Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Pre-wedding jitters

Before the blog entry, please help me to pray for the following intentions:

  1. For the sick: Fr. Gircour, Fr. Cesar, Jan O.'s mom;
  2. For the Salesians (of both FIN and FIS provinces) who are in retreat;
  3. For Pia's husband who will be taking the state board;
  4. For the poor and abandoned youth; and
  5. For the repose of the soul of Br. Berns Villasanta, SDB.

***

I suck when it comes to numbers.

I remember flunking Chemistry when I was in third year high school—the only subject I failed for the past 20 or so years of my academic life. Balancing the atomic weight of elements really frustrated me to the hilt!

Studies in college was a cinch compared with the demands of high school, but it was still a struggle for me to get a decent grade in Algebra, the only math subject I took in college (I chose AB in Communication Arts precisely for that reason!). At the end of the semester, a glimmering 2.75 erased all my fears in offering my parents another failing mark.

After that harrowing semester, the streak of 1.00 grades started to pour in. My name made it in the dean's list, and the most delicious part was I enjoyed 50% off the matriculation fee.

Now, why did I talk about this?

Yesterday, a mail landed in my inbox. It's from Fr. Roger Miranda, a Salesian missionary in Papua New Guinea, reminding me that it's 29 days to go before the day of reckoning. Oh boy! It’s less than a month to go before I vow myself to be obedient, chaste, and poor.

But for some strange reasons, the two-digit number did not cause me much anxiety, but the next line in his mail did: "I make the vow for...till death do us part..."

Commitment, I realized, horrifies me than numbers. It puts me in such a debilitating state that I feel so helpless. It paralyzes me; it conquers the best in me. I was with a close buddy yesterday via IM and I shared with him this dilemma, I was consoled because he helped me name the enemy: pre-wedding jitters.

These days, I'm really praying so hard that I may be able to live up to the challenge of setting aside all the rest so that I may only have Christ in my heart. And nothing else.

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