IT WAS AUTHORED by Ruth B. Kennedy, 30, who lives in England with her husband. She loves running, wild camping, and writing, and thinks there is almost nothing better than the feeling of satisfaction after a day out in the mountains. Ruth is a graduate of the University of Wales, and holds a First Class Honors Degree in Creative Writing. Her faith means everything to her, and this is validated very clearly and convincingly by her articles on the same subject.
Dad’s witness to her testimony moved me to contemplate, meditate, and reflect on my prayer life. A decision I long established, thanks to UtoLiza’s encouragement, to make a form of constant prayer and a consistent way of life. Ruth’s use of the number seven is not accidental (I’m no advocate of accidents but of Christly choices) and springs, I believe, from her faith in the number as the foundation of God’s word. Which derives much of its meaning from being tied directly to creation and symbolizes completeness and perfection in the physical and spiritual realms. I’m partial to the number myself. Such that in my bedtime prayer, I count up to seven the times I repeat my nightly invocation before I could totally succumb to sleep. Anyway, here are Ruth’s seven surprising testaments to what I experience every time I rub the rose beads.
You Become Less Selfish. I cannot over-emphasize this phenomenon, which was validated by recent events in my life. When we had our BEC last Thursday, I chose slave of all as my phrase with the reflection that, in my recent soul-searching, I realized that I have not been faithful to my baptismal vows and personal pledges. So I prayed that I be touched to transform my selfish ways in accordance with the promises I made when I was consecrated to Jesus through Mary. My plea ran parallel to the Gospel that warned the ambitious yearning (of brothers James and John) to sit at Christ’s left and right hand. Being servant meant being the least of all, like Jesus proved before, during, and after the Cross. My fellow BEC journeyers, Ate Emma and UtoLiza, boosted my prayer with their similar supplication on my behalf. In our closing prayer, I prayed for forgiveness for my unCatholic ways to people whom I deemed difficult to love, and bid the duo farewell with a great load off my back. Our collective Word Of Life (WOL) was Maging mapagkumbaba sa paglilingkod upang ang pagluhod mo at pagdarasal ay kalugdan ng Diyos.
Fast forward to PREX 57 where I was caught off guard by Bro Aldy, when I joked about his famous brewed coffee, while he was warming his heels before his Talk 1 proxy for Fr. Adrian (who was returning from Vietnam that Saturday). Before I could disclaim my joke, he demonstrated his humility by disappearing and reappearing with his barista paraphernalia and cooked up his Havana brew in a jiffy, benefitting not only Ate Myla, one of the twelve candidates to the seminar, a brew fanatic like her daughter Gracee, another candidate, but also me. It turned out that my self-serving tease aimed to benefit primarily coffee freak me.
Like the mother and her daughter, I was there for the first time, my past services to the program having been rendered for San Jose, Amang Tagapagtanggol Parish for as long as I could remember. Until I felt I was doing a disservice to my own parish by serving at another church. It was a much welcome news, therefore, when Kuya Noel tipped me off that, after a three-year pandemic lull, HSP’s PREX was making a return in October. My birth month at that, if there’s anything close to a whopper! I thought I was being selfless by returning to my roots (it was in 2009 that I graduated from PREX Class 9); I could not certainly hold a candle to Bro Aldy’s generosity!
Still on the subject, Ates Lalaine and Ofel and I were comparing notes on the second seminar day how we lost our name lanyards so we chorused our collective joy when Kuya Noel surprised us with brand-new ones. And we did not even ask for them. On its much-awaited comeback, PREX was not about to stop springing the same surprises it has been known to amass at every encounter.
You Become More Disciplined. As though ordained, our weekly Legion meeting last Saturday reminded me of what transpired in our BEC. Bro Aldy’s Allocutio essayed his thoughts on the Legion meeting being the primary obligation of Legionaries. It is true is why I suffer when I have to miss even just one meeting. I recall My Ate’s exhortation that the Legion’s goal is holiness for its members, patterned after Mary’s fiat, silence, and obedience. With that as a personal aim, attending the meeting becomes moot, academic, and a necessary fulfillment. My prayer life has not changed, but it is broken when I visit my (remaining) brother and his wife in Laguna, the last time being the ultimate chance I will set aside prayer in favor of bonding moments with them and their friends, because the lapse also affected missing not only my prayers for them, but also for a host of souls in my prayer list. God did not take me for granted for my lapses and even gave me a lesson that hurt a little but made me a lot of a better servant. I challenged myself to commit to write this article in praise of Dad’s post by telling Mom (his wife Ate Mila) and UtoL about it and, to reinforce my self-dare, to as many trusted friends as possible.
The last Talk for the first day, by the way, was Number 7, by the couple Kuya Rene and Ate Nerish Roxas, an eye-opening take on time wasted when one spends it on nursing wounds that never heal. Thanks to favorite, regular sharer Ate Ofel’s unscripted breakdown, I was able to control my shedding. It made me a little proud that Kuya Dante and Kuya Noel were not able to keep their microphones from malfunctioning, a feat I used to hold the record of.Our Lady Reveals Insights. My cell phone does not receive calls anymore since messages that are important I now communicate through my viber and messenger accounts. Surprisingly, my friends seem to understand and no longer call me on the phone, relegating the gadget as a mental calisthenic instrument (Words with Friends and Scrabble) and information keeper/teller. On chat sites, I chance upon gems (like my Dad’s post) and inspirational materials that motivate and rekindle my passion for writing. This piece is one such result. I started this as a reaction to Dad’s post. I left it every now and then, for my mind to gather other insights from other sources. I stay in one quiet place to wait when my muse strays; sometimes I remain silent for hours just to prick my mind for notions that could expand the article with depth and substance. So it produces fruit worth reaping by readers. And the inspiration gathered momentum with each gem, insight, quiet place, and encounter, the ultimate being PREX 57. It never crossed my mind to underestimate the power of the Encounter.
