There is a story of Chinese catholic bishop who had been confined in solitary by his communists captors, solitary confinement for more than 20 years! And yet he came out of it still sane! How did he manage to do the impossible?
In mime he pointed with his hands upwards signifying his trust in God. And then displayed the ten fingers of his hands, signifying the decades of the Holy Rosary. That will not only presence your sanity; it will boost you stick-to-it-iveness to almost superhuman levels. Segue to Diver’s woodprint iconic of folder hands in prayer.
It’s so easy to say “I trust in God” but how do you about it authentically? There’s the rub. It is a test of will. You may feel on the point of giving in, feel like you’re about to be burdened with the last straw (that broke the camel’s back) what Greek philosophers started to call SORTIES. Well, it’s a sorry test if you fail it, so see to it that you keep steadfast and cheerful whilst bearing Atlas-like the worldload on your shoulders. A camel could take only so much along the way or EN ROUTE to our personal feat there would be many heartbreak. This work as a good – see how close this world come to the words “God” and “good”? Perhaps it would be better all around if we perceived it from his perspective. But then there’s some of us (the so-called critical types) who’d bring up the “TIPPING POINT” argument popularized by Malcolm Gladwell. Well, it could go either way, but the worse may preponderating in daily life. We’ll have to take our chances.
It spite of all this precautionary PASAKALYES there’s the solid, the undoubted fact the acts of courage have always been preceded by fear, fear of failure, coming a cropper or worse. But precisely because we have gone ahead wholeheartedly inspite of the nagging fear, we are poised for victory. Should the other eventually transpire, we should change it to experience and vow to do better next time. We don’t close shop because to-days sales is below average; we ring in changes in display, in salestalk , and in a few other things that comprise entrepreneurship with a reasonable margin of doubleness, or ROI (Return of Investment).
To dip a bit into my days as a seminarian in 3rd year college at UST, I shall have to seen off tangent with regard to what I’ve been saying above. But this item of school memory might not be so far-fetched after all for own purpose.
A Spanish Dominican who happened to be our ETHICS professor then, Fr. Bonifacio Solis, OP, when I failed to recite on a topic which I’d inadvertently been unprepared for, spoke sarcastically to put me down: “HITEROZA (he said loudly) you will not become a priest. Best for you to go home (to Pangasinan) and plant kamote.” Of course, these words stung me. They were quite a put down. But what Fr. Solis did not reckon was my determination, further fueled by his arrogant dismissal of what he thought was a potential dropout. Little did he know that I was made of sterner stuff. His works only impelled me to keep focused on my priesthood goal take what it might. And see for yourselves: out of 23 seminarians from my batch from the Order of St. Camillus, I alone survived to become a full-fledged Catholic priest. My co-aspirants to the priesthood just fell out of the seminary truck and lived their lives wherever else each of them happened to come back to. I stuck it out. I was steadfast. The Spanish preacher’s insulting words only gave me the impetus to keep my goal in the sphere of achievability. And here I am with you.
You all have heard and read in Scriptures of the widow who so pestered the hard-hearted judge by constantly coming to his home with her grievance and supplication for justice that the hard man had a hard time of it and decided to accede to her demands just to preserve his sanity. He could take only so much and the poor widow looked primed to give him more trouble. Happy ending persistence, perseverance always win the day. When there’s a will, there’s a way. Knock… and it shall be opened. Ask… and it shall be given. For of course, if God decrees us to be filled with gratefulness for his abounding mercies, how can He with-hold said mercies and grace for which we’d be grateful if by a quirk of preposterousness He’d choose to deny us our legitimate demands? He’ll always have to put the horse before the cart if the person in that cart (you, me, anyone) could hope to get reasonably started on his/her journey. So there’ll never be anything so preposterous as a God who expects us to be grateful for nothing. There must be an ANTE at the very start. Before any work/play can get going. With this assurance tucked under belt, how can perseverance, persistence focusedness on our goals be such a hard trait to conduct our life with? It should be next to natural for us to be in plentiful supply of this Christian modes of approaching God. TIWALA LANG AT HUWAG BIBITAW.
