Worship entails Sacrifice (An Exhortation)

Last Tuesday, we had our Cell Group meeting. Our point of discussion was about Sacrifice. We were sharing what are the sacrifices we can offer so that it may enrich the lives of others, in our family, our work and the community we are in. I felt it was a productive and fruitful discussion as it drives us away from ourselves for once and focus on living sacrificially for others more instead.

In a similar sense, whenever we have a community gathering such as today, as I approach worship time, I like to put into heart what St. Paul wrote to the Romans in the very 1^st verse of Chapter 12: “I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.”

Worship entails we sacrifice something. Without sacrifice, we are merely venerating or adoring somebody like we do the saints or our Blessed Mother Mary. If you are in a bad day of coming here today (where your heart and your body are in two opposite spectrum), I wish to tell you to take heart, everyone around here today is already fulfilling a sacrifice for our Lord even just by your mere presence, regardless of your emotional state. And I invite you all to have that mindset and try properly disposing ourselves to worship due to God and God alone by offering ourselves as a living sacrifice, through our presence, through our songs of praise.

EXHORTATION 2017-11-5

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Ants Go Marching One by One & One Stops to Pray to Heaven (An Exhortation)

Good afternoon. Before we begin. Short story. You know my 2 kids, they like to watch YouTube for Kids. (I know bad parenting, right? Give us parents some slack sometimes). Usually what I'll do I cast it on TV using the smartphone, so that they can watch it on TV instead of my phone.

Few weeks ago when we were watching while having our meal, the clips that time were from Super Simple Songs (bunch of kids songs, nursery rhymes and original music, animation pretty good, professionally done). And one of the clips that came up was from a song called "The ants go marching". You know how the song goes... The song also teaches kids how to count. It will say one by one, two by two, etc. and they would show ants marching accordingly to those respective numbers. When the song hits seven, the lyrics went: "The little one stops to pray to heaven..." When my 5 year-old daughter heard the words, she laughed at me and said "Ants pray to heaven??" And asked me "Dad, do ants really pray to heaven?" I told her "You'll never know, perhaps they do. We don't speak ant, we dont understand Ant language. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But one thing I know, in the Bible, in the book of Daniel, I said to my daughter, there's a passage wherein it says "All the birds in the air, bless the Lord. All the fish in the sea, bless the Lord." There is a litany of all the creation of God blessing and praising God repeatedly like praying the rosary and totally biblical. It was a light hearted moment for us, but what seems whimsical made me realize something, "If--biblically--the animals, nature and all of God's creation are invited to praise the Lord, how much more will our heavenly Father long for the praise and worship of His people?

Something to chew on in our disposition this moment as we begin to worship our Lord.

Exhortation 2018-3-4

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Enter by the Narrow Gate (An Exhortation)

Good Evening brothers and sisters.

Few times I heard over the radio, a 42 year-old evangelist Chris Stefanick, once recount he and his wife had a fight. He said, after a fight with his wife, he was complaining to God "Why does this have to be about her?" "Can it be about me?" and God spoke to him in his heart. GOD said: "You have every right to make it all about you, to put your own needs 1st, you have every right to be average, to be ordinary and not to become a Saint." Suffice to say he retracted his prayer and in retrospect he think God wasn't only calling him to Holiness but to happiness.

I think it is a good reminder for me being in the community as well, especially whenever I find myself complaining in my service, why do I have to sacrifice my family time and personal life for others, why cant I just do the bare minimum and just sit on the sideline? I always have the choice to make it all about me, to be average, to be ordinary. Come to think of it, there are a lot of people like this already in this world, I am adding up to that number.

Instead a Bible verse in Matthew 7 came to mind. Jesus said "Enter by the narrow gate, since the road that leads to destruction is wide and spacious, and many take it. But it is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

I was also reminded of quotations from 2 of the more prominent saints in our time. One is from Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, when she said: "Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love." St. Josemaria Escriva, in the very 1st lines of his book "The Way," once wrote: "Don't let your life be sterile. Be useful. Blaze a trail. Shine forth with the light of your faith and of your love... Don't fly like a barnyard hen when you can soar like an eagle."

As we prepare to worship our Lord, I would like to invite you to join me or at least include in your prayers tonight to ask the Lord for the grace to Enter by the Narrow gate. To do small things with great love.

Let us stand and pray:
"Lord we stand before you here tonight because we want grow in holiness with you and for you. Create in us a clean heart, renew the right spirit and we will offer sacrifices of praise to you, O Lord tonight." Amen.

Exhortation 2018-6-15

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