You Have More Courage. I returned to the LBS discussion I missed last week (when I visited my brother and his wife in Laguna) and was rewarded amply beautifully. It was my second time to facilitate because I was asked by the person next to me to cover for her because her time was taken arranging the wedding of a daughter. I agreed happily and prepared as dutifully as I did the first time. The euphoria was less than the first time I did the task but it was as fulfilling. I felt more confident without worrying how to repeat the feat.
However, at the PREX Encounter, when Ate Relly and Kuya Arnel asked me to share in Talk 3; I told them I lost my PREX stuff. But Mom was quick to reassure me that I have the best sharing ever, since she already scheduled me as the asker of forgiveness in Talk 7’s demo team. I didn’t rue the fact that I will no longer be a suki sharer yet I worried a little that I might not be able to be in control when the demo happened. My fear was unfounded; I wasn’t able to shed my waterworks because of Dad’s and Kuya Noel’s antics. What a relief!
Your Day Proceeds Calmly. Give or take a few hours, my daily routine starts after midnight, when my biological clock wakes me up so I can say my morning prayers, immediately followed by my Scripturals, after which I return to bed. My day ends with my vespers (a night of triple blessing (Divine Mercy Chaplet, Rosary, and Novena to St. Joseph) and seven invocations at bedtime. Upon waking up again, I pedal my legs a hundred times in the air, say my morning prayers on the stationary bike, stretch my neuropathic feet and legs according to an exercise I learned on the net, peruse the readings on Didache and Daily Bread, and I’m ready for the rest of the day.
Kuyas Ken and Nito staying in a silent seat against the wall throughout the two-day Encounter made my observation a rich source of learning that, indeed, the silence that wrapped Mary still possesses the power to alter. I should’ve held on to their example. It was too late to control myself beside Kuya Eric’s gung-ho excess energy during the Templo activity. Not that I regretted getting carried away but not only did I crawl myself up to continue, I was listless after the activity, and could not even rise above my normal tenor at the 4:30 pm Pneuma Choir. I stayed only until the Salases had put in their portion in the graduation ceremony and skipped the celebratory, regulatory dinner at the Tamases.
You Get an Extra Awareness Before the Moment of Temptation. Strangely, while praying the rosary, unclean thoughts still cross my mind, the devil being always a present temptation, and I pray on, loudly as to drown the sinister stirring, and the rosary triumphs. I return to the part where I fought against the thoughts tainting my prayer and thank God for not chastising me with whip or gnashing teeth. And think He knows that the episode will recur, maybe repeatedly, and it shames me to have the mind that appreciates God’s non-intervention for a sinful circumstance. And the shame is a thankful foil to discourage the recurrence. It becomes a vow. I seize the initiative before it becomes a disadvantage.
PREX 57 could not have come at a more auspicious time. It is God’s Balik-Handog not only to the HSP Community, for having survived the pandemic scare, but also, and most importantly so, for my sinner self, to make me more aware that the devil lurks around me all the time, waiting to pounce at the slightest promise of my weakness. Or else why did God allow me to exhaust my energy at the Templo episode of the Encounter, if He knew I would not pull through.
You Start to Live Out the Incarnation. Since my retirement many moons ago, I relegated myself to a place where privilege is no longer a prerogative. I became convinced by a recent realization which dawned when I joined the prayer vigil for PREX 57 last Thursday. The past events in my life returned in a screenless flashback with my eyes closed and I in deep conversation with God. Like He talked to me during the three-day PREX 9 in 2009. The Encounter humbled me so much so that I decided to pursue a path to holiness. In my house, for example, my voice has lowered into a whisper, because my sons would deem me overbearing and usurping my wife’s right to be heard. So I recall the manger, and go back to the days of my youth, when we were poor, and my luxuries were freedom from my older brother’s strict afternoon nap that robbed me of playtime, and the nights of suffering an asthma attack brought about by excessive energy (a trait inherited by my deep-diving, mountaineering eldest son). The nights I spent awake would dawn into day, my mother rushing to the drugstore to either buy my reliable Asmasolon (now obsolete) or to summon my favorite Dr. Dominguez, with his miracle syringe, and I would instantly be healed back to normal, the only tell-tale remnant of beleaguerment my eyes bloodshot by sleeplessness. But I was a relentless busybody, up until I was old enough to land my very first job as a laborer, progressing to being a clerk in a tailoring shop of a prominent department store, responding to my fellow employees’ clamor to head a union that decried the company’s unfair labor practice. And so on and so forth, up to where I am humbled enough to acknowledge that I only need God to find the handle. And nothing else matters.
I thank Dad for posting Ruth’s seven surprising facts about the Rosary. Her article plumbed what I feared were my moribund perceptions of faith; he was preparing not only the candidates of PREX 57 but also the Encounter’s service staff for a reawakening of lukewarm sentiments for a long-missed experience. That they may, once reawakened, pass the feeling on to the fresh batch of evangelizers. PREX the Lord for PREX 57!
Amen.
2014 Copyright. Claretian Communications Foundation Inc
