How God changes the heart…

September 4th, 2009 The author

I know I was supposed to write about Love in my last entry, but I think I will shelf that for sometime, got other things to write about 

We just recently finished our annual Youth camp over the weekend and there was something that took me by surprise. You see, one of my colleagues had actually joined the camp, and I didn’t really know it. In fact I never did think that this colleague of mine, or any of my colleagues for that matter would be interested in God and spirituality

Afterall, these kinda things were usually meant for hopeless cases, those simple-minded peasants who didn’t know how to control their own destiny

Given, the nature of my company’s employees, I had never expected that she would actually be interested in such things. I guess in part it’s also due to previous experience where I once approached a colleague of mine who was attending RCIA whether he would be interested in joining our youth group and because the response was not so encouraging, I kinda deduced that most working people would not be interested.

Afterall, who in their right mind would blow off their Friday nights and weekends to attend church activities?

And so you could imagine the look in my face when I saw her.

What on….

“Hey Prash, so where do I park and register?” she quipped me

“Umm…what are you doing here?” I asked, with my low-tone voice

“Huh?”

“Yeah you can just park there and there!”  I rapidly replied as I quickly snapped out of my astonishment look and begin pointing around.

And so, as the camp progressed, I kept a close eye on her, and I could see that she was transformed by the end of the whole camp session. She even went up to give her testimony, sharing with the audiance on how this camp has being meaningful to her.

I just sat there and wondered how on earth a person like this, (she was my senior by the way), could be so engrossed and impacted by such a camp. I mean fine, maybe I thought it was just one of those ‘feeling high’ things ; you’re all pumped up to serve God and be as close to him and His people as possible.

5 days have already gone,  and I still get text messages from her saying how impactful the camp has been.  While I’m still trying to grapple with it, I think perhaps what I’m really experiecing is a real-live testimony that God can indeed change hearts.  Ever since attending the camp, it seems like my friend has obtained a new lease of life. It’s as though she can somehow ‘breath’ again ; it’s as though she has found new hope in the midst of this calamity world.

While she’s going through her own discovery, I guess I’m discovering mine, and the discovery is simply this – God can change people, and when he does, you’re never the same. Perhaps God is using my colleague as a real testimony that He can transcend beyond corporate walls and career-minded successful people. Of course I have read such stories of God doing so, but never had I come across something like this. Never had I seen a colleague, or for that matter any colleague be so impacted by God.

To me, this is just a testimony, to show and prove that God’s love can penetrate through hearts. It’s a testimony proving that ‘Our hearts will not rest till it rests in God” . It’s a testimony proving that “Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all else will be added unto you”.

It may not have happened to me, but through my friend, God has worked another miracle in my life.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you ; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” – Ezekil 36:26

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, behold he is of a new creature; the old things have passed away and new things have come” – 2 Cor 5:17

Posted in Church, God, Love, Uncanny Philosophy, me | 1 Comment »

Thoughts on sex…revisted (Part 1)

May 18th, 2009 The author

I wrote my first ‘public’ opinionated piece on pornography here.  If you read the comments relating to the article, you would have probably gone with ‘What the heck are you thinking man?’

I know this,  because those were the same words I used as I critiqued my own work before setting off to write this piece.  I’m not going to even dive and talk about that article because, frankly I was obviously naive and immature when I wrote that and I now know better the detrimental effects of porn.

As a growing young man who is deeply rooted (at least most of the time) on his catholic faith, I found that the Church did have an answer to sex and all the elements attached to it. I once attended a conference which talked about sex and the catholich church.Some of you may remember it as I blogged about it sometime back.  It was enlightening as I was seeing the church’s stance on sex for the first time. No more ‘what does this christian contemporary writer’ think crap. This was the hard truth about sex from the Pope himself.

Although I blogged about how the conference changed my life, and brought about my 2nd conversion, sad to say, I gave into temptation within weeks after that conference.

My problem I concluded was simply because I did not internalize it, both from heart and mind.  The problem with me is that for me to believe something, especially if it revolves around something intangible and personnel, I need both my mind and my heart. If I believe with my mind, I feel the words are dead to me. If I believe with my heart, I feel there is no meaning to what I’m doing (i.e – doing for the sake of doing without reason).

