I just came back from the retreat "At the Feet of the Good Shepherd". I thank God that the retreat was worth 'sacrificing' instead of flying to Jakarta to be at home for additional two days. It was very nice that some parishioners offered carpooling since the old Major Seminary at Punggol is very ulu. It was my first time there and at least I got to experience staying in a seminary hahaha... I was a bit bothered with the room which was not swept and mopped after someone else stayed there. Other than that, the room reminded me of the old days of staying at CJC Hostel. In fact, I think the seminary is better since each room has attached bathroom.
It was also my first time experiencing a silent retreat. I did not really have an issue of surrendering my handphone but I was quite ambivalent about keeping quiet. The good side was that I did not have to make small talk to get to know other people and it kept the whole retreat atmosphere rather than a social event. Ironically, I still think it is quite a bummer not being able to get to know other parishioners since this retreat was after all organised by the parish for the parish ministries.
Honestly I was quite skeptical about the whole inner healing thingy and I am happy to be proven wrong. One of the Bible verses shared at the start of the session is Romans 9:17 which says "For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing". This verse perfectly summarises all the shit I am feeling inside. I know I should not be angry, unforgiving, envious and ungrateful but I just cannot get rid of them, even when I pray for it. So I am not wrong to feel that only God can help me to get rid of these and it is not something that I can do on my own.
Sacrament of Reconciliation was the first step of healing to remove sins from blocking the healing. It was my most embarrassing confession because I had no cheat sheet for the Act of Contrition. I had to tell the priest that I could not remember and I repeated after him. I was also not in my best state that I did not really catch how many decades of Rosary for my penance and I was too embarrassed to clarify. Hence, I decided to do a full Rosary which was definitely more than enough.
The inner healing session was rather.. I don't know how to describe. As physical representation, we were told to pair up so that we could take turns to experience being someone asking forgiveness from others and being someone to be forgiving. As a sign of forgiveness, we were supposed to hug each other. I found it weird that we were told to pair up with someone we did not know. I decided to bo chup and just pair up with my ministry leader who was the only person I knew. We shared each other's faith and life stories from our Landings experience so we did not feel there was anything that would make us embarrassed. I am glad that I did not pair up with a stranger because I think it would be VERY awkward to hug a stranger twice. Hahaha...
Perhaps the recommendation to pair up with a stranger is in case we have actual bad blood with fellow ministry members. Heng I have none with my leader. It is quite funny looking back because I never even hugged my dad that long. I also felt a bit paiseh since after the whole thing ended, I saw other pairs ended their hugs already. I could not help but think if others would think weirdly that my pair was so comfortable with the hug. Haha...
The healing session continued with the priest and some who have the gift of healing to pray over us individually. I had the priest praying over me. I did not think anything extraordinary happened to me but this was my second experience to know that the Holy Spirit is real. The first was during my baptism. I wanted to link to my post on baptism but I realised that I was more engrossed with the gifts back then and did not share how I suddenly felt very hot and restless while queueing for my turn to get baptised. It felt as if God asked me for a final confirmation that I still wanted to get baptised since it was still not too late to turn back if I changed my mind. I knew it was the Holy Spirit because the church was actually cold. The hot feeling was unnatural since it came and went away inexplicably: it was there as I was queueing and disappeared after I was baptised.
What I felt yesterday was different: I felt that my body was hollow except for having four quadrants and the two left quadrants felt lighter and brighter than the right two. I did not know what that supposed to mean but it was something I never experienced before. I also did not feel sleepy despite 2.5 hours in low light condition and plenty of closing eyes moments, a stark contrast to the whole day prior to this session when I was constantly feeling sleepy.
Another interesting experience was having my doubts of whether my parents loved me being answered. I sort of having a vision that my parents were happy to have a son. I remembered that my childhood was happy, even if my parents were rather stingy with money. As a kid, I never even felt angry that I had to walk or take public transport or wait for dad's car for tuition. Just that somehow things changed after I came to Singapore and I did not really have a lot of time or memories with my parents anymore.
