True North Missionaries Journal

I’ve always wondered why The Presentation of Our Lord  is one of the Joyful Mysteries. It never made sense to me how Mama Mary remained so joyful when she received the prophecy from Simeon. He explained to her that:

. . . this child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too (Luke 2:34-35).

In fact, the prophecy of Simeon is actually one of the Seven Sorrows of Mary. How could this moment be both joyful AND sorrowful at the same time? It was in this moment that Mama Mary caught a glimpse of the weight of her own cross, the cross of obediently surrendering of her only son for the salvation of humanity… the very cross that will pierce her own soul. 

Perhaps her joy was in the act of letting go. She must have understood that in letting her Son go, she not only entrusted Jesus to the Father but her own soul to Him as well. By surrendering her life to the Father, she made way for her unwaivering faith to grow all the more. And–if you really think about it–what did she really have to lose in placing all of her trust in a faithful and loving God? In her obedience and trust, she allowed herself to experience the fullness of God’s plan in her life. She experienced the Lord’s eternal mercy pour out of her pierced heart, leading her to witness the Lord’s love conquer her life.

As I reflect on my own life, there is no doubt that Lord is asking me to surrender myself to Him. He asks the same of all of us, actually. Most of the time I blind myself from the blessings to come because I am too focused on what he asks of me to give up. I can’t help but ask myself, ‘Jess, what is the posture of your surrender?’ However, there are four messages from the Lord that still resonate loud clear from our past MV Shout, one of which is this:

“Let go of this so I can show you more.“

Mama Mary, please pray for us. Show us how to be obedient to the Lord’s call just as you were because of your unwaivering faith. May you continually pull our hand so that  we may meet Christ at the foot of His of cross and experience the Lord’s never ending blessings.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.

AMDG.

We met in the school year of 2000. I was a little girl who enjoyed playing with my friends during lunch break. One day, she joined my group of friends because she had a fight with her own group of friends. It was crazy because I had never known her or seen her before that, but little did I know that that day would mark the start of a beautiful friendship. What originally was a group of 6, came down to only the two of us as the years went by. We were in grade 4 at that time and up until we graduated high school, we were inseparable.

She stuck with me, I stuck with her even though we were complete opposites. I hated most of the things she liked, she almost always disapproved things I liked. People kept saying I was the nicer one but little do they know how much she’s taught me. She taught me a lot of things that I bring to this day.

The joy of the life giving friendship we have, I carry up to this day. Even though the last time I saw her was two years ago, or the last time I talked to her, I can’t even remember. But she has created such a great impact in my life. The Lord was really taking care of me through her. I valued friendships because she helped me see how fruitful they can be when you take care of people. I learned to accept myself because she showed me that I don’t have to change for us to be able to relate to each other. Even when she was struggling, she remained selfless and suffered silently. I learned a lot about patience because I saw how patient she was with me.

Indeed I am truly blessed for He has given me friendships that have given me life. Indeed I am truly blessed for He continues to give me friendships that give me life.

Lord, I adore You for You love me so greatly. Open my heart, help me to love like You.

The priest from last Sunday’s mass posed a question at the beginning of the mass that really struck me. He asked, “How far would you go in following Christ?” How far can we actually go in serving Him? Are we willing to just drop everything and follow Him like what the disciples did? Are we mission ready?

It seems very easy to answer, but actually it’s hard. A good amount of us would say “to the ends of the earth but…” or “wherever He calls me but..” Most of the time we are very willing to say yes, but we always have our “buts and ifs.”

One of the songs that is stuck on my head from the recent TNC is the song “Mission Ready.” As the song goes

“We’re ready to go for Your glory, Shouting a praise, Oh God Almighty, To be salt of the earth and light to the world For You, Jesus

We’re laying down our fears and worries, Your love will lead us to our victories, To be salt of the earth and light to the world For You, Jesus”

After listening to this song, a lot of questions came to my mind. Am I ready to proclaim His words? Am I ready to be the salt of the earth and light to the world? Am I ready to lay down all my fears and worries and just follow Him? My answer? I don’t know, but I trust in Him that He would reveal it to me at the right time. He would know when the right time would be. All I have to do is to wait. Like what Jesus did. He didn’t bother the Father to simply reveal everything to Him and get everything done. He waited. He waited for the right time and the right place to reveal God’s plans and to fulfill them. He waited for God’s time.

I am firm believer of the phrase, “God will never put you in a situation where He knows you can’t handle it.” Sometimes, God has planned us to go through various victories and obstacles because He wants to prepare us for our mission. Sometimes, it would be easy, sometimes it would be hard, but the time to be mission ready for Him will eventually come, in His time.

With God: Nothing is impossible and our impossible turns into nothing.

The year 2013 was probably the most difficult time of my life so far. I lost someone special to me, various changes happened in my life, and I’ve been through a lot. Little did I know, God is preparing me for something greater. Yes, it was tough, but at the end of all of it, He made me stronger and looked at life in a different angle. Being able to experience all those struggles allowed me to let God take care of the rest and I was able to learn to fully trust in Him and all His plans. I realised those struggles were really not struggles, but blessings.

Following Him doesn’t only involve us, but Him within us.  In order for us to follow Him, we need to let Him work within us first. Most of the time, we tend to live in our own “secured” worlds. Secured: because sometimes we tend to ignore Him even though He is just right there. Sometimes, we close our doors to Him because we don’t want His way to happen. Sometimes we have the tendency to not let Him work through us. Sometimes we are just so afraid of what could happen so we choose to turn our back away, but sometimes it’s okay to be scared. Changes happen because the Lord wants to prepare us for our greater mission. In every mission, there is a change. Changes happen so we can grow and be closer to Him. I know sometimes, change seem so scary, but it’s okay. Being scared is perfectly normal, but we just have to remember that the Lord is always with us. With the grace of the Lord, our impossibilities turn into nothing.

If the Lord is limitless, so can we; if we just have to allow Him to work through us, with us, and in us.

Praise God!

Lord, help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly,
That my life may only be a radiance of Yours.

Shine through me, and be so in me
That every soul I come in contact with
May feel Your presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!

Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine,
So to shine as to be a light to others;
The light, O Jesus will be all from You; none of it will be mine;
It will be you, shining on others through me.

Let me thus praise You the way You love best, by shining on those around me.
Let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by my example,
By the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do,
The evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You. Amen.

I’ve been dipping my feet into my new service and area for the past several months, but it wasn’t until a week ago when I took the full plunge. The first few days were a whirlwind of excitement and activities, but as the week tapered off, I was able to find some quietness and attend mass in the mornings. It was invigorating and it allowed me to re-align my heart each day, and what a blessing it was to begin my day with the Eucharist, even before breakfast!

Wednesday was my first morning mass in Oakville. After it ended, I gently walked out of the chapel and into the main Church. The lights were off and only the sunlight was shining in. The last time I had knelt here was during the first year of my MV shout and my prayers then were certainly different from how they are now. God had somehow known that it would take me this long to finally dive in and move… I know that You knew. I kneeled there and I chose to lay it all before Him again. Lord, I know that what awaits me is greater than all I am leaving behind. And in the silence of my heart, He knew what I was asking. I didn’t even have to say it, but He knew. I will take care of your family, He said. And with that I slowly rose, wiping the tears that had somehow sprung onto my cheek.

That night, I had a long conversation with my mum via Facebook chat and text. She told me that my dad hasn’t been able to sleep because he’s been worried about me, and he’s anxious about my move. I told her, “I’ve been praying a lot and all God keeps telling me is to trust Him… no one can take better care of you guys than Him.”

Fast forward a few days to Saturday – the CFC 20 Years Gala. (Oh, by the way, to provide some context, my family lives in Ottawa, which is 5 or so hours from Toronto/Hamilton, my new and current service area.)

