His Hero's Journey

The journey of a thousand miles starts with a step, just as the journey of a hero starts with a decision. The first battles of a hero start at home. There he struggles and learns the primal matters for survival. There he feels the loveliest years of life: a hero’s childhood.

From the home, he travels to the meadows, mountains, forests, rivers; searching for his treasure that home once taught him to realize; a hero in the making. There he fights his battles, side-by-side with the Providence through his heart. He is born to battle. He is a hero.

He thinks about many things in the journey: love, women, sex, entertainment, prayer, and survival with all his heroic prudence. He thinks about anything under the great sun.

Once, he thought about happiness, thought about the love he left, women loved, curiosities passed, friends met, prayers doubted and graced, and how he survived for the time that he has been journeying. He asked and even doubted if he has become, and is happy being a hero. He despairs for a moment, and then again thought about his being.

I am a hero, I fight my own battles. I am a hero, winning means struggling. I am a hero, I didn’t choose to be one, but I was made one by Providence. Am I happy? Not quite, but the extremities of both sides of happiness and despair puts me in the middle and learns the virtue in between. I am happy yet loaded with all the problems imaginary and real that the journey offers a hero: am at ease and still searches for my Providence from whom I could ask for my treasure and thank for making me His hero.

He goes home after a long battle and celebrates his struggles. Either win or lose, he homes back and rest for a while. Gains strength and readies himself for another journey.

You are the hero of many people.
You are the hero of yourself.
You are the hero of the Providence.

Be one.

This composition is offered to a discouraged companion very dear to my heart.

Love Fears Nothing

What is love? If you'd ask John Denver, he would perhaps say that:

Perhaps love is like a resting place, a shelter from the storm
It exists to give you comfort, it is there to keep you warm
And in those times of trouble when you are most alone
The memory of love will bring you home

Perhaps love is like a window, perhaps an open door
It invites you to come closer, it wants to show you more
And even if you lose yourself and don't know what to do
The memory of love will see you through

Love to some is like a cloud, to some as strong as steel
For some a way of living, for some a way to feel
And someone say love is holding on and some say letting go
And some say love is everything, and some say they don't know

Perhaps love is like the ocean, full of conflict, full of pain
Like a fire when it's cold outside, thunder when it rains
If I should live forever, and all my dreams come true
My memories of love will be of you

Love may not be defined completely by this song “Perhaps Love,” nevertheless my own version tells me that there is a higher choice in discovering love. I think that is the choice to decide: love is decision, and fear is always intertwined with it. The challenge would normally go like, how much love did you give? But more so, how much love would you still able to give without the fear? Then faith is realized.

Di Makausad

Minsan nga’y may himig na narinig.
Himig na tumatawag at nang-aakit.
Sinasambit ay ngalan kong ibig.
Ako nama’y nakinig.

Madilim at kulob.
Malamig din sa loob.
Dinig pati lagaslas ng tubig.
Sinundan parin and tinig.

Tanging dala’y sarili.
Ni anong ilaw ay wala.
Kani-kanina’y lagusay tanaw pa.
Tanaw dati’t ngayo’y hindi na.

Nasaan ako?
Nanlalamig na’t nagugutom.
Kumukulo ang tiyan
Tila mga kawayang naglalagutukan.

Natatakot sa hindi nakikita.
Nabibingi sa katahimikan.
Gaspang lang tanging dama.
Tinig ay nananaghoy pa.

Di na nga makausad.
Nanginginig sa pagnanais humakbang.
Ayoko na!
Ngunit naririnig parin kita.

In My Despair, Will You be There for Me?

There for Me
By: Sarah Brightman (duet with Josh Groban/ Andreia Bocelli)

RON:
There for me, every time I've been away
Will you be there for me, thinking of me everyday
Are you my destiny, words I never dared to say
Will you be there for me?
Just think of you and me, we could never tow the line
It's such a mystery just to hear you say you're mine
And while you're close to me, so close to me
Just hold me

JC:
When you're feeling cold and all the city streets are grey
Walking all alone and watching how the children play
Voices in the wind and faces from the past go dancing by
They're asking why

RON and JC:
Will you be there for me, everytime I go away
Will you be there for me, thinking of me everyday
Are you my destiny, words I never dared to say
Will you be there for me?

