In everything,
Love and serve The Lord.
In line with the sixth, last and most significant bullet in my New Year's Resolution
To strengthen my faith.
As I have mentioned before, our family was never the deeply religious type. My mom was very active in the Catholic Church from childhood until the day she married my dad but she did not pass on the commitment. I never attempted to join the choir like she did, let alone join a group called Legion of Mary and knock on people's doors to pray for the sick and the lonely. At most, we would go to church about once a month. Then my dad eventually got bored of the traditional Sunday Mass that once a month gradually declined to once in every quarter. It's not that he stopped believing in God's existence, it's just that he was looking for better channels of worship. I, on the other hand, did my best to be an active part of the community by joining Singles for Christ (SFC) as recommended by Ced. But it's difficult to allow yourself to rekindle that faith when you can't even gather your family to hear mass on Sundays. Old, devoted women would no doubt cringe at our lack of religious practice. My dad wanted to convert to another Christian religion (which didn't seem wrong to me as long as you still believe in something), but then that would have aggravated my problem of bringing my family to worship under the same roof.
But what happened last Sunday was an answered prayer.
My friends have been suggesting we attend The Feast and it was only last Sunday that my family finally pushed through with it (thanks to Mother's Day and my dad's constant whining about how the Catholics' highest form of prayer should be more engaging).
For those who have never been to The Feast, it is a weekly Catholic prayer meeting of The Light of Jesus family. A highly engaging, interactive and inspirational prayer meeting. It's about two and a half hours where the first half is spent on fellowship and the second half on traditional mass. We were lucky enough that we coincidentally attended Talk 1, so all brothers (Bro. George, Bro. Alvin, and of course the man behind The Feast himself, Bro. Bo Sanchez) spoke in front. If The Feast were a song, it would be the perfect collaboration because each of them had the magic of conveying the message. The impact was surreal, like listening to a new song with lyrics that make it seem as if it was written for you. I was never a ray of sunshine, but after just one talk I realized that life is a never ending battle and it's all about perspective. Being grateful about the tiniest things in life makes you happy. And I swear when I walked out of that room, I became more appreciative of life. I felt renewed.
The better surprise is how pleased my family was. The feeling was apparently mutual as they went on and on about how rejuvenating the experience was. Most would probably think it's awkward to raise your hand and sing songs of praise, but you won't know how it feels until you're there.
I know I was successful not just because they committed to attending The Feast every Sunday as long as we could, but because of this: That afternoon, we had dinner at a Filipino restaurant. Since it was Mother's Day, they thought ordering more food than we could actually eat would make it special. Having failed to eat lunch at home, we were all starving. But before any of us had the chance to grab a serving spoon, dad stopped us short to say grace.
For the first time in years, we prayed before we ate.
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