We had arrived at the banquet hall early Saturday morning, and throughout the day, I was eagerly checking my phone in anticipation for my parents’ call. They had left Ottawa very early and were going to make it just in time for lunch. I was helping put up the set design, and because it was a larger task than we had initially anticipated, I had to forego lunch with my family but asked them to drop by anyway so I can see them. When my phone rang and the message, “We’re here” flashed on the screen, I literally jumped up and ran outside. My parents were stretching and lit up when they saw me. After giving my family hugs, I looked up at the car and asked, “Where’s the van?”
“It couldn’t make the long drive down.”
“Oh…” I was a little confused because our van isn’t old and has driven extremely long distances without fail.
“It’s getting fixed,” my mom replied.
“Wait, what? Why is it getting fixed?”
“Dad got into an accident.”
In my mind, since my dad was before me, I figured the car got knicked or scratched, or maybe we got rear-ended again like last year.
“What happened?” My parents looked uneasy.
“We didn’t want to scare you because you were here… but dad got hit last week by a drunk driver.” My mind began reeling and everything thereafter seemed to be accompanied by loud buzzing. The van, in fact, was not getting fixed… it had gotten completely totalled.

From the pieces I can put together from this, and consequent conversations, basically, Wednesday night/early Thursday morning my dad was going home from his sister’s house in the suburbs (Barrhaven), and on the way home a driver collided with him, almost head on. My dad’s cousin, my aunt, was driving behind him and the incoming driver then swerved and hit her afterwards, but it was my dad who took most of the blow. The roads from my house and my aunt’s are surrounded by farmland and are generally poorly lit. From what my aunt saw, she says that our car flew over the ditch on the side of the road and landed straight into the adjacent field. The paramedics said he just missed a tree by two feet.

There are so many “what ifs” with this situation. What if my dad had panicked and pressed on his breaks rather than sped up? What if he fell into the ditch? What if he had hit the tree? All these things were flying through my mind, but the only thing that became increasingly evident was God’s providence in the entire ordeal. What if, what if, what if… But after every what if, the only answer is: Praise God, it didn’t.

I said it to my mum earlier that night, and it has only become clearer. No one can take better care of my family than He who gave them to me. No amount of savings, no amount of working, no amount of time, not of any of that… He can take better care of them than I ever could.

Take care of what matters to God, and He will take care of what matters to you.

 

….
P.S.
Father, thank You.

Coming into the SFC Crossroads Weekend, I couldn’t help but feel kind of nervous because…

ONE – it’s my first time meeting everyone in SFC Israel
TWO – After meeting everyone, I was overwhelmed because they were all much older than I am, seeing I’m turning 23 this year, and a good majority of them were in their late 30’s, and the rest were older than me for sure (I was the youngest!) – and of the four of us, myself and Christian were assigned to SFC (AND THEY’RE ALL SISTERS – with the exception of 2 brothers)
THREE – Taking the above 2 in consideration, I was to give Session 4, which includes an open forum/ panel, and a talk all about vocations!

It was a little shaky at first – it was the phase where some of them were hesitant to talk to us. It might have been because we’re young missionaries. It might also be because we’re foreigners. But it might have also been because they just didn’t know how to approach us. But God never fails to push us harder to grow to become better and better brothers and sisters made in our Father’s image. So despite our discomforts, the four of us pulled out the social card and did our best to talk to everyone.

We stayed up late on the first night, realizing we might have to adjust small details of our sessions, having only about 1 hour of sleep left until the day was to begin. When it came to giving our sessions, I believe the Spirit really opened the door for all of us… As I stood at the front, I realized one thing…

Age doesn’t matter. 

Besides from journeying and discerning for our vocations, by the end of the Weekend, we were all reminded that whatever it is, all it takes is the beginning desire for God. That is what will lead us towards our vocations, and that is what drives out the fear in our hearts to do the things we might feel we can’t. I know it is what made me capable to deliver the session… A desire to love God above all else and to be used by Him Who IS Love.

After the Weekend, my fears had disappeared. Although they are older, I am affirmed that we are all treading the same journey… the journey to holiness. and that is a journey that cannot be defined by age. The participants even came up to some of us, asking for one on ones, and telling us to visit their areas, and that they were excited for the next event! PRAISE GOD!!!

I AM SO BLESSED! All I know that in what I have been experiencing, God is continuously molding my heart to just simply love. And because of that, I know that in Him, I can be used so that my life will make Him capable in my journey and the journeys of those around me. All I know is that He is always molding us for something greater. Whether that is Marriage, Single-Blessedness, or Religious Life (Holy Orders), WE ARE BLESSED!

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!