living intensely

May 16, 2015

It is a great pleasure and a privilege to be with friends in the Philippines once again. This time we are gathered at the Trappistine Monastery near the southern city of General Santos. Yesterday I shared a few reflections with the 30+enclosed nuns at the monastery and last night our community of friends gathered from GenSan, Cebu and Manila and other places.

The key word in our gathering is friendship. This is not a friendship that we have created or achieved. It is the simple and immediate fruit abundant among people who seek to follow Christ. We may not have spent much time together, nor know each other very well, but the friendship that we share is one of the greatest human experiences.

Our desire in being together is nothing more than to help each other to follow Christ. We do this not by designing programmes and networking, but simply by following Christ ourselves, knowing that only Christ can adequately answer the needs of the human heart.

Our problem is that we fail to understand a fundamental fact: that is that it is Christ who first calls us, and Christ who comes to us in the midst of whatever circumstances and reality we find ourselves in this moment. Our task is not so much to discover Christ, but to know that the one who seeks to live reality intensely quickly realises that Christ is present and active in this reality.

More later.

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Posts

building bridges

building bridges

It’s hard not to accept this evidence of unity as an answer to prayer and a sign of divine intervention

consecrated

consecrated

It really highlighted how rich the church is in its diversity but also it’s unity in our common faith

Leo on Augustine

Leo on Augustine

You might appreciate this brief clip of Pope Leo (in English) introducing us to Augustine.

Leo XIV

Leo XIV

In Aotearoa we feel a connection with our new pope since he grew up speaking and thinking in our language.

an answer…

an answer…

The clear evidence is that the Holy Spirit has spoken and has been heard