when you accept God as the light you are able to see His blessings and have a peaceful heart. A heart free from worries.

Thank you, Lord, for filling our hearts today. Thank you for planning this day for our family to reflect and examine the words you have spoken to us. Thank you for continuously being the light to our family. Jesus Christ, You are my light and love.