1. “A monk’s life must be judged by all its parts, not just the end.”

    I read this line in Remy Rougeau’s novel, All We Know of Heaven, which was an insightful summer read. Rougeau tells the story of nineteen year old, Antoine, who joins a Cistercian monastery in Manitoba and his experiences of being formed as a monk. An early experience Antoine has in the monastery is facing death. He is asked to sit with elderly Brother Eli who is dying. Accompanying him is another aged and sickly confrere. As he listens to Eli mumbling and the old confrere grumbling, he realizes that these men have never reconciled their differences. Each is in pain; each is grieving the finality of a lost opportunity to make peace. Antoine brings his anger and dismay at their stubbornness to the Abbot whose wise response is the line above.

    The Abbot’s words struck a chord with me as my brothers and I go about setting up our new home in Brighton. As we unpack, put things in place and create a rhythm of life, we inevitably run into the differing opinions and sensibilities each of us has about how we are to live, pray and interact. A quiet tension permeates as we work to build community. As we do so, I find myself at times annoyed by another, as I am sure some of my actions must have also annoyed others.

    The Abbot’s advice reminds me that our Christian way of looking at one another cannot be fixated solely on individual moments of difference, contradiction, dismay, or even mistrust. Each of us is more than these moments. Each of us is a complex mix of good and bad, of light and darkness, of kindness and selfishness, of hearts that uplift another and mouths that put down someone we dislike. These myriad aspects make up the totality of who you and I really are.

    Antoine sees the truth of this at the moment of Eli’s death: the grumbling older monk holds Eli’s hand as he breathes his last. Perhaps in this moment Rougeau wants his reader to confront this truth about being human and about relating as human persons: when we interact with another, we relate to her as the totality that she is. And the sum of all her parts is always worthy of respect and love because these make up the goodness that she is.

    I’d like to believe that this too is how God interacts with us. God does see the sinful, the limited, the weak that we are. But God also sees the goodness, the kindness, the compassion we are too. More significantly, God sees the hopeful promise in each of us to become better. This is the glint in our humanity that seizes God’s gaze and warms his heart. God delights in the human potential to transcend our lesser selves. That Jesus reaches out to the adulterous woman, to Matthew the tax collector, and to Peter after his betrayal speaks of God’s enchantment with us. God's enchantment is rooted in his faith in our goodness and our capacity to realize this goodness both in our lives and in the lives of others.

    And so, as my brothers and I go about creating our abode, I pray we will recognize in one another the totality of who we are, and celebrate this goodness we each bring to our new home.

    Would this be your prayer too at home, in school or at work today?




    artwork: solitude by emmanuel o’herlihy, osb cam



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  2. Keeping your eyes on the Lord.

    Often we think this phrase is about sitting in prayer and staying focus on God. It is. But it also invites us to a way of interacting with God in daily life.

    In the Old Testament we read of King David bringing up the Ark from Baala to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6). He does this in procession; he leads and the Israelites accompany. There is music, movement and singing. Sacrifices and offerings, worship and blessings are made to the God who wants to dwell in their midst. The scene is festive. David expresses this delightfully by dancing before the Lord. As he dances, he keeps his gaze on the Lord. But David also faces jealousy and hatred as he does this. Saul’s daughter, Michal, despises David’s dance, and she rebukes him. David answers that he dances because this is what the Lord asks of him.

    I’d like to believe that God calls all of us, like David, to keep our eyes on him as we go about our everyday life. Why would God make this invitation?

    Keeping our gaze on God helps us remember that we are always in God’s presence. It is not that we need to come into his presence. Rather, God has come into ours; he is with us amidst our daily joys and struggles.

    Also, keeping our gaze on God invites us to be nothing less than ourselves. More importantly, it invites us to become the persons God wants us to be. David is king but in this scene God only asks this of him: “Then David, girt with a linen apron, came dancing before the Lord with abandon.”

    Finally, to keep our gaze on God is to give ourselves permission to dance to the Lord’s tune. That is, to be carried along by God’s action in our lives and to let God realize his design for us.

    Like David, who strives to please God and who also dismays God, now and again, I cannot help but join him to confess that God does love us so much to keep inviting us into God’s good company. Perhaps, this how God keeps his own gaze on us so that God can dance with and for us.

    Now shouldn’t this reality of God-with-us encourage us today to keep our eyes on God, and to dance before God, with abandon and delight?



    artwork: dancer not dancing by helen wilson


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"Bukas Palad"
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is Filipino for open palms
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Peace and welcome, dear friend.
I hope you will find in these posts something that speaks to you of the God who loves us all and who always holds us in the palm of his hand. Blessings!
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"Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute way final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."

Pedro Arrupe, sj, Superior General, 1965 - 1983

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is a 50something Catholic who resides in Singapore and works for the Church. He is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
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The views I express in these pages are personal. They do not speak for the Society of Jesus or the Catholic Church.
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