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?

There is a moral foundation of the universe that in every effect there is always a cause. In every action there is always a counterpart reaction. It equally applies to human beings. I presume in every religion you’ll hear that “as ye sow, shall ye reap.” We get what we deserve.

We see it around. People do charity works and devote their time and service for the less fortunate others. Few make sure to live their lives in an upright and blameless way. What returns are rightly due for these be worthy of honor individuals? Read: he who plants melons, reap melons; he who does good, begets good.

I am sure that God is happy for these people. On the other hand, I am also sure that He is happier for those who recognize and acknowledge His presence. True, there are those who do generous deeds but very poor in spirit. Will God open His arms for them in acceptance? No doubt, he will. His mercy is incomparable and beyond measure.

A national magazine in my country once ran a very miraculous story of a lady who was sick of sclerosis (a hardening of a body part or tissue), was wearing a full body brace and had to be physically transported to places. Doctors had given up hope on her and that she almost died a couple of times already. But alas, she outlived it, survived the doctor’s death sentence and bears no trace of having the disease at all. How did she do it? Did she spend all her days healing her body?

The lady is a deeply spiritual person. For years she has prayed religiously, despite her own helpless state, not just for her own sake but for others too who needed most of her prayers. Her heart goes out beyond her own needs. Today, she has recovered and enjoyed sharing meaningful services to everybody else. With the miraculous event that happened in her life, she did not forget to thank the one responsible for it. She believes that by doing good and at the same time experiencing God’s power; it will create a happiness that no one could ever, ever give and achieve. She was healed because she qualified for it. Not only had she became a true disciple of God but also a true servant to all.

The law is so simple and just. No one can easily inherit the kingdom. The good thing is, the deserving had already been reserved.

We claim that if the sun shines on both the sinner and the saint, how come that most of the time the good suffers while the immoral and the corrupt turn out well and prosper. This is just an illusion. Continuously, life keeps books and records on all of us. If we have our own tally sheets so does life. In there, can be found all our liabilities and holdings. In there, can be revealed all our strengths and weaknesses, triumphs and defeats, failures and accomplishments. After all, we are the sum total of all our actions.

When we serve humanity and be of service to Him, then we may be worthy and entitled of God’s assistance and rewards, which come in various forms and many folds including a place set in heaven.

Finally, to reserve a space up above, we aim for good and not evil. Also note that God wishes to let Himself shine in our midst. Hence, let us ask ourselves what we can do to serve the Supreme Best and His flock. May we not wait to be trapped in a hopeless situation, to be gasping for breath, just to know God’s mercy and love.

Is it enough not to do evil? Yes, but when we couple it with faith and trust, praise and thanksgiving to the one and only source of all good things to come, God will smile even more. Only then we can draw our rewards when we have saved enough.

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.

For many of us, labor has become our existence. People see us on our feet frequently moving, or more appropriately running, like there is someone catching us up from behind. We become more of pursuers than just plain dreamers. More often than not, we were reminded by friends to take an hour off on a Sunday afternoon to chill out from a tough week of pure working.

Nonetheless we never learn. We often do this and that, this and that again and juggle time like the world would end any moment. From the Mystery of the Ordinary, the writer wits: “To stop and rest is to trust that the world will go on in an orderly fashion without my help for a few minutes or a few hours.” In the defence of the workaholics, we just cannot tolerate chances. Tragedies happen when we begin to take chances. To us it seems the world would come to a halt if we do not make our moves count. Work shapes us. We love work and we abhor the idea of stopping.

“Pray and work” is the summation of the Benedictine Rule. If someone wishes to attain a dwelling place in His kingdom, he shall not reach it unless he does his share of good deeds. Prayer and work must go together. Somehow the same meaning is conveyed by the words preachers often quip: “Do your best and God will do the rest”. Time and again, we are reminded of the reality that working too much is never enough, prayer must have its share for God to emancipate His power of fulfilling the rest of the tasks.

Yet why have we in one way or another lost the grace to rest and just be still? How heavy-loaded are we exactly to hardly find a way for God to tune in perfectly the stations of our Christian lives? Not long before, observing holy days set a variety of picks: go to this prayer meeting, attend this Pastor’s talk, be on this healing mass, enjoy the worship concerts (or we even picked all) – lately, too busy we are.

When I was still in the Philippines, a close friend of mine gave me a book “The Purpose Driven Life”. It is a book so many are slowly being touched I think. Students read it on jeepney rides and businessmen browse the pages inside café houses. I turned to the page that carries the question “What makes God smile?” The author enumerates few things. I want to focus on the last two.

First: God smiles when we praise and thank him personally. God loves it when praises and adoration are expressed for Him. We know very well that prayer is a way of praising and adoring God. Prayer is the way to His heart. Prayer, spoken or unspoken, brings miracles. Second: God smiles when we use our abilities. God wants us all to be the designed humans He made us to be – make love with your husbands and wives, plant crops and eat, watch this TV program, read books, go for a walk, play basketball. As the author puts it, “God said that it is time to get on with life”. Stated differently, do what is humane and wholesome.

Now we pondered how God has viewed our being individuals whose moment of stillness has not been so apparently fulfilled. The line “Be still, and know that I am God” really means, in its complete contemporary biblical setting, “Cease, relax, Shut Up! Spare time for me and know that I am God”. To bring this moment to perfection is in fact Saint Benedict’s perpetual prayer.

We characterize our lives with the words: doctor, computer programmer, professor, engineer, manager, designer, architect, accountant – all presuppose that accomplishment means doing. God smiles when we work. God smiles when we use the gifts of talents He conferred to us. As much as He wants us to laugh, to be ourselves and benefit from all His other creations, to enjoy every fraction of our existence in a sacramental manner, He also wants us to rest and pray.

Then we laze around in joy at what we have done, how we have prayed. This, we know, we believe, would make Him smile even more.

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.

Few years ago, a dear friend gave me a book called “The Purpose Driven Life”. I heard that it was a bestseller – students read it during bouts of silence in bus rides and even successful businessmen browsed the pages inside café houses. Curious, I turned to the page that carries the question “What makes God smile?”

It says that God smiles when people praise and thank him personally. God loves it when praises and adoration are expressed for Him. Prayer is the way to His heart. Prayer, spoken or unspoken, brings miracles.

Lines from the book struck me hard. They reminded me to wake up from the existing state of hallucination to God’s wonderful state of reality. To be in that reality, is to pray. God commands everyone to pray.

In this lifetime, many a times I find myself trying to square circles with only God’s armor to cling to. With a firm foundation in Him, those times would equate to believing and claiming what He has promised that I could move mountains and that when legions of principalities turn up my way, I could never be taken apart.

Look around. There are a lot of spiritual warriors in SDSU. Visit the Pius XII Newman Center or the many Christian churches around Brookings and notice that the majority of the church goers are students. That doesn’t happen in other Christian countries, believe me.

When I was in the Netherlands and lived there for two years, only the elderly attended services. Most horribly, there were only a handful in the church; I could even count them with my fingers. Here though, I was left open-mouthed and overly astounded on my first attendance as college students flocked the church.

In a liberated country like the U.S., my idea of a church service is no more than what I experienced in Europe. That only few American teenagers still believe in God’s great promises. I was proven wrong though at the sight of an army of God – students earnestly praying, standing ready with truth as the belt, righteousness as the breastplate, and as shoes the readiness to announce the Good News. Young men and women that I first thought know no place but a night pub were present.

These students in church, I call them the warrior children. They, who dropped their swords, ran towards God and took refuge in His quiet place of rest, even for just one day in a week. Amen, for each student and every living soul inside the church. Amen, for all the desires of their hearts, which I am certain, will be answered in God’s precious time.

In Brookings, most students, if not all, are companions on the journey. They are the warrior children, who together laze around in joy at what they have done with their lives, how they have prayed. This, they all know, would make God smile even more.

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.

Be thy name hallowed
Praise to Him! There were almost a hundred of them, a hundred pieces of short stories, which when taken as a whole, would definitely weave a charming yet heartrending masterpiece only my life story could convey. When you read between the lines of each story, you read the fine points of my existence.

Come thy kingdom
Prayers worked! The very first published article was in a weekend magazine in the Philippines, way back in 1997. I still have vivid recollections of how I yelled ‘Thank you Lord!’ at a mall when I got hold of a copy. The piece narrated the life of a sabungero’s son. The manner I wrote it made so obvious how my father could not stay home on Sunday afternoons and how he rather opted to be in the company of “fighting-rooster-passionate” squad for his no-miss “Sunday school”. Apparently, it was the story of a father who tried to tag along his son in every cock derby, so his son would think sharp and strong like his fighting cocks trained for sharpness and strength.

Be done thy will
One after the other, more articles followed. The second one got so much fuss from readers. Entitled “For the Love of Singing”, it undervalued my own singing capability, so they say. They constantly thought I inherited no less than a quarter of my mom’s vocal dexterity. Nevertheless, it was merely an article to complete a family picture that all of us siblings could certainly carry a tune. I wrote quite a number of articles about faith and God’s love, about how one could survive life’s adversities. Most of them were inspired by brothers and sisters in my Catholic community.

On earth as in heavens
It looks to me now that my articles transpired when I was either at my lowest point or at the cradle of seventh heaven. For instance I wrote about El Nino, when the country was suffering the ever-scourging heat of nature. Heaven years in every foreign travel were also put into writing – detailing the four seasons particularly. The most emotive of all is when I tried to spell out my ambitions, failed and achieved, into a two-page piece of writing. From childish hopes to being what I am now, I kept on asking myself where all my other dreams have gone.

Our daily bread give us today
As of this writing, I have a compilation of my life that speaks about twists and turns. Rummaging around for a title, I ran across the word “Flicker”. Hence, I named it “Flicker” — for the sparks of ideas, the flashes of thoughts, and for the words that continue to connect and stimulate other stretches of words. Flicker is the word given to a compilation of hope, of love, of faith and of prayer.

And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us
Not all was a bed of roses. As an amateur writer in this very competitive world, many a times I felt almost close to giving up, letting go of this untamed dream and maybe venture into something else. Countless times I felt cheerless when editors rejected valuable pieces. The white flag was almost hoisted.

And not lead thou us into temptation
In spite of all, somehow, somewhere, as I looked at my “Flicker”, there is a place for me in this spacious circle of words, this enduring dream God-knows-what better things would bring and where probably might lead me. Only God knows.

But deliver us from evil. Truly.
Lord, thank you for giving me a precious gift – this writing craft. As I continue to write for the Collegian, provide me the grace to love my work, treasure the moment, and show appreciation to the people who have given me the chance to share stories, inspire readers and to use this talent for your greater glory. Amen.

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.

One inspiring story that has etched a mark in me was about the miracles of the “flyday” night. I narrated the moments when most of the members of a Christian organization “fly”. No, they did not transform into horrible-winged-sci-fi creatures. Called Flyday night, the night when darkness quivered at the slight sight of light, and good triumphed over evil. Flyday night refers to a gathering of students, teachers and communities adoring Christ on a Friday night that knows no mercy for all legions of demons and the likes. That particular night I was invited brought so many miracles to so many devotees.

The life of Doods was the first miracle I heard. He was an unwanted child. His mother never planned for his coming and irrefutably attempted to abort him. He grew up without anything to call his own. Love was deprived of him just as happiness was insufficient to make his life as normal as the other kids around him. He could never forget how he silently rebelled for what he had gotten in a life he described as entirely miserable. Pain all to himself, he searched for satisfaction and found it among friends hooked on spending free time in school sniffing “powder”. If schooling was the reason he was sent by relatives miles away from home, for him it wasn’t so. He thought, with bitterness engulfing him, he was born to have fun with drugs and alcohol and no one has the power to stop him from having it all. No one was there to tell him he was moving fast towards a sure dead end.

Yet, there is, on occasion, an unutterable lose twirl to a tight spot that the human brain cannot comprehend even. What came next was Doods’ twist – the greatest and sudden miracle he could never forget, never dreamed of or wished for. He was tagged by a stranger to attend a healing seminar one flyday night. For someone who had been through a lot of pain, a cloud of doubt hovered over him. Prayer was not found in his vocabulary. Worst, he constantly questioned the existence of God. But that night became a perfect moment for one living soul. Standing in the midst of the assembly, he cried like a baby and asked for God’s forgiveness. He came out of church with an assured comfort and peace inside! No one and nothing stood stronger against God’s strength that night. It proved to him that real happiness laze not on entertainment and other creature comforts, but to God.

He found a sanctuary, no ground in nature, no place and dwelling of man could ever give. Years later, he entered the seminary and started a new life, taking his own flight to what he believes now is reality.

I have been a spectator to a number of God’s miracles in the past and almost always I feel the pulse to share them with people through my articles. I have been longing to articulate every opportunity that takes place in my life and hoping the articles will help inspire another. Each piece that I write I always hope to be a miracle at work.

It might be a little leap for a big hope. But if every leap, insignificant it may seem, will help others find in their lives their own share of God’s wonders, then doing so is worth the while. There is no coincidence. A miracle is a performance of God who chooses to stay anonymous.

Believe and share your miracles this coming Holy Week. Have a blessed break.