ADORATION AND PRAYER

"For I know the plans I have for you, " declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:11-13)

I grew up believing that adoration was demonstrated by going to church on Sundays and receiving Holy Communion. In our humble abode, as common to every Filipino home, was an altar, a special niche or corner, where images of the Crucified Christ, the Virgin Mary, or most of the time, the "Sagrada Familia", the Holy Family, were enshrined and worshiped. We prayed for our dead family and relatives on All Souls Day. I made the sign of the cross whenever I passed by a church, and stopped and paused in reverence when the church bells tolled for the Angelus. I grew up to believe that I would be holy by keeping the commandments. I practiced my religion because I did not want to go to hell, as my catechism teacher taught me. I prayed, not to praise and thank God, but mostly to ask for personal petitions, believing that God had all the answers.

I attended the central (elementary) school and the local community high school. There were five children in the family, and I was the first to get a secondary education. My family lived in poverty. My father was a farmer, and my mother did the laundry by hand for the wealthy families in my town. My parents did not have the means to send me on to a university, so I quit school, got involved in the church choir, sang at weddings and funerals, and rendered voluntary service in running the rectory office while my high school buddies were enrolled in universities in Manila. I prayed that whatever the Lord's plan was for me will be done. I was then offered a 4-year academic scholarship at a branch of the nation's leading teacher-training university. After four years of study, I was conferred a bachelor's degree in elementary education, then started a career in teaching.

Daisy and I got married in 1982. We started to raise a family - two sons born five years apart. At this time, we were now teaching at the same school, and all seemed to be okay with our teaching careers.

It is easy to worship God when things are going great in your life - when He has provided food, friends, family, health, and happy situations. But circumstances are not always pleasant. How do you worship God then? What do you do when God seems a million away?

In 1990, on our way home from a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Manaoag in the province of Pangasinan and a side trip to the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in Baguio City, the passenger jeepney we were riding in collided with a ten-wheeler truck. The mishap which happened in the wee hours of the morning resulted in the loss of several relatives and close friends. My wife suffered fracture of the sacro-iliac joints that temporarily incapacitated and confined her in a hospital for at least a month. My son's left and right femurs were badly fractured, and I was unable to walk for a month with almost the same injury as my wife's, only hers was much worse. Chester was in a cast from the waist down. We were both in the same hospital room, but it broke my heart into pieces to not being able to comfort him in his pain. Moreover, the thought that my wife was in a different hospital agonizing alone, pieced my heart even more. Chester and I were dismissed from the hospital after a month. Daisy stayed back for further treatment.

On the day Daisy was being transported from the hospital to the province where we lived, there was an earthquake with an intensity that rendered all mountain roads impassable. She had to stay and live with a mountain ethnic tribe before she was finally carried in a cloth hammock by the tribesmen through treacherous ravines and cliffs, to the roads that were not disturbed by the quake and on to our home.

Our home was virtually a hospital with beds in the living room. It was convenient for us to not climb to the bedrooms upstairs. At the age of two, Kevin did not really comprehend what was happening. It was a long road to recovery. My fractures healed in a month, and soon I was able to walk. But Chester had to undergo two more surgeries to put implants in his thighs and remove them when his thighbones totally healed. He showed so much courage and tolerance at a young age of 8.

Psalm 55:17 says, "Evening and morning, and at noon, I will pray and cry aloud; and He shall hear my voice." To ask God "Why me? Why us?" would have been my cry. How could I have worshiped God when He seemed to have abandoned me and my family? How could I have put all my faith in Him when the tragedy caused me to lose my relatives and friends? I found myself praying like I never prayed before. I thanked and praised God for saving us from a near-death experience. I continued to trust Him in spite of my feelings. I worshiped Him in the deepest way.

Psalm 55:22 "Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you, he will never let the righteous fall." The outpouring of love from our friends and family was phenomenal. Aside from our Catholic friends, a group of Christian friends would visit us regularly and prayed over for my family. My family prayed constantly with relatives and friends. In those times of uncertainty, of physical ache, emotional pain, and mental anguish, I felt closer to God. I praised Him and talked to Him and trusted that these would soon be over. (Psalm 30:5) Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.

I sometimes forget the cruel the details of the agonizing sacrifice God made on my behalf. Even before His crucifixion the son of God was stripped naked, beaten until almost unrecognizable, whipped scorned and mocked, crowned with thorns, and spit on contemptuously. Abused and ridiculed by heartless men, He was treated worse than an animal.

As Jesus took all of mankind's sin and guilt on himself, God looked away from that ugly sight, and Jesus cried out in total desperation, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Jesus could have saved himself - but then He could not have saved me. He could not have saved you.

My personal relationship with God is deeper in the sense that I can talk to Him anytime, even when I'm driving. My mind has found peace since I put all my trust in Him. I don't worry about things anymore for I believe that God will take care of them. He will make things happen in His time.

When we no longer worry, when we pray about everything, when we give thanks, when we focus on the right things, the apostle Paul tells us the result is, "The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:7)

Adoration is much more than church services with singing, praying, and listening to the readings and the homily. Adoration is anything we do that brings pleasure to God. The Bible says, "The Lord is pleased with those who worship him and trust his love." (Psalm 147:11)

If you look at the Lord's Prayer, you will see that it reflects praying together: Our Father...give us...our daily bread...forgive us our debts...as we also have forgiven our debtors...lead us not into temptation...deliver us...(Matthew 6:9-13) There is power in group prayer.

My family belongs to a group that prays the rosary to our Lady of Fatima. On designated weekends, the image is brought to a home where we share the gospel for the day, pray the Holy Rosary and litany together, and the host family will continue the novena for nine days. After at least two weeks in a home, we take the Image of the Virgin Mary to the next home. We gather together with one purpose, that is, to praise God and pray for the intercession of the Blessed Virgin in our petitions.

Praying at meals is another form of group prayer. Our family holds hands; sometimes we pray sentence prayers such as thank you prayers for what God had done for us. When we are with friends, we hold hands in a circle and pray before the meal. Praying together is another form of worshiping God. The Lord says, "For where two or three have gathered in My name, I am there in their midst." (Matthew 18:20)

In Matthew 11:25-30, Jesus says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Meditating on the verse, "Master, I want to see" (Mark 10:46-52), two thoughts jump out of me. First Jesus is asking us like he asked the blind man, "What do you want me to do for you?" and 'What is the blindness that I possess?' In my contemplation, perhaps what I really need for Him to do for me is to first identify my blindness. I may not be aware that I am not seeing the truth in any particular area of my life. Amidst all the happenings in my everyday life and the calamities, conflicts, injustice, terrorism, moral degradation, and frailties in the world today, will I call out to Him to stop and have mercy on me?

I will make it my prayer.

Will it be your prayer, too?#