I just came back from Landings retreat which is sort of the closure of Landing run (actually there are 2 more sessions to go) that I am currently in. Honestly I felt kinda lazy since I just attended a retreat earlier this year and I wanted my weekend to settle things after my Japan trip. Well God is kind and despite my reservations, I come home feeling blessed.
The retreat was held at FMM (Franciscan Missionaries of Mary) House of Prayer and Formation. The atmosphere is similar to Choice Retreat House as the building feels rather old. FMM has bigger canteen, hall, and greeneries. I am alright with the dormitory style of the bed area. However toilet is something that I really cannot tahan. There is no hot water and one of the toilets did not flush. Eeeww...
The main points that I take home from this retreat are:
The retreat was held at FMM (Franciscan Missionaries of Mary) House of Prayer and Formation. The atmosphere is similar to Choice Retreat House as the building feels rather old. FMM has bigger canteen, hall, and greeneries. I am alright with the dormitory style of the bed area. However toilet is something that I really cannot tahan. There is no hot water and one of the toilets did not flush. Eeeww...
The main points that I take home from this retreat are:
-Love language
There are various ways we show and perceive love: words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, physical touch. Different people have different styles and many times this is the root cause of misunderstanding "If you love me, why you never do xxxxx" vs "I love you by doing xxxx. Why don't you appreciate?".
I have to reflect to know myself better since the love language towards God and towards humans may be different.
There are various ways we show and perceive love: words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, physical touch. Different people have different styles and many times this is the root cause of misunderstanding "If you love me, why you never do xxxxx" vs "I love you by doing xxxx. Why don't you appreciate?".
I have to reflect to know myself better since the love language towards God and towards humans may be different.
-God substitutes
God is the source of love but often we stray for Him and try finding His substitutes in the forms of wealth, pleasure, power, honour. I have gone past wealth, power and honour but I am definitely still struggling with pleasure. I am not saying that the first three are not important to me. It is just that they are not that important compared to pleasure or being happy. I see no point of being wealthy and influential if I feel miserable. My pursuit of happiness makes me very selfish and impatient when my happiness/comfort/'me' time is affected. I also often think about death since I see no purpose of living longer since I am quite happy with my life on earth.
I also learn something meaningful about the Eucharist. The body and blood are separated as they represent death. After the bread is broken, the priest will put some of the bread into the wine and this unity of body and blood represents resurrection. I was also reminded that Mass is a celebration for Jesus and the focus should be Him, and not me. That means even if I feel miserable or if I don't feel that I get anything or whatever negative feelings I have, these are not good enough reasons to skip Mass and I should still go for God.
The unexpected surprise from this retreat was the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I missed going before Easter and I thought the next one I go will be this coming Christmas. I am happy that I managed to go yesterday. I had to write down the list of sins on a piece of paper (later to be burnt) and I felt I had a lot. However after the confession, I am reminded again of the gift from this Sacrament: I really felt lighter as if the burden in my heart was lifted.
God is the source of love but often we stray for Him and try finding His substitutes in the forms of wealth, pleasure, power, honour. I have gone past wealth, power and honour but I am definitely still struggling with pleasure. I am not saying that the first three are not important to me. It is just that they are not that important compared to pleasure or being happy. I see no point of being wealthy and influential if I feel miserable. My pursuit of happiness makes me very selfish and impatient when my happiness/comfort/'me' time is affected. I also often think about death since I see no purpose of living longer since I am quite happy with my life on earth.
I also learn something meaningful about the Eucharist. The body and blood are separated as they represent death. After the bread is broken, the priest will put some of the bread into the wine and this unity of body and blood represents resurrection. I was also reminded that Mass is a celebration for Jesus and the focus should be Him, and not me. That means even if I feel miserable or if I don't feel that I get anything or whatever negative feelings I have, these are not good enough reasons to skip Mass and I should still go for God.
The unexpected surprise from this retreat was the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I missed going before Easter and I thought the next one I go will be this coming Christmas. I am happy that I managed to go yesterday. I had to write down the list of sins on a piece of paper (later to be burnt) and I felt I had a lot. However after the confession, I am reminded again of the gift from this Sacrament: I really felt lighter as if the burden in my heart was lifted.
While confession was a good surprise, I also had a bad surprise. One session was a group prayer in which everyone had to pray for the other group members. I had to come up with spontaneous prayers 6 times and I am someone who is very bad with spontaneous prayers. I usually pray in my native language so translating adds another difficulty in spontaneous prayers. Curiously my group facilitator found that I have a gift in affirmation while I felt completely opposite.
For Sunday Mass, I was asked to do the first reading. It was my first time ever proclaiming the word of God during any Mass and I was reluctant. I did not reject as I tried not to think about myself (I was scared of making mistake and I was self-conscious about my accent) but to allow myself to do God's work. I am glad that I did that as it takes time to exercise this kind of humility.
We had a drink at RedDot BrewHouse last night. I ordered a glass of beer because of peer pressure since everyone ordered beer. Of course I could not finish it but I was quite surprised that it took half a glass before my face felt warm aka turned red. I never drank any beer before and although the green colour one (supposedly infused with spirulina) caught my interest, I decided to get something with lower alcohol content. I ordered RedDot Lime Wheat simply because it contains the name of the place so I assume that is special. I think I tolerated 5% quite well and I should have tried the green one with 5.5%. I always thought beer was bad but I had a change of mind after this. It is not as dry as wine, it is not as gas-sy as I expect, and it does not give me rapid flushing or gastric.
After 3-week suspension, I intended on returning to gym after lunch. I decided that I was too full and too lazy. Haha.. I went to Kinokuniya to collect my Free Comic Book Day package. There were leftover goodies to take for free and ooh la la some people were really greedy. Well I am still happy with some Amuro Rei post cards and Free! plastic folder.
I am very tired now as I did not sleep so well last night. Initially I used the blanket as my pillow and then it got pretty cold so I used it as blanket, although still folded halfway. Then I woke up again to fully open the blanket because of the cold. Then I started seeing numbers 666 and 999 merged together (the 6 and 9 share the same round thingy). I saw 666 in red or 999 in green alternatingly each time I was awakened. I don't know if I saw 666 because I was worried if the dormitory were previously a hospital or if it was because I confessed that one of my sins is to keep thinking of death.
We all know what 666 means but I don't know about 999. To me 999 is a good number as it looks like 'almost perfect' to me. I will interpret this as a reminder that everything is a matter of perspective: I can see my life as hell or as blessings. Interestingly when I google the meaning of number 999, most search results seem to concur that it means a chapter of my life will end and it is time to move on. Does this signify that I will finally be able to let go my grudges with my previous job? Does this mean that after this Landings run I will start serving in the Church? I don't know.. I can only pray for God to show me the way.
We all know what 666 means but I don't know about 999. To me 999 is a good number as it looks like 'almost perfect' to me. I will interpret this as a reminder that everything is a matter of perspective: I can see my life as hell or as blessings. Interestingly when I google the meaning of number 999, most search results seem to concur that it means a chapter of my life will end and it is time to move on. Does this signify that I will finally be able to let go my grudges with my previous job? Does this mean that after this Landings run I will start serving in the Church? I don't know.. I can only pray for God to show me the way.
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