For this reason I found it hard to believe in the Theology of the body, Pope John Paul’s answer to the world on human sexuality and marriage. I felt I lacked either the intellectual will to understand it,  or somehow I didn’t have the grace to internalize it in my heart. Either way it sucked and I didn’t care much about it.

Until I discovered the relationship between faith and reasoning. And who again wrote about faith and reason? JP II himself. It is this teaching by the Holy Father that made me believe again in some of the church’s teachings…

more on that later.

Note : Yes I do realize that I didnt really talk about sex in this article… but it’ll be coming… patience

Posted in Church, God, Life, Love, Uncanny Philosophy, me | No Comments »

Can a catholic support him?

November 13th, 2008 The author

I had been eyeing this book at Kinokuniya for about a month. It was still before his election time. The whole world was for him, and yet, like many other catholics, I felt as though I was betraying my own religion by supporting Barrack, which honsestly didn’t make sense to be honest.

My good friend Atlasya depicted my thoughts well in her recent entry.  To be ostracized as being pro-death and not following the catholic faith just because one supports Obama is preposterous. Although it might be seem as cowardice , I’ve been careful not to be to pro-Obama when it comes to openly discussing such pertinent matters with my Catholic circle.  I’ve heard the arguments from both camps.

And so that’s why I bought this book. If anything, I guess me purchasing this book is an epitome of how serious I am taking my religion and political beliefs. Growing up I was not that strong of a catholic myself. Sure, I’d never skip Sunday Mass, I had a bible by my bedside, I carried my rosary as often as I could and go about my daily endevours (I still do carry it around with me till this day). But I was out of vogue when it came to the Church’s teaching. Perhaps that’s why I supported Kerry blindly, without really scrutinizing his stance on abortion. 

With the help of the young adult’s ministry, through their programs and monthly talks, I grew closer in my faith, and I started seeing how wrong my thoughts were, and how the catholic church had gotten it right all along. Pope John Paul II ‘s writings on Theology of the body opened my eyes on how the world had gotten it’s views on sex and abortion wrong. 

And so like most of my catholic friends, I began to renounce abortion, and all the other corrupted evils of this world. I began to view those who were impregnated before marriage as being inmoral and having no faith in them. I began viewing such people as living the ways of the world and not being responsible and abstaining from pre-maritial sex.

But I found that thought to be judgemental and very “pharaisee-like”. I wondered whether people who thought that way of others who were involved in a pre-marital sex relationship would think that same way if that person was his younger sister or brother. Too often times we – the “righteous ones who have never been in a compromising situation” sit on a pedestal and judge others. I used to sit on that pedestal and yes I used to be quite judgemental. Like I said before, I naively presumed those who were in a pre-marital sexual union to be irresonspible and not following God’s law.

But I have to admit, my thoughts have changed. Personally while I am still against abortion, I have to learn to accept the choices of others. It’s extremely painful and difficult for me to say this, but I guess I have perhaps come to a point in my life where I can only share with you my own personal views. It’s up to you on what you do next.

It’s funny, many months before Obama nominated Joe Biden to be his running mate, as I was reading Audacity Of Hope  on a train ride back home, I paused to reflect on how I would address the whole abortion issue if I were president-elect. And my thoughts were exactly what Joe Biden would go on to say down the road : I can’t force my belief unto others.

Many people have disagreed with me on that thought of line. Some,  have rebuked me by wondering whether I’m a real catholic. I’ve also been questioned by others on how I can be catholic and yet support a pro-death president.

I feel people are mislead. Supporting Obama does not mean you’re necessarily endorsing a murderer (and that’s what the Republicans and fundamentalist christians (including Catholics!) want you to believe). On the contary, I took great relief when I found this being quoted by our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI  (He was then Cardinal) :

A catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil… if he were to deliberately vote on a  candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stance on abortion/euthannasia. When a catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abortion/euthannasia, but votes for him for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons

I got that quote from just reading a few pages from the book.

Can it be any clearer than that?

So can a catholic support him? … I’m about to find out

Posted in Church, Foreign Affairs, God, Life, People, Uncanny Philosophy, me | No Comments »