Sr. Annecie with VIDES Philippines

I answer with these “treasured words” or “Sophias” (wisdom) culled from the reflections of spiritual writers and my own “musings”. “Treasured words” because they give me panache in this pandemic face-off – now a part of my “home coming” preparation.

• This pandemic is a call to see God’s presence in the midst of suffering – God does not abandon his people.

• Our life is a short opportunity to say ‘yes” to God’s love. Our death is a full homecoming to that love. (Nouwen)

• The best way to prepare to die is to begin to stretch out our hearts to love even wider and wider – loving deeply, expressing love through compassion, appreciation, gratitude.

• Love is the boat that carries us through the river of suffering. (J.C.)

• When we love most deeply in our own hearts, we also live in the very heart of God. (J.M. Blomquist)

• Between life and death it is for all of us to do one blazing act of good – however small it may seem at the time (J. Chittister).

• It is through prayer... that one will be given the most powerful light to see the meaning of events, of whatever is happening to us.

• God is in the details. God is in what it takes in us to be faithful to them. God is in the routing that makes us what we are. The way we do the little things in life is the mark of the bigness of our souls. (McClenney – Sadler)

• We are freed by God’s love to live in the freshness of each new day (Neevel). “It is in the freshness of each day that we are freed to experience, seek, become aware of God’s love (Chittister).

• No wound is so trivial that the love of God is not concerned with it (F. Wuellner).

• I have been led to an inner peace a place within me has chosen to dwell. It is the place where I am held safe in the embrace of an all-loving Father who calls me by name and says “You are my beloved...” a place where I can taste the joy and peace that are not of this world.

Epilogue

Once we have tasted the joy and peace that comes from being embraced by God’s love. We know that “all is well and all will be well.” I know the answer to the question “Where are you, God, in this? And it is “I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS.”

Hence, my buzzword: Panache!

By Sr. Nora Hernandez, FMA

Our dear Sr. Jesusa Acevedo, FMA, passed away peacefully in Don Bosco School, Manila, on July 10, 2020, at the age of 90. She was born in Cadiz, Negros Occidental, on December 24, 1929. She made her first profession in Hongkong in 1961. One of her legacies to us is her example of total obedience to God’s will in all things. She quoted this for her golden jubilee of religious profession in 2011: “As a paintbrush to an artist, so am I to Christ with each passing day. He continues to make my life a real masterpiece to behold. He is the Divine Painter. I am His paintbrush. My life is the canvas, and His love and will, the portrait…”

Sr. Corazon Jaca, FMA, passed away on August 12, 2020, in Laura Vicuña Center in Cubao, Quezon City, at the age of 64 and 38 years of religious profession. She was born in Cotabato City on April 30, 1956. She was a zealous missionary for many years in Ethiopia, where she was in charge of the Don Bosco Medium Clinic as a general medical practitioner. She wrote a simple life program published in the FMA Lifeline magazine in 2013, “To be simple, loving, and kind… to have the attitude of readiness (to pitch in).”