Broken, Never Forsaken

A few days ago, I was trying to set up our Nativity Christmas décor. Zek and I, in the past years, would design the stable ourselves as part of his art lesson and our bonding tradition. But due to an unforeseen situation., this year will just be the figurine characters and me.

Baby Jesus in a manger. Check.

Mother Mary. Check.

St. Joseph. Check.

Farm Animals. Check.

3 Wise Men and their gifts. Check.

Angel. Hmmmm.

That was when I noticed that the angel figurine was broken.

Both hands were severed and missing while its left wing was detached.

The very first thought that came to my mind was to just keep it out of the Nativity scene and to just throw it away.

Its damaged appearance would not make any good impression of an angel at all.

But come to think of it, its damaged outlook, does not really diminish its vital role in the story of the first Christmas. In Luke 2:8-20, the bible narrated in full how this angel announced the birth of Jesus to a group of young shepherds. And as if by his cue, a choir of angels appeared and sang praises and alleluias. Bearing this good news, the young shepherds look for and found the baby Jesus in a manger and recalled the words of the angel among those present. Mother Mary, upon hearing their testimonies, reflected upon its message.

Realizing and disregarding my first misguided thought, I fixed the detached wing and gently put back the angel figurine in its rightful place.

Our nativity scene is (still) complete.

How blessed our we because our God never thinks about discarding us despite our damaged and deformed spirits. Sinfulness, faithlessness, anxieties and attachment to the tangible world of materialism has affected our image deeply that our heavenly brethren could understandably just cringe in disbelief that we are worthy to be one of them in future. But not God. Not by a long shot in eternity. Behind the struggles He sees each soul with incomparable and indescribable beauty. Beneath the hurts and discouragement, He believes at the limitless potential that everyone can contribute in His over-all plan for man’s salvation. His divine mercy knows no boundaries. He embraces us and envelops us in such a way that we can be made new and spotless.

All He asks from us is a humble, contrite, and forgiving heart.

In this season of Advent, may we all approach and prepare ourselves more inwardly through a meaningful confession.

It's not that the baby Jesus dislikes the swaddling clothes in a manger setting.

But He'd rather be born in each of our pure hearts.

It's the best gift we can give our Savior and Lord.   

Maligayang Pasko po sa ating lahat.

God bless.

Psalm 36:5 - "Lord, your constant love reaches the heavens; your faithfulness extends to the skies."

1 John 1:9 - "But if we confess our sins to God, He will keep His promise and do what is right; He will forgive us our sins and purify us from all our wrongdoings."

Matthew 6:15 - "But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive the wrongs you have done."

The Sound of Prayer

A few days ago, I video-chatted with my family. Our youngest son Aim, barely a year and half by now and upon hearing my voice, climbed the chair and started to talk incessantly towards the laptop to which he is quite sure is where my voice was coming from. I must admit, that I have no idea whatsoever he was talking about except for some ba-ba-da-di sound expressions that I have heard before. I tried to sound-imitate him and the more he kept at it. And I was just more than willing to indulge and engage in his lively-repetitive speech. Zek who was over-hearing our conversation is himself giggling at our amusing talk. He would chimed in once in a while.

 

For that 5-minute duration hearing Aim’s voice, I was all smile.

It was a re-invigorating replenishment of my drained energy after a hard-day’s work.

It was like a breeze of fresh air after a long day of fog, a warm peek of sunshine after hours of dark clouds.

 

As Christians, it is a given that we love God and, as we have been heavenly-ordained, we seek to please Him.

The most basic of ways to do that is by prayer. Fr. Jerry Orbos would often quote, the shortest and quickest line to God is between your knees and the floor.

 

On the other hand and as a result of our spiritual dryness or state of sinfulness, a lot of us are worried that our words might sound gibberish to Him.

Not by a long shot, for He knows us and our individual voices (Psalm 116:1-2) despite our spiritual incoherence.

 

God smiles when we pray to Him.

He smiles not because of our struggles to pray but because He knows we seek Him out, just like a baby or young child, seeking out his parent for his needs.

 

Sounds good for you?

Then let us pray.

 

Lord, I want to make you smile today so I pray today to let my voice be heard by you. I am sorry if my sinfulness, worries, busy-ness are hindering me to make my prayer time, our conversation, more focus and frequent.

Please bless my family always. Thank you and I love you.

 

Broken But Loved

Our 14-month son Aim has inherited a lot of toys from his kuya Zek. And just like any normal toddler boy, he prefers to play with the variety of toy cars, from die-cast to plastic ones, friction-pulled to remote-controlled, fancy sports car to Winnie the Pooh colorful ones. He can busy himself playing with these for long periods of time which gives my wife just about enough breather to switch her energy to Zek’s homeschooling or other pressing chores.

Interestingly and still a bit of a mystery for us though is that Aim’s favorite choice among his car toys are two cars with a distinct feature among the rest. One of their rear wheels is gone. Not sure how it got lost but I am certain that he likes to play with them more than the complete and fully-functional ones. I even tried once to deliberately hide the yellow car below the stacks of other cars only to find Aim once again playing with it a few moments later.

Sounds familiar?

I agree.

Most of us, better yet, all of us have felt or is now feeling broken in our lives. And whether our brokenness was a result of other people's wrongdoings or through our own making, the deep scar and mark it left has somehow affected our set of beliefs that we are still lovable (read: forgivable). And so, left within our own ways, we seek to trap ourselves more in the quagmire of our brokenness, of sinfulness, of the cycle and pattern of pride, lust, anger, envy, jealousy, vanity, materialism or immersions to vices (jobs can be like vices too) or other unhealthy and sinful pursuits just so we can feel "complete" again.

Is there hope for such brokenness?

Yes, there is but only one answer - God.

God is never interested in our brokenness. He sees beyond the "missing wheel" in our seeming directionless lives. He appreciates our true worth that only His heart knows eversince. And he will not stop at anything to seek us out and bring us back to His warm embrace. As Christians, we do know and believe in our hearts that God even sent His only son, Jesus to personally extend out His invitation to be healed so that sinners can be well again in the eyes of God and man.

Mark 2:17 Jesus heard this and said to them (that), "Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners."

Do you feel broken (read: unlovable) in this moment?

Then seek out God's forgiveness through the Sacrament of Confession.

Feel God's forgiveness.

Receive God's unconditional love.