The second time I visited Malasa is an event filled with hope and joyous. It was then a Sunday of Advent – season of cheerful expectation for the birth of the Savior. The roads leading to Malasa were decorated with pomp and elegance, considering with passed through Pampanga which is rather known for their Christmas decorations. I was then excited to return to this community, after my experience with them. And the spectacles along the way seemed to provide good omens and promises yet another inspiring encounter with these people of God.
We were tasked to facilitate the community’s Advent Recollection. For my part, I was assigned to give a small sharing with the group of mothers. I explained to them the mystery of Incarnation and its importance in our lives. It was tough one though. It was very difficult to look for images and events through which I could explained this mystery of God becoming man. But what inspired me most, in that Sunday apostolate is my encounter with the little children who were playing outside the Chapel, while their mothers were attending to some things inside. These children were running around, playing, and shouting each other, sharing the meager food brought by the brothers. The usual stuff the children do, then I thought. I sat in front of the chapel, looking after the kinds, while it was the turn of the other brothers to do their sharing. I observed how joyful these children were, how satisfied they were in the simplicity of their lives, how less complicated their lives were (compared to ours from the Metropolis). I prayed then that they would remain to be such: happy, satisfied, less complicated. I prayed too that I would be like them: happy, satisfied, less complicated.
In them I saw the hope of this community. In them I saw the hope brought by the God-made-man. Through these children, if only they would remain as such, the kingdom of heaven would surely dawn on this part of the world as it deed thousand of years ago in Bethlehem.
No comments:
Post a Comment