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Spiritual Sunday teaches all about life and our Big Boss.
Happy Easter, folks! Today is the culmination of the Passion of Jesus which covers the Lent, a season of prayer, fasting, and penance for Christians all over the world. Growing up, I participated in church activities from hearing mass on Ash Wednesday to being an angel on Easter Sunday. I sacrificed waking up at the dusk of dawn to sit in the 5-AM mass at the Cathedral and later on at Philippine Independent Church. I was that very keen child who wanted to comprehend what the adults were doing so I always joined them. But as we learned about the truth, all practices and traditions were cut. No Lenten observation at all and the Holy Week became an opportunity to clean the house. And after many years, the Holy Week became an opportunity to go on vacation for the whole family!
However, having gone out of town for consecutive months this year, I asked myself, “Is this still right?” Then I answered back myself, “It is not at all!” So I decided to just stay put this Holy Week. I’ve been flying, roaming, packing. Yes, this is a dream come true but I got worn out. Plus, there’s this social media that I have to attend to. Travel, post, travel, post. I haven’t even finished blogging about Cambodia and the little escapades we had around the Philippine islands. It’s just that, I couldn’t keep up anymore plus the events we had in school and the customers to cater at the store, oh, I just got jaded! Additionally, my thesis is still keep hanging so I told myself to just stay at home for Holy Week.
In so doing, I also added some “disciplines” as an act to observe Holy Week. Although penance, fasting, and sacrifice are acts of human effort, I wanted to do such things again as an offering to Jesus. With that, I only had white meat (fish and chicken), vegetables, and fruits in our menu. Of course, the quite time remains as is but it’s longer than the usual I’m having. And last Palm Sunday, I got unwired to shut myself up from social media!
For a week, I didn’t do Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and I also didn’t attend to phone calls and text messages. Believe it or not, I survived and actually starting to like it! It feels good that once in a while, we get to stop doing the things we always do every minute, every second, and every hour of the day. Well, I admit that I’m already an FB addict so this is really good for me. As soldiers retreat, we can also press the pause button to declutter our activities because for some of us, this is what we badly need. In so doing, we can have time to arrange our priorities. And if we already get confused with all our busyness, we can also choose to be still. We can try to ignore and not to attend to some things that are not really important. Yes, I’ve tried this and it feels great not to be disturbed by the outside world!
But ignoring for a long time is not good. I couldn’t ignore my friends longer for I might lose them. I couldn’t ignore too many customers for I might lose my business. And I couldn’t ignore my followers for I might lose my social media status. Hehe…. Such celebrity syndrome I have! Well, I guess I just have to post the most important posts and cut on group chats. I have to limit my social media time because it is adding up to my stress already. If a certain thing is already a stressor, then better get rid of it. But I’m not getting rid of the internet completely. I just have to use it moderately and wisely because my Lenten lesson this year is to get unwired!
Now I urge you, my brothers and sisters to relish the moment of being still and keeping quiet while shutting yourself up from the noise of this world for all these shall come to pass! Soak yourself with the word of God and spend time with Him for it is only in Him that we can find things eternal! 🙂
Stop, retreat, pause, be still, get unwired!
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Easter Sunday: The Symbolism of the Easter Eggs
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