BOKASYONG AGUSTINO MINISTRY
Augustinian Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus of the Philippines
Comission on Vocations
SPIRITUAL REFLECTIONS
On Faith and Trust
Post. Marlon Relivo Yolas
Borongan, Eastern Samar Province, Philippines
This is a reflection on Jn 19:25-27.
In my day to day journey towards the altar of Christ, I always encounter struggles and hardships. Struggle in making decisions, whether I’m going to get up from my bed or not, whether to attend the mass or prayers or not, whether to go to school or not, whether to study or not, whether to play or not, whether to clean or not, whether to stay here or not, and the greatest struggle in my life is to whether continue to give my fiat to Christ or not.
But these adversities of mine that I encounter every day is beyond compare to the hardships and sufferings of the not so ordinary woman in our Gospel today which is Mary the mother of our Christ. Mary despite of all the sufferings and hardships she encountered she never waver in her faith to her son. She remained faithful to Christ even seeing Him hanging on the cross.
In my life, one characteristic that I should imitate from Mary is her trust and faith to her son that no matter how life difficult is I will still hold on to Christ just like Mary did. I have to completely believe in Christ in times of darkness in life. It is then that I can only understand why I am undergoing such things. Fides querens intellectum (believe so that you will understand) says Saint Bonaventure. For me to understand my struggles and hardships in life so that I will not be easily be distracted I have to completely surrender my life to Him and believe that He is always beside me in this perilous journey towards His altar. This is the challenge for me now to surrender my whole self to Christ and to continually respond to His daily calling just like what Mary did.
I should not be deceive by what I have encountering but rather in times of adversities make this a chance to come closer to Christ and instead of going away from Him, is to make this an opportunity to hold on to His hands let Him lift raise me up from it.