The nights are long and the crisp early morning air makes me want to go back to bed. I am an early riser and 5am is already late for me. When you wake up early, you have the privilege of enjoying the silence, you have the chance to get in touch with yourself through prayers, simple affirmations that there is always a loving God by your side. This is one of those mornings that I am essentially grateful, loving every thought that sometimes makes me smile and laugh and think of the days past. And I say,they’ve been good.
Yesterday, hubby and I were invited to attend the thanksgiving mass of one of our new-found friends. It was Fr. Jhoen’s first Sacerdotal Ordination Anniversary and he celebrated it with us at the EDSA Shrine. What a very touching and lovely homily. And I like how he affirmed his commitment and vows:
“Take O Lord and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that I am and all that I possess You have given me. I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more. Dear Jesus, THANK YOU for the grace of Priesthood. Today, I renew my YES. Only YES, always YES. Amen”
I told him we will visit him in Mariveles if we ever swing by Bataan again and he said he will look forward to that. He has just been transferred from Balanga Cathedral last November.
We passed by National Bookstore before we proceeded to the EDSA Shrine, just browsing without any thought of buying anything. Lucky, lucky me, I saw another book of my favorite author, Richard Paul Evans. He is on online friend at Facebook and over the years, I’ve followed every publication of his books, it’s just unfortunate that most of them were destroyed by the flood last year. I only have a copy of his book Grace and this new find. You won’t know how happy I was having found something, a story very fitting for Christmas. The Christmas List was published last year. I get frustrated when I could not find any book by RPE since every year he churns out lovely and intriguing titles. It’s a nice surprise though to be able to find one when you least expect it.
I received an e-mail from one of my close friends that she is coming home for a family reunion by January. She wants us to meet, (the four of us), the student librarians who’ve kept in touch all these years since our college days. Grace is like a big sister to me. She was the one I was closest to when we were at the UST Library more than thirty years ago. She is now based in Canada. Sr. Thea is a Franciscan nun working with the Mangyans in Mindoro and Precy is a successful businesswoman. This is an even a nicer surprise. What more can one ask?
It’s the start of Simbang Gabi tonight here in our place. Wouldn’t want to miss it since I can’t attend the dawn masses which are usually held at 4am. Nine nights of novena then voila, it’s Christmas!
Dreams And Escapes 
Leave a Reply