RON:
And while you're close to me, so close to me
Just hold me

JC:
Can you really want me more than for a little while?
What are the stories hiding there behind your smile?
Wishes in a dream and figures in a world that I could share
And everywhere

RON and JC:
Will you be there for me
Will there ever come a day when all the world can see
Things were meant to be that way
Will you be there for me?
Can you hear the people say
That you're just
There for me

JC:
There for me

RON:
There for me


In my despair would you be there for me JC? When you're so close to me, would you just hold me and let me feel you? If my love fades, would you still love me and hold me? Would you despair with me or strengthen me with your warmth? Would you be there for me even if I couldn't give back and be there for you? JC, do we ask the same questions as we grow in love with one another everyday?

Kanya-kanyang Buhay-lakbay

Naglakbay kami nang sabay-sabay
Sabay-sabay na nag-iisa
Nag-iisang magkakasama
Magkakasamang ngayo’y iisa na

Bakit tila iniwan na’ng mundo
Mundong dati’y kami
Kaming ngayo’y ako
Ako na lang

Naisip ko’y baka nga ganito
Ganito ang buhay ng tao
Taong nilalakbay ang buhay
Buhay mag-isa sa karamihan

Bumalik ako sa simula
Simula ng paglalakbay nang magkakasama
Magkakasama’y hindi na
Hindi na natagpo pa

Ang buhay-paglalakbay ay kanya-kanya
Kanya-kanyang buhay-lakbay
Buhay-lakbay na akin at kanya
Kanya na naman

Iisa lang naman ang tungo
Tungong hangganan ng lahat
Lahat na iisa
Iisang katotohanan

Pagal ma'y di hihinto
Di hihinto sa pagtungo
Pagtungo sa hinahanap
Hinahanap na iisa

Sa iisa nga’y magkikita
Magkikita sa tungong lahat at isa
Isa na uugnay muli sa paglalakbay
Paglalakbay ng lahat at isa

I Hunger for You

What love can be greater than to lay one’s life for one’s friend? Today is Corpus Christi Sunday. This feast is the celebration of the Body and Blood of Christ continually offered in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Just a thought from a good homily I heard this morning. “Di ba kung love mo, pakakainin mo? Di ba kung love mo, bubusugin mo? Kung pwede lang, magtake-out ka pa…” This is how we love. We give. We give the best. And what giving could be better than giving one’s life for the other. Indeed Christ doesn’t only offer us much; he offers us everything by offering himself. In return, I hope our longing and hunger for God is also much, is also worth our everything.

I hope I won’t get tired giving and loving anytime soon.

Passing E-Motion

Relationships exist in venues. We’ve our homes which eventually become the normal and primal venue for every sprouting relationship, there we nurture our ties to our family. The school is the venue for camaraderie, there we experience having friends and factions, there we experience the falling and rising actions of life’s physics. There are those places which are very dear to us, those places which we’ve discovered something in ourselves, that eventually triggered by people we’re with. Then relationship exists.

I wouldn’t be able to go to those places for quite sometime. Here comes the nostalgia. Here comes the longing and yearning for something that was me. Here comes the recollection of those friends and acquaintances which have caressed the child within me way back our moments. Though I haven’t been meeting them in those places anymore, the vivid pictures of our moments are kept still in the memory of my heart. Then we progress.

Get Along with the Beat

A continual drop of water could smoothen even the sharpest edge of a stone.

God knocks to our hearts, he always does, and the least thing we could do is to give-in to His will. Though more often, we would choose to numb ourselves as not to sense the God knocking within, then we miss the point of being invited to join the beat of every knock. There where it is music for those who notice that there is a beat in every knocking, a consolation in every calling, then we get along with it.

Faith is the medium of every opening to God; a complete bet that could make or break us, and yet we are challenged to gamble everything. Anyway, God’s love still drops continually.

Alfred's Psalm 23

“If we live life without loving God, we miss life altogether.” – Fr. Alfred Cogliandro, SDB +

Today is the 15th death anniversary of Fr. Alfred. I have glanced at posts of some friends in the congregation and most of their posts today speak about Fr. Cogliandro. I have never met this great salesian, but I encounter him most of the time through the good night talks, those moments of grace where I get to acknowledge his wisdom and holiness. The stories behind the holy life that he has lived and how he prepared towards death are all history, but one thing’s sure, he was most prepared to die; he was ready to meet his Creator.

