I must admit that I am at times a letdown in sharing with God’s passions and sacrifices.
Before Holy Week started, we were mind-setting ourselves to not eat red meat every Fridays starting Ash Wednesday 40 days ago as our simple share in God’s sacrificial journey of saving us but every time that day came we forgot to buy some fish or we only got chicken in my refrigerator to cook . Our canned fish goods were already used up. Some of those days too, we’ve got to attend events or meet friends that made us chomp away more variety of meaty foods. Being in a country that celebrated no Lenten season made this doubly hard for us to faithfully observe this responsibility. Most of the times, we adjust the Fridays fasting and abstinence on Saturdays, Sundays or other days of the week that we have less activities to do even if we know that these should not be negotiable when we are really trying to focus to follow God’s word. There are no in-between for YES or NO no matter what reasons are behind them.
When Black Saturday came, I needed to go out shopping to buy some groceries which should be the least to be done . I also did a lot of fixing of our things throughout the day when all I needed to do was pray without any kind of distractions or undivided attention.
This made my spirit troubled that the message from Mark 14:38 aptly reminded - “Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
On the positive side, we were able to watch “the Gospel of John” and “Moises” for our son’s visual educational learning and still prayed the rosary before bedtime, listen to preaching and read some scriptures and books that will guide us in growing closer to our creator. These stuffs helped us a lot to put more effort in doing the necessary things to be done during that time of spiritual examination and recollections.
How much worst could I be without this daily commitment on praying and in exerting effort to make my relationship with God a more uplifting experiences every time I take the opportunity to offer to Him my activities, concerns and most of all our families, relatives and friends.
One thing I realized and learned this recent Holy Week is that, it is not really the sacrifices that we need to share from God but His love to each and every one of us. The love that is always willing to sacrifice to bring back all the Glory to God and that we may also be willing to live simple so that others may simply live for this is ultimate goal we need to fulfill for each other.
A belated Easter to us all.
(originally posted on May 5, 2010)
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