Chasing Prudentia

for the love of silent moments.

[cuiyenn]

My hiding place

As you drew me into a warm embrace,

I found you within my arms, and I,

safely nestled in your tender caress.

Always intertwined,

never to be separated from one another.

My breathing slowed down as peace overcomes me.

Subconciously, I held my breath

as if that would stop the time from passing.

No more room between you and I,

yet I yearned to be even closer to you than ever.

[cuiyenn]

Come and Go

Even for Christians, Jesus being the way, the truth, and the life can become just a slogan, just a quote on a t-shirt, just a praise song that gets your feet going. He is the way, He is the One your heart and soul always longs for. If everything is redirected to Him, it seems so jarring. One can not fathom and tends to reject this notion, because when a belief is about a person, in an instant it turns into a long and arduous road. When push comes to shove, committing yourself to a relationship is not an easy feat. We don't want it to be a person who we can disappoint, hurt, or break his heart. If the thing we believe is just plain words and empty shells, it's easier to leave and come whenever we want. Lord. Even I struggle to love You. My understanding of loving You is still as short as my candle's wick; I still rely on the feels to love You. Feelings come and go, and just as it shifts every time, so does my "love". There's only one thing that I need to keep walking–it's to have my heart inflamed by Your love alone until I am satisfied. Just like charcoal burns for a long time, keeping the fire alight, I would like to respond to Your love for me which has started even before the beginning of time. You are the answer. Let me come, rest in it, and be satisfied. You are God, I am not. Show Yourself unto me as You deem right, O Lord.

[cuiyenn]

Ignatian Year (2021-2022)  “Var nuevas todas las cosas en Cristo” – To see all things new in Christ.

[cuiyenn]

throw away your phones before you type something stupid while being overtaken by emotions!

[cuiyenn]

Disiplin Memaafkan

Pada bukunya, Kembalinya Si Anak Hilang karya Henri Nouwen, pembaca dibawa menyelami pemahamannya akan lukisan karya Rembrandt yang berjudul sama. Tidak hanya menatap keegoisan si anak hilang yang kita sudah ketahui kisahnya, tetapi juga menyoroti si anak sulung yang selalu berada di latar cerita, juga melihat kedalaman hati sang bapak. Nouwen berkaca dengan cermin terbaik, yaitu dirinya sendiri, dan dengan kerapuhan diri, berbagi pengalaman menjalani ketiga fase pribadi dalam cerita: ketika tidak memiliki rumah seperti si anak hilang, kerasnya hati si sulung, lalu pada akhirnya terpanggil menjadi seorang bapak. Ia meragukan kemampuannya untuk mengasihi seperti sang bapak: dengan tulus, tanpa syarat, sadar akan kebutuhannya akan pengakuan & afeksi orang-orang di sekitarnya. Ia melihat ada tiga jalan untuk mencapai kebapaan yang penuh belas kasih, yaitu duka, ampun, & kemurahan hati. Bagian yang menyentuhku ialah tentang pengampunan. Berikut terjemahanku dr teks bhs inggris: "Lewat pengampunan tiada akhirlah kita semakin serupa dengan Bapa. Pengampunan dari hati amatlah sukar, bahkan hampir mustahil. Seringkali aku mengucap "aku memaafkanmu", tapi hatiku tetap penuh amarah dan kebencian. Tetapi pengampunan Bapa tidaklah bersyarat; berangkat dari hati yang tidak menuntut, hati yang terlepas dari kepentingan diri. Inilah yang harus kupraktekkan dalam keseharian, tantangan untuk melangkahi semua kebutuhan akan rