November formally lands boiling over with questions on faith in God. Since I had written a couple of religious stuff in the previous issues of this paper, I rummaged through one of the products of my early glorious moments at writing and thought of publishing a non-sequitur-like entry such as this.

Action without faith, is it enough? To do good and not evil; is it a guarantee of getting a place up there in the vast kingdom of God?

They say it is easy to be among the millions who are rejoicing in the heavens. They say that a place has already been set for us – a place surrounded by God’s infinite goodness. But can the grace be granted to those who are unprepared and undeserving individuals?

Fr. Paul mentions something about people who seem to be so attached with work that they forget and set aside God.

I wrote something about this before.

Ora et Labora (translated as Prayer and Work) are ancient monastic values. The values are for busy people who, because of their tight schedules, have sporadically affected their time of silence and prayer.

I pondered on how God has viewed our being individuals whose moment of stillness has not been so apparently fulfilled. The line in the bible that says “Be still, and know that I am God” really means, in its complete contemporary biblical setting, “Cease, relax, and shut up! Spare time for me and know that I am God”. In one of Fr. Paul’s homilies last holy week, the same verse came out and I was taken back to the time when I devotedly listened to God in the stillness of my heart.

Knowing that I haven’t read anything religious printed in the Collegian since I started writing late last year, I thought that this will be the start of something different. Few days ago, someone close to me asked, “Are you not reluctant to write about God in your column?” “With what God has done for me all these years, writing won’t even be enough”, I answered without reservations.

In less than two weeks time, it will be Christmas day. While I contemplate the birth of Jesus, I am also enormously grateful to God for bestowing a precious gift – a writing ability that I continue to hone to this day. I would like to close this year’s column with a prayer.

Father our thou that art in heavens
I was thinking for a theme to write and was, instead, led to make a compilation of my articles that fortunately saw light for publication in few local and national magazines and dailies. One at a time, I placed each one in chronological order, cautious not to mistakenly skip a piece nor mistakenly put one before or after the other.

Life’s miracles often appear in diverse packages. A bunch of them take place in a flashing instant when you wish for them, others occur over a life span, and few more others occur when you are not even anticipating them. Regardless of the type, it cannot be denied that a miracle brings in us a wonder and an admiration at something unfathomable. A miracle that defines a wonderful accomplishment is what we all fancy to happen for ourselves. But what truly aids a miracle to come to life, in my opinion, are: first, faith in God and second, goodwill.

For years I have taken note on little and rather enormous miracles in my life and in the lives of people I have personally known or stumbled upon day after day. Since I started writing, I have been broadcasting life stories that depict miracles as I recognize them to countless souls through magazines and dailies. The stories were unequivocally spirit-uplifting. They were the sorts that offered a smile to a frowning face or inspiration to the heartbroken. Stories from everyday miracles. Inspirations from everyday stories.