When things get rough or don’t go your way, do you hold on to your faith, trusting that God knows best and He is in control of everything? - Daily Reflections October 15,2014

ON THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH

 

I had a very sad but blessed Christmas two years ago. Two days before Christmas, I was called to do the anointing of a former religious, also a former protégé in the seminary, who was dying of a mysterious disease that made his brain swell, his stomach bleed and made him lose his ability to talk and to control his movements. After one week in a coma, he came to, just as soon as I laid hands on him and gave him the anointing. He was trying to tell me so many things. No words came out of him except what I perceived to be the word F-A-T-H-E-R! And after smiling to us all, he went right back to “sleep” and died about 12 hours later.

       He was the only source of livelihood for his family back in Eastern Samar, for whom he had a lot of plans and dreams. He had sent a sister to school and primed a brother’s little business, and started building his parents’ house, from a decrepit nipa house to one of sturdier materials. He had long wanted to help his youngest brother, who was progressively getting blind. All this, he did, in a short span of about eight years. He planned to put up a bakery to enable his siblings to help themselves.

       But all that was not meant to be. When I attended his funeral in Samar, I saw the simple faith and the admirable sense of Christian resignation of his family. They knew for certain they had lost a valuable lifeline, not just a beloved son and brother. Their earthly hopes were dashed when their son or brother just fell in a heap — stressed out and overworked, but fulfilled to have been their support. I was edified by their faith.

       Other people I know can boast of so many things: college degrees, well-paying jobs, intelligence, friends in high places, and so much more. But I saw in my spiritual son, Renan, and his simple family the capacity for so much more.

       “What occasion is there for boasting?” It is based not on “works” but “rather on the principle of faith.” Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB

 

REFLECTION QUESTION: When things get rough or don’t go your way, do you hold on to your faith, trusting that God knows best and He is in control of everything?

 

Lord, always remind me that my faith in You is the most important lifeline that I can ever have in my life.