Let me share in Fr. Cogliandro’s thought regarding his motto. I think none of us does things at the same time yet gives the same focus needed. If I choose to do things with certainty, therefore that choice gives the element of surrender to what I might have done on the other given option, and then we miss the other stuff. Only to find out that we’ve also done the other option in another given time, at another given choosing moment. What I mean is that there are things that need to be accepted first before complaining about them. I remember my first weeks in the seminary, I was grumbling greatly about how they (my co-seminarians) do things and how they give variety of reasons about their way of life. After some time, I’ve learned to get along the adjustment struggle and started to seek the reasons in the way of life I wanted for myself as a seminarian.

Yes, we miss things, but missing life would be a devastating truth for someone. Let’s not miss life; let’s not miss loving God.

Look to Your Heart

“Ron, don’t look at people, they’re bound to disappoint you.” Thank you for this Donnie. I remember him whenever I feel that the world hates me because of some people whom I have not yet learned to accept. While it’s a fact that differences exist in a community, I think respect for each other should always be above the rest of our individual issues. It might sound dysfunctional not to talk about such things while in the heat of an emotional expression, but I think doing so would be prudent and mature. People are animate being, each has his own purpose. It would be objective to examine the self rather than look outside and see nothing true to what the mind senses.

Panatang Manatili

Dahil pag-ibig ang alay sa ‘yo, mananatili ako.
H’wag nang naising tayo’y mawalay,
H’wag nang isiping
Magwawakas ang paglalakbay.

This is one of the stanzas of “Pananatili,” my "panatang manatili".

One moral I’ve learned in all my coming and going, to and from the hearts of the people whom I’ve touched and have loved dearly is that, they are some choices that I’ve made; the choice to love them and be part of them.

I believe that the seminary walls are not high barracks which distinct the world of the holy and that of the unworthy, but rather bridges where we meet truth and vessels where God’s grace towards our hearts is realized.

Dahil nga pag-ibig ang alay ko sa’yo, ano pa man, saan man, kailan man, nand’yan lang ako sa puso mo, nananatili. – I can’t explain how love remains even if the corpus is not seen, contact for a long time has gone, and memories have put beneath the reach of mind. You never stop loving someone you’ve loved. Love endures.

H’wag nang naising tayo’y mawalay, h’wag nang isiping magwawakas ang paglalakbay. – For your life and mine is a journey, and if ever catastrophe comes to our way, look inside your heart, there you’ll see that love never tires. Continue the journey.

Measuring God's Grace

Some months ago, I read a compilation of homilies by some famous Jesuit fathers in the country. One of the authors is a prominent priest of the society. He tells about an incident when he was still a young seminarian who’ll in just a matter of months become a young Jesuit. There was a point when he felt discouraged. He came to his spiritual friend. Upon listening to him for quite sometime, the priest said, “Why don’t you try giving without counting the cost?” This perhaps would be an ideal thing to talk about, but I think many people have come to the realization of this statement so far.

My soul is restless these days while thinking about the priest’s advise. I’ve been preoccupied with much reflection about many things. One thing would be about measuring God’s graciousness. I think God is so good that he’d still forgive and love me even if I continually live sinful everyday, I mean to the extreme point of repenting insincere during the sacrament of confession. Sounds a weird idea right? The possibility of deceiving priests during the sacrament may be realized by some people today, but we don’t fool God when we try to deceive Him, He knows it anyway. Then the next thing to do would be fooling themselves. Being mesmerized by God’s graciousness would be something really good to experience and think about. Though understanding it fully wouldn’t be humane, and making it a basis for justifying our jealousy and pride to God would be insane, man expresses His possessing nature by making himself in the level of anyone; even of his own Creator. In short, man tries to limits God by comparing Him to himself.

In the end, I come to the recurring reminder that surrendering and trusting God’s grace would always be a prudent act when such crisis comes, and the story of the Jesuit father would always remind me that embracing a world greater than your own would remain possible when you don't count the cost.

Si Nanay... Naghihintay

Doon nga sa bahay
Si nanay naghihintay
Sulo nya’y buhay

Huwag Kang Matakot

Eraserheads

Huwag kang matakot
'Di mo ba alam nandito lang ako
Sa iyong tabi
'Di kita pababayaan kailan man
At kung ikaw ay mahulog sa bangin
Ay sasaluhin kita

Huwag kang matakot na matulog mag-isa
Kasama mo naman ako
Huwag kang matakot na umibig at lumuha
Kasama mo naman ako
Huwag kang matakot

Huwag kang matakot
Dahil ang buhay mo'y walang katapusan
Makapangyarihan ang pag-ibig
Na hawak mo sa iyong kamay
Ikaw ang Diyos at hari ng iyong mundo
Matakot sila sa 'yo

