Lessons and Blessing (Berends, 1993)

by Carmelita Cochingco Ballesteros.
December 16, 2011
Everything that happens to you is your teacher. The secret is to sit at the feet of your own life and be taught by it. Everything that happens is either a blessing that is also a lesson, or a lesson that is also a blessing.
I want no gifts this Christmas. I’ve been given a priceless gift that’s beyond pesos and dollars. I will forever remember this gift. In gratitude, let me share it as my Christmas gift for you.
I’m referring to the Group Advent Retreat which I attended last week. Organized by the Pastoral Office of De La Salle University-Manila, it was held at the Betania Retreat House in Tagaytay City on December 5-7, 2011.
Amazing is the commitment of the La Sallian Brothers towards nourishing the spiritual life of their faculty, staff, and students. I hear that there are recollections and retreats for everyone, including gardeners and security guards. It is doubly amazing because all expenses for the retreats and recollections are completely free for the attendees! The university definitely puts its money where its heart is.
What’s an attendee’s part of the bargain? Time, presence, attention, commitment, silence (prayer), openness, humility, availability.
* * *
The Group Advent Retreat I attended at the Betania Retreat House was a 3-day, two-night gathering of like-minded souls. We were given single rooms with private baths and we were fed five times a day. It was a feast.
It was, most of all, a spiritual banquet. The Jesuit priest, Father Xavier Alpasa, S.J. ,who was our retreat master, gave us abundant helpings of divine nuggets of wisdom.
(This is an aside, but I must share with you that Father Alpasa is known for social entrepreneurship and chairs the multi-awarded Rags to Riches Foundation. Starting as a livelihood project with Php10,000.00 as seed money, Rags to Riches is now a multi-million peso enterprise.
Because of his Rags-to-Riches fame, Father Alpasa has been invited by the prestigious TED Conference to become a TED Fellow, and that speaks volumes about him. To his credit, Father Alpasa never called attention to himself during the retreat. He focused on serving us, the retreatants, and pointed us toward Jesus, the Divine Teacher, the reason we’re celebrating Christmas.)
Here are some of those divine nuggets:
Let your life teach you its lessons; let the lessons become blessings.
Some of the events in our life are too painful. Some are too bitter or too embarrassing. We’d rather not dwell on them. Most of the time, we don’t have the time to sit still and retreat into silence.
I am very grateful I made time to attend the Group Advent Retreat. Otherwise, I would not have received my priceless gift for Christmas. Otherwise, I would have missed an intimate conversation with Jesus, the Christmas birthday boy.
“Behold God beholding you.” (St. Teresa of Avila)
When my son was a baby, I would spend many quiet moments just gazing at him as he slept or as he smiled his toothless smile at me. I would gaze at him and he would gaze at me. It was love pure and profound.
I have never thought of God beholding me like a mother gazing at her child. I have never thought of beholding God beholding me. This morning when I woke up, the early morning sky was adorned with the waning full moon and countless stars. It was a marvelous sight to behold. I must have been beholding God beholding me.
Psalm 139: God’s complete knowledge and care.
It was my first time to read Psalm 139 during the retreat. I am very grateful to be reminded of God’s incredible love. God knows me completely, loves me unconditionally, and cares for me in infinitely more ways than 24-hour convenience stores can. God beholds me every moment.
Make a line graph of your life. Connect the dots. Your low points are the
times God raises you up.
Father Alpasa apologized to us that he was using a business tool – making a line graph to see the highs and lows in our life, to see patterns, and to make forecasts. I thought it was a simple task done by grade school children and didn’t think much of it.
Initially, I made only a few lines and dots. As I pondered my lifeline during our programmed moments of silence, I kept adding more lines and more dots.
Now I realize that making a line graph of my life is a powerful tool toward self-knowledge and self-evaluation. The beauty of it is that it’s really a simple tool which even grade school children can use.
We are emptied so we can be filled.
During my unexpected sick leave due to a gallbladder surgery from July 23 to October 16 of this year, there were moments when I felt utterly miserable. A T-tube had been inserted in my bile duct and its other end was sticking out through an incision in my abdomen. I had to dress the T-tube site in my stomach every day to avoid infection.
I was literally under house arrest and I had to move slowly and carefully to make sure that the T-tube would not be accidentally removed. An accidental removal would mean internal bleeding which could lead to fatal complications.
I could not understand why I had been ‘punished’ with inactivity, stillness, silence, a sick leave without pay, physical and financial dependence on my family, surrender to my doctors and nurses, and a T-tube that tethered me into an uncertain future.
During the retreat, I realized that I have learned complete dependence on God. I have experienced the healing love of God through my family. Furthermore, I have experienced a little of the humility of nothingness that the Blessed Mother is known for.
I have been emptied so I can be filled… with courage, gratitude, confidence in the uncertain future, joy in the magnificent details of life, and the fullness of the peace of Christ.