The Spirit lives on…
Pensive issues have been manifesting itself to us since Sister Mary Niere shared with us her thoughts on Contemplative Prayer.
During a 3-day workshop, which started on 23 July 2010,we have been hearing some more of these CONTEMPLATIVE talks from an anointed couple Tito Roquel and Tita Nina Ponte. They have shared with us their inner thoughts, and more so, their “personal encounters” with the reality of GOD and man.
According to them, GOD talks to us in many different ways and in different levels — VOCAL, MENTAL (Intellectual) and through the HEART (Contemplative). The first is the simplest while the last is the “deepest”. It doesn’t matter which level we are in now. What is important is that we are in the process of communicating with GOD, the way it should be. The group was asked by Tita Nina: “If GOD calls you and tells you HE would want to TALK to you now, while at that moment you were in a high-rise building, say a 20-storey skyscraper, how would you go to meet HIM? Will you use the lift, granting that you are on the 10th floor?”
All of us thought of an answer and then shared some of our responses. I was one of those who shared my reply. I said I would press the ground floor of the building while Bro. Obet said he would go to the basement. Still Bro. George, Tita Litz and my wife Agnes said they would press the 2oth floor. When asked ‘WHY?”, we all had our reasons. We were told then that if we would really want to “encounter” GOD, we need to go to a place where we could HEAR HIM, go down to our deepest chamber where there is Peace and Quiet.
Now that the 3-day workshop has come to an end, highlighted by a MASS celebrated by Fr. Lito Ancla, I personally am challenged anew in my personal connection with GOD. I feel more empowered spiritually, more assured and secured that really GOD will not “give up” on us. That the “REALITY” of GOD is that HE is LOVE and the True Model of HUMILITY. That the Reality of Men is that we are “unclean” and we can rely only on GOD to “cleanse” us and “purify” us before our final encounter with HIM.
When we were asked to close our eyes during the second session on July 24, we were made to prepare ourselves individually for an “Encounter” with the Divine Person.
My vision was surprisingly vivid and heartwarming. For the first time in my life as a CHRISTIAN, I saw in my ‘dream’ a SMILING GOD. HE looked so charmingly sweet when He smiled, something that I have never seen anyone SMILED the same way before. It was very “infectious” that I found myself smiling while my eyes were still closed; a soulful music playing in the background. I thought it was bizarre. Imagine me SMILING when the music was so serious and touching. I saw GOD holding a bleeding heart. The heart was moving while GOD squeezed it and blood squirted out from the arteries… but He was still smiling. Suddenly a CROSS appeared on top of the heart, making it appear like a sandwich now, the bleeding heart being at the center between the hands of GOD and the cross. An illuminating and brilliant light then shone, its rays covering the heart. What a strange vision right? I don’t want to interpret it in any way for I believe the message was left in the mind and heart of all of us.
It was another great ENCOUNTER of the highest kind, a supernatural phenomenon that GOD is the same GOD that He was yesterday, today and forever.
By Ed Ubaldo
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