Huwag kang matakot na matulog mag-isa
Kasama mo naman ako
Huwag kang matakot na umibig at lumuha
Kasama mo naman ako
Huwag kang matakot na magmukhang tanga
Kasama mo naman ako
Huwag kang matakot sa hindi mo pa makita
Kasama mo naman ako
Huwag kang matakot

Huwag kang matakot na matulog mag-isa
Kasama mo naman ako
Huwag kang matakot na umibig at lumuha
Kasama mo naman ako
Huwag kang matakot

Huwag kang matakot
'Di kita pababayaan kailan man


Napakaganda ng pahiwatig ng awit na ito sa aking buhay at bokasyon ngayon. Marahil, ito rin ang nais ipagbigay-alam ng Diyos sa sinumang nagnanais na sumunod sa kanya. "Huwag kang matakot, 'di kita pababayaan, nandito lang ako."

Psalm 84

How lovely is Your dwelling place
O, Lord, mighty God, Lord of all.

Even the lowly sparrow finds a home for her brood,
and the swallow, a nest for herself
where she may lay her young
in Your altars, my King and my God.

Blessed are they whose dwelling is Your own, Lord of peace.
Blest are they refreshed by springs and by rain
when dryness daunts and scathes.
Behold my Shield, my King and my God.

I would forsake a thousand other days anywhere
if I could spend one day in Your courts,
belong to You alone.
My strength are You alone,
my Glory, my King and my God.

How lovely, Your dwelling place
O, Lord, mighty God, Lord of all.

This was a hit responsorial psalm during my stay in Don Bosco Mandaluyong. Memories of my last years in high school revolved in this song. And perhaps if people would be asked on what song they remember me, this would be it. I have sung this psalm many times during our masses, and every time I would sing it, it is as if it would be the only opportunity to sing it, and so I would sing it with all my being. My friend Igy loved it when I would sing this before, I don't know if he'll still love to hear me sing this after some years that had passed, and actually if I were to choose our friendship song, this would be my pick; the song that witnessed the story of our friendship. Igy, this is for you.

Incidents Not Accidents

When God creates, His creation is realized by his outpouring love; and we came about because there is a God who has always shared his extra Godly love. Though identified as the highest form of creation, we benefit from the truth that we share His extras brought about by His own being, which makes us truly little less than a god. And I guess, this realization should broaden our perspective on how we are to live the gift of life, that since we are mere extras made into being, we are also to choose to share, love and live life by and through the same love that we’re.

The God You're

Let me love my God through my heart
The heart that was made before His
His image and likeness eternal

Eternal is his Love
The Love that is, was, and will
Boundless it is, penetrating reality

Reality of my life
The love of God exists
Exists in being

Being is a perfect gift
Gift that is from perfection
Perfection that is God

God You’re

You are My Everything

“…You hold on to me tight that I may keep the fight
To love you more and all the more each day”

I was really struck by these end lines of “You are My Everything.” It has just been played during our benediction service awhile ago led me to a recurring realization about God’s love for us; that God is with us in our fight against our human inclinations, if only we would hold on and keep the faith, winning would be inevitable.

Towards Perfect Happiness

Man is on a continual journey towards his daily goal: to be happy. While we think that we experience happiness in our lives, we might have asked this at least once, “Am I happy enough?”

Perfect happiness is a yearning of the heart. Though it’s not a reality of this world, the possibility of happiness being sought and found exists. While the world tells us that every moment of happiness has its price, and had to be bought to acquire the ever-longed experience of happiness, we find ourselves with lots of created needs but never satisfied happiness.

The heart’s longings were made not to frustrate man, but to encourage him to seek greater things which a created matter such as the world cannot offer. As the reality of the world tells us that every created being has a time to expire, we cannot but seek for happiness from something or someone who doesn’t expire: God.

Let us seek the Perfect Happiness with great enthusiasm and hope.

Perfecting Perfection

God is perfect, and since He's perfect, the reason why he must be doing anything must also be for something perfect: Himself. Otherwise, He contradicts Himself in settling for reasons less than perfection.

We might be often caught unaware of this fact, but the other side of our humanity tells us that since we are made from God’s perfection, there would be no higher purpose for doing but also for perfection who is God.

The great picture shows us that God created everything for the progression of His perfection. His creation adds nothing to Himself. It doesn’t make Him any lesser or any better, for the lone fact that He’s God. Since there is nothing and no one more deserving to accept God’s will than Perfection Himself, God doesn’t create because he is egotistic.