Marriage is Mission

My wife Michelle and I took the midnight bus to Baguio. We were on a mission trip to share God's goodness in our life. I thank God for giving our marriage a purpose beyond ourselves. Serving God as a couple gives me great joy and affirmation.

I believe that people in love with each other have to seriously consider the following:

1. To love God more than your spouse.

It is In loving God that we can truly learn how to love the other.  For there is no question that God loves us. It is in opening ourselves to Him that we are filled with abundant love. The person nearest to us is the greatest beneficiary of this overflow of divine love.

2. To share the same purpose of building God's kingdom on earth

This settles the purpose of wealth, time, and even raising kids. Many quarrels  happen because of a lack of purpose in the marriage. Marriage is a sacred vocation. Just as priests are called to serve God, so are married couples. Marriage is also mission. It is not enough to look at each other and declare your love, but to look towards the same direction and declare your mission. 

3. To see Christ in each other.

How will you treat your beloved if she/he is Christ?  Truth is, Christ is in all of us--especially with our spouses. It is in looking through the lenses of grace that we can treat each other with respect, love, gentleness, and kindness.

Your spouse is your mission partner--forever. Let us fulfill the purpose of our vocation and live our lives with fullness in Christ.

Being Christ to Others and Seeing Christ in Others

They said to each other, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?" (Luke 24:32)

I come to ponder on the thought about being Christ to others and seeing Christ in others.

Being Christ to Others. No longer I but Christ in me (Galatians 2:20). Knowing that Christ resides in us, gives us supernatural strength. For us to do His mission on earth, it requires His power. Pentecost made it known to us that the Gospel spread precisely because of the Power of the Holy Spirit.

When we recieve Christ's body and blood in Holy Communion, we are one with Him and strengthened by His grace.

In the Mass, after the sacrifice itself is completed, we have the unspeakable privilege of receiving the flesh and blood of the Divine Victim, who is not dead, but living, and comes to give life in abundance to our souls. This Holy Communion, if we are rightly disposed, produces an increase in sanctifying grace - the ability to take in the vision of God in the life to come - plus a special claim to actual graces as needed, forgiveness of venial sin for which one is repentant, help to keep from mortal sin, and an increase in the virtue of love.
--from Fr. William G. Most (http://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/euchb2.htm)


Seeing Christ in Others. The walk to Emmaus allows us to reflect about Christ who is often with us, but whom we often fail to recognize. The idea of Christ in others is what Mother Teresa carries when serving others, specially the poor.

" I believe that we are not really social workers. We may be doing social work in the eyes of people. But we are really contemplatives in the heart of the world. For we are touching the body of Christ twenty-four hours. We have twenty-four hours in His presence" -- from Mother Teresa's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, 1979

Having Christ in us and experiencing Christ through others leads us to a life of fullness in Christ.    For everywhere we look, whether inward or outward, we see the presence of Christ.  It is a life filled with passion, purpose, and missionary adventure.  In this way, man is fully alive and God's glory is revealed.  As St Irenaeus said, "The glory of God is man fully alive."

In my recent prayer time, I sensed the Lord saying, "Be faithful to Me, and I will show you how it is to truly live by My Spirit." Being Christ to others and Seeing Christ in others comes down to being consistently attuned to Him.  Being full of faith is what God requires as seen throughout the Bible and reflected in Hebrews 11. 

May we live our lives in the grace of the Lord, with hearts burning, knowing that He is in us and in the people around us. 

 

Learning from Steve

Today, it was announced that Steve Jobs passed away.  I'm a fan of his leadership and his relentless pursuit for excellence and innovation. He went through many challenges in life. He was adopted, a college drop-out, got kicked out from apple and back again, and suffered a rare illness. Yet despite all odds, through his leadership he gave us the mac, ipod, iphone, ipad, and even Toy Story through his Pixar years.  His inspiring 2005 Commencement speech in Stanford University went viral. He was a master presenter and blew the audience away with his new product ideas.  He changed technology forever.

What can we get out of Steve Jobs' life?

1. He turned defeats into victories.  He had all the reasons to quit and lose hope, but he kept on moving forward until one thing led to another then it led to success.  He knew that there was a reason for everything, evident in his "connect the dots" analogy of life (see his 2005 Stanford speech).

2. He was a master innovator. Steve would "cannibalize" his own products. The iphone could do almost everything that the ipod had to offer.  He knew how to excite the people with new ideas.  We need to be able to innovate our work, our products, or even ourselves.  Having the drive for innovation makes us lifelong learners.  Innovators always challenge the status quo and they know that there is something better than what they see.

3. He finished strong. He resigned as CEO of Apple at the height of his career. I even saw in the news at that time that Apple had more money than the US gov't.  I feel that if he lived longer, he could have given more. He was only 56. The tech world will surely miss him. A void is being felt by the tech industry.  He gave his utmost and truly finished strong.

I am uncertain if Steve Jobs was a Christian. But through his life, we can reflect on how we should live our lives. Christ offers us the fullness of life. With Christ, we can turn our defeats into victories. Jesus innovates our lives by renewing us with his love and He wants us to finish strong by serving Him 'til the end.


I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14).