December 2011
3 posts
13th december 2011 | 5:54pm
Dear Beloved,
I enjoy sweet worship songs this afternoon and I realized how much I missed staying in your presence like this. I missed thinking of just you. I missed spending time sharing life with you to others. I miss Zeteo.
Please break down the walls that have slowly started to rise and surround me because of how much stress and anxiety I have been experiencing. Break them down and...
12th of December 2011 | 5:46pm
Dear Beloved,
As the day ends today, thank you for the strength you have given me to manage myself and continue functioning despite everything that has happened and continues to happen. You’ve opened a window for me this afternoon by showing me an opportunity to work in an environment that is hopefully more empowering.
Please take me to the place where I can be more alive, more fruitful,...
12th of December 2011 | 11:32
Dear Beloved,
My heart broke last night. It’s that similar kind of ache when you led me to love a ministry and that hearts that beat within it. It’s that similar kind of ache when you led me away to go off in a search for the person you want me to be. It’s that similar kind of ache when you gave me young companions who you said would journey with me for a lifetime.
But...
November 2011
9 posts
“For to not feel loved, or useful, has to be the root of all...”
– Heather King, Shirt of Flame
27th of november 2011 | 7:42pm
Dear Beloved,
The past week has been such a burden compared to the last. I’m void of companionship especially in the most difficult of situations. I feel like I have nobody to talk to. Nobody to rely on. And the one who says that I can rely on him is most often absent as well. Today instead of going to watch a worship concert, I have chosen to stay home and nurse this weight inside my...
“The way she took it upon herself to guide the sickly, curmudgeonly nun from...”
– “Coming Awake in Love”: A Discussion on the Struggle for Holiness and the Writing of Shirt of Flame: My Year with St. Therese of Lisieux
“Someone once asked the novelist Walker Percy why he was Catholic. He replied,...”
– “Coming Awake in Love”: A Discussion on the Struggle for Holiness and the Writing of Shirt of Flame: My Year with St. Therese of Lisieux
13th of november 2011 | 9:16pm
Dear Beloved,
This weekend you have given me so many revelations. It started as I have blogged yesterday over breakfast. I finally admitted to myself and to my mom that I wanted to start a small business. I want a bookshop. I want a bookshop that provides people who are like me the opportunity to buy titles that are not easily available here. I want the bookshop to not just sell books but to...
7th of november 2011 | 3:37pm
Dear Beloved,
The long weekend is almost ending and every inch of me resists a great deal to going back to work. Despite the epiphany of creative industries that I had the last 2 or 3 weeks I’m slowly realizing that the most important thing I value when it comes to work is not so much what I do but what I become. Who I become. My well-being and the well-being of others who interact with...
6th of november 2011 | 7:45am
Dear Beloved,
Yesterday’s worship was amazing. I cannot describe it. I cannot fully wrap my mind around it. I felt nervous. I felt excited. I felt like I worshipped you that way you really want me to worship you. On the keys. Singing a song that came from my heart and letting the tears fall as I proclaimed my faith in You.
I was not conscious of anything else. I didn’t care...
5th of november 2011 | 6:47am
Dear Beloved,
I brushed away a lot of things yesterday so that I can focus on just you. I realized that what I battle with the most is this anxiety that always threatens to rob me off the feeling of security. I felt harassed by people yesterday morning. Like they invaded my private space since I specifically told everyone that I was on leave. Why can’t they carry their own load? Why do...
October 2011
11 posts
“WHAT KIND OF LIFE does my heart want?
I find no easy answers to that question,...”
– Elizabeth Canham, Heart Whispers
Dear Beloved,
I found this on my inbox today and what struck me the most was “giving up the fantasy of always moving forward and allowing instead for seasons of dormancy”. This is hard to accept but it feels like it is what’s most necessary now....
1 tag
“That’s the secret to doing it all, to identify the work God’s given us and to...”
– How To Do It All | evlogia
Dear Beloved,
Katherine’s blog is comforting this morning and I pray that I remember this every moment throughout the week.
Love,
Soleil
1 tag
“God was all-complete, all-blessed in Himself; but it was His will to create a...”
– Blessed John Newman
Dear Beloved,
My cousin told me about these words from Blessed John Newman. He says that he reads through this everyday and that it has been a rich reminder of your truth. I don’t have the discipline to read this everyday but I hope you send an angel to remind me to...
1 tag
the 31st of october 2011 | 6:32am
Dear Beloved,
I find myself quiet this morning. I wanted to pray the Liturgy of Hours to honor the commitment I made yesterday by being more consistent in praying but I could not pray with such depth. The book that my cousin wanted me to read spoke about your love. A love that I realized I do not fully know. I am not fully able to pay attention to Your love because of many reasons. Simply...
1 tag
“Only for today, I will seek to live the livelong day positively without wishing...”
– The Daily Decalogue of Pope John XXIII
1 tag
the 29th of october 2011 | 10:22am
Dear Beloved,
You’ve touched my heart this morning through my cousin Steve who has found his way back into the rhythm of my life. Thank you for giving me this quiet morning with him. Catching up on life and talking about what we love the most. From his stories, I’ve learned about how fulfilling it it to rely solely on you. I am reminded that if you are the air that I breathe, I...
1 tag
“The duration of Jesus’ ministry has traditionally been thought to have been...”
– Ministry: Are you in obscurity? Popularity? Rejection? | Mary DeMuth
Dear Beloved,
You made yourself clear this morning. I hope I remember this all throughout the week.
Love,
Soleil
1 tag
“We all feel rejected and hostile toward what has rejected us. We all try to...”
– SHIRT OF FLAME: THE NEW BEING
Dear Beloved,
It’s been a while since I wrote to you. I’ve been a stranger these past few weeks. I’m sure you know that Ive been trying to figure myself out. This place I’m in. This occupation. This calling. This need to create. This...
1 tag
“Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift”. A person...”
– Rachel Kondro, Mystery and Manners
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“Man cannot live by oblative, descending love alone,” Benedict writes....”
– Mystery and Manners: What Can Agape Give Eros?
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“Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,by prayer and petition, with...”
– St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians
September 2011
5 posts
1 tag
5th of september 2011 | 8:56pm
Dear Beloved,
You’re truly faithful. You’ve given me an opportunity to grab a breakthrough in the new business that our client wants to give to us. Thank you so much. I hope all creative things start from here. Start now. I hope we can start turning a new leaf.
Love,
Soleil
1 tag
5th of september 2011 | 12:43pm
Dear Beloved,
I have to admit. I really want to be in a creative business. This morning I had a good talk with my sales team leader. She agrees with me that I should manage the two graphic design teams and have them form a totally different business unit.
I want to be like IDEO. I want to unleash my ideas and see them come to life. I don’t think I deserve to have my gifts repressed...
1 tag
4th of september 2011 | 7:13pm
Dear Beloved,
I had a blessed time this retreat. It wasn’t so emotionally moving as the last one with the community but it reminded me about what I believe in about practicing my faith even in the workplace. It gave me so much insight about why I was feeling so out of place where I work and it is primarily because I am not able to connect with people who had the same belief systems as me....
1 tag
3rd of september 2011 | 6:36am
Dear Beloved,
I’m going off to a retreat this weekend. It’s called Heroic Leadership and just rightly so since I’ve not been feeling so heroic in my leadership journey right now. In fact, I’m not really sure how good a leader I have been. Yesterday I had a long talk with a friend about the realities of the workplace and if I look at it without Your eyes, I’ll...
August 2011
24 posts
today i feel like a big opened up scar.
1 tag
30th of August 2011 | 2:25pm
Dear Beloved,
The pilgrimage yesterday was beautiful. The weather was perfect. But I had great difficulty organizing the entire group. I wish pilgrimages could organize itself out so that I can focus on taking in your Blessed Mother’s presence and your love that overflows from her.
What saddens me though is that I cannot keep your presence for that long when I’m back “in...
1 tag
29th of august 2011 | 6:51am
Dear Beloved and Blessed Mother,
Today I’m going up to the mountains as a pilgrim with some friends. We’re going to pass by for breakfast and head to a shrine and an apparition site. I’ve never been to an apparition site and I wonder what it must feel like to get a whiff of your Divine footprints.
I pray that you hosts in heaven be with us today so that we will become...
1 tag
27th of august 2011 | 11:20pm
Dear Beloved,
You embraced me today with consoling and merciful words from our pastor who I have long awaited to confess to. I’m grateful that I was able to have some time today to attend his teaching in the morning and how that has convicted my spirit to hear confession in the afternoon. I didn’t know what to say really and started of with how my belief in the sacrament has waned....
1 tag
21st of august 2011 | 10:04pm
Dear Beloved,
You come to me tonight through messages from a dear friend who is now a missionary in Fazenda De Esperanza in Masbate. Founded by the Focolare, I was introduced to this spirituality by this friend who I met just a year ago. I’ve never really talked to him a great deal. Most of our communication have been through chats and text messages and oftentimes in the form of...
2 tags
“Indeed, there are many who, creating their own gods, believe they need no roots...”
– Pope Benedict XVI, WYD2011 Madrid
1 tag
“You are “planted and built up in Jesus Christ, firm in the faith”...”
– Pope Benedict XVI, WYD Address
I am thinking about how such fire of faith looses its intensity ever so suddenly. Why have we lost you in our midst Beloved? Were we so weak in our grasp of you? Were we so allured by the ways of this world that we gladly traded them for an authentic moment of...
1 tag
“To feel out of place in a place is Jesus forsaken: He, God of the universe, the...”
– Chiara Lubich, The Cry
I read this last night and I felt you talking to me. It is true, I always feel out of place in places I go. I feel out of place at work, in my family and even in my own ministry. I have truly felt the poverty of a soul who has nowhere to turn and no one to turn to. I...
2 tags
excerpt | in conversation with God
A holy soul once experienced with difficult trials. One calamity after another befell her, and each succeeding disaster seemed worse than the one before. Finally, that soul turned affectionately to our Lord and asked, But Lord, what have I done to you? And in the depths of her heart came the reply, You have loved me. She thought of Calvary and understood a little better how our Lord wanted to...
1 tag
21st of august 2011 | 9:48am
Dear Beloved,
I just came home from church. I didn’t get to stay long because the booksellers weren’t around. They said that they would come every 3rd Sunday. Perhaps they usually come at 10am mass. I went home reluctant and unsure if I wanted to go home. I wanted to drop by your chapel and spend a few moments but I didn’t want to run into my mother.
My relationship with...
1 tag
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the 20th of august 2011 | 4:25pm
Dear Beloved,
Today was a struggle of spirit and flesh. The week was long and tiring and I woke up to your presence and my eyes shed tears because of your embrace. I prayed for those I love and for my own soul which always falters when I’m in the brink of many obligations and duties. I spent the morning reading and fighting thoughts in my mind that worried me and sent me restlessly...
2 tags
excerpt | in conversation with God
Peter walks on water. Faith and confidence in his Master are all that sustain him — only that.
The difficulties that surround us don’t matter if we walk with faith and confidence towards Jesus, who is waiting for us. It doesn’t matter if the waves are high and the wind strong, or that it’s not natural for man to walk on water. If we look to Jesus, we can do anything;...
1 tag
17th of august 2011 | 9:09pm
Dear Beloved,
The day ends abruptly as if it didn’t want to end yet. I was in a meeting the whole morning. I witnessed a husband and wife struggle with their viewpoints in the work place. It’s quite unfortunate if you work in a family organization that does not have ways of doing things that will allow relationships to be preserved without sacrificing the right way of doing this.
...
1 tag
“The difficulties that surround us don’t matter if we walk with faith and...”
– Francis Fernandez, In Conversation with God
1 tag
“Peter walks on water. Faith and confidence in his Master are all that sustain...”
– Francis Fernandez, In Conversation with God
1 tag
“The inarticulate cry of the cross of Jesus is no denial of his articulate...”
– Chiara Lubich, The Cry
1 tag
“It is real abandonment for the humanity of Jesus, because God leaves it in this...”
– Chiara Lubich, The Cry
1 tag
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the 13th of august 2011 | 1:47pm
Dear Beloved,
Today you have melted the hardness in my heart and have found your way back inside my soul to water the dryness. It’s not easy to always remain in your presence. I wish I could just stay in your presence. Always secure. Always steadfast. I have strived to no end just to keep at it but I’ve forgotten that your presence is a gift. I can never possess it. I can never...
“The only thing that limits God’s power to do the impossible in your life...”
– George Gabriel, Feast Builder
1 tag
conversations with God | an excerpt from a...
A great multitude follow Jesus into the desert. They follow him without giving a thought to distance, heart or cold, because their needs are great. They sense that they are welcome. They listen attentively to those words which are giving meaning to their lives, so attentively that they neglect life’s necessities. They have brought no food to eat and there is no place to buy any food out...