Evelyn R. Luab
Columns
Friendship is a two-way street
FRIENDSHIP cannot and must not be a one-way street. Many of us are givers and a lesser number are takers. I’m sure a great number of people share this experience.
We who are givers are sometimes pushed to a corner, cleverly manipulated by a friend into doing something we do not want to do. Many times we are bombarded with cunning manipulations which, while sly, can be so transparent. We see through a ruse that redounds on the taker’s comfort, his or her laziness and total disregard for our dignity as a person.
The struggle to love one another
GOD has spoken to us many times in the Scriptures about love. The hardest order that sticks in my mind is “Love one another as I have loved you.”
After 25 minutes of meditation last April 27, Fr. Martin Tobin CSsR read the Gospel of John where this command was recorded. When Fr. Martin reads or says anything from the Scriptures, the words come from his heart and anyone who hears the words knows and feels the weight of the word of God.
The need to belong
I once saw a movie whose title I’ve forgotten but I remember that Donald Sutherland had the lead role. He was one of the psychiatrists of a juvenile correctional institution. To make a long story short, Donald had to take care of a teenager who came from a broken home, whose mother had married someone else, and whose father did not love him. The boy’s only link to family was an older brother who was such a bad influence on the young boy that things grew from bad to worse.
We need to see the Rainbows
I’VE been living alone for six months now and I do have enough privacy for reflections. Last April 19 and 20, I had the most beautiful of surprises.
The value of complete attention
COMMON decency, politeness, require that one responds to any person who talks by giving him our complete attention. Because of my having been an English teacher for around 20 years, my ears are attuned to words that come my way. My being a mother of five daughters, plus being a grandma to nine people of varied ages, has given me a lot of practice in the beauty of listening. At seminars, public forums, at Masses, I listen to speakers even if they are not that good. Many times, prepared talks have enough meat in them even if the speaker is not adept at public speaking.
Done for good
I’VE been very open about my great respect for the Redemptorist community here in Cebu. I love the church and what it stands for.
While I have been living in Talamban for six months now, I still am one of thousands who seek comfort within the walls where such Disciples of Christ in the great Order of Melchizedik walk.
It is never too late to start
CEBU still has so many beautiful places. Traveling from Cebu to (the town of) Medellin can be so breathtaking. But what really caught my breath was the view from my room 610 of the Queen’s Island Resort in Medellin.
Jesus Christ is risen
TODAY is the greatest feast in our Catholic calendar. Because of Jesus’ death on the cross for us and His rising from the dead, we too will rise from the dead and as our belief goes, “live happily ever after.” However, I am not looking that far yet. I am living in the now and saying, “Jesus is in you and in me.”
Focus on the essentials
WHEN you love someone, you give full disclosure of your heart and your mind. You bare your soul. You do not stop to think of how vulnerable you can get. To God baring one’s soul is no problem.
This season of Lent is the time for all of us to accept that we can never be perfect. Therefore we cannot expect others to be perfect too.
Physical pain
WHENEVER relics of saints arrive in Cebu, we realize that there are really so many suffering souls in our midst. Some travel even from distant places just to come here to ask for mercy (from the visiting saints). Volunteers who watch the relics speak of aches in their hearts as they see the desperate eyes (of the faithfl) lifted in supplication.