I realised that God provided me sufficient grace in my life so far. Even at times when I lack or feel insufficient with physical needs, God gives me sufficient grace to remain happy or not to feel that I am lacking. All the ungratefulness is not because I am truly miserable or lacking but it is because I always compare with the "what if"s and "things can be better". My past has happened and I cannot change it. Thus it really depends on whether I am at peace with it because of all God's provisions or I am angry with it because God or others could have given me better. I know that I was at peace before my dad's passing and everything turned opposite only after I realised how much things could be better. It is all the work of the Devil to torment with past wounds and past sins.
While I do not get a physical healing for my eyes that I wish for, God has healed my heart. As of now, all the bitterness, anger, unhappiness and ungratefulness from all the "what if"s have dissipated. I am more worried about how to deal with them if such feelings come again in the future. Though I suppose next time going for Sacrament of Reconciliation can be my weapon against them. In addition, I am better equipped now to recognise when all these come back to attack as indeed I experienced about 90% of the listed signs of inner rawness from inner wounds such as irritability, little or no tolerance, having feelings of always rising up, urges to retaliate, sensitive, hard to forgive, hard to feel loved, irrational expectations of others, perfectionism, anger towards God and others, self-hate, feeling of hopelessness and escapism.
Now I believe that this healing thing is true because some people did experience and testify for their physical healings. The most powerful was someone who had ear injury when he was a boy that his left ear was medically diagnosed with only 15% hearing capacity. After being prayed over, suddenly he heard that everything was 'very loud' and he could finally experience stereo hearing.
Today was also my first time to experience a session with a Spiritual Director. The conversation reinforces that all my ungratefulness, bitterness, anger and "what if"s are all nonsense. I was asked if I could change anything in my life, what would I change? I said nothing :( Although I am bitter about coming and having to stay in Singapore, I honestly do not dare to change it if it would mean that I would not get baptised. I cannot imagine how my life will be if not for God's providence so far. The conversation also helps to filter that perhaps what I am missing the most in my life is a home. Let's see what happen when I finally move to my condo.
I also see the problem with my prayer and relationship with God. It seems that I have been trying to force God to decide between single vs married vs celibate for me. I am also too focused on what I must do (and hence my prayer is about asking God to just tell me what He wants me to do so that at least I can be happy to do His will) and that may not be what God wants from me. At the end of the session, I was asked to close my eyes and imagine if I were to meet Jesus and tell Him everything I shared to the Spiritual Director, what would Jesus say? Jesus actually did not say anything and I was just happy to be able to hug him and lay my head on his lap while telling Him what I felt.
Perhaps that is a sign that what I want is being closer to Him and not necessarily about Him telling me things to do. I have been avoiding having quiet times because I am too bothered if I do not hear anything or if I hear the correct voice etc. My prayers, my devotions and my Mass also tend to be done out of obligations, my promises or my expectations that doing so would help me getting closer to God. Indeed I know my one-way of communication with God is a problem and yet I have not tried to overcome it.
I was the first group to go for the spiritual direction and spent the rest of the time with Adoration while waiting for others to go for their spiritual direction. I tried to pray and recite Rosary but I ended up falling asleep. Hehe not a surprise considering I did not sleep well yesterday night. I somehow kept getting up every one hour or so.
That brings me to the final topic of this post which is about the retreat place. It was my first time at St Francis Xavier Old Seminary. Since it was a silent retreat, everyone was assigned to sleep alone and each room comes with attached bathroom. I had no problem since the room atmosphere reminds me of my CJC Hostel days haha.. The room feels bigger since the bed is bunkbed. Perhaps bunkbed was the reason why I kept waking up since I never sleep with 'something' blocking the ceiling. The shower is modern but the toilet is still rather ancient. Not complaining since it is already a toilet bowl and not a squatting toilet. My only complaint about the room is that it was uncleaned. There was long hair on the floor which I am sure was the previous person who slept in this room.
After the retreat, I declined my ministry leader's invitation to have dinner to share our experience. I would love to but I have to pack for my flight tomorrow wor...