PARADOXICAL

"We have no connections (in government, in the corporate world), but we have the best connection of all: God."

-O., when talking about her son J., who's having a hard time finding OJT placement position because of his height.

He is gentle and will not break a blade of grass
He is powerful and can make the volcano roar

He will give a drop of water
but can send a raging deluge

He offers serenity and peace
but can brew storms and darkness

seek His mercy and love
fear His justice and wrath

for He is the Lord
Who gives and takes away

eastwind [1613]

God needs your will to fulfill His will
you need God’s will to fulfill yours
the partnership is like wind and sail
in the open ocean

God is the wind that blows
without which the ship goes nowhere
You are the sail that catches the Wind
without which the ship goes nowhere

the total surrender of your will
through darkness or light
is part of God’s sacred plan
it is the partnership of destiny

eastwind [1608]

Fr. Cres beautifully summarizes the Christian way.

People: love
Material things: detachment
Self: offering

I am disturbed, though, how he emphasized on love. He said, “It’s not our duty to try to change people.” Nowhere in the Bible is it ever stated. What Jesus commanded us to do is love." Fr. Cres must have meant, “Love anyway,” echoing Mother Teresa.

But doesn’t the Bible say we should correct brothers and sisters if we really love them, if we really care about their own salvation? Didn’t Jesus Christ rhetorically say, “I came to sow division between brother and brother, father and son, etc.”

Maybe I read the priest wrongly. Maybe he wasn’t referring to fraternal correction at all, but to the compelling desire or temptation to try to change others to the person we want them to be, which doesn’t mean forsaking our duty to correct someone committing wrongdoing, but to love anyway. If that’s the case, then he is right. After we have done our part, i.e., the duty to remind fellow Christians of the right thing to do, we are left to just pray and hope, hoping that the wayward brother or sister will change his/her ways -- and most importantly for us to love him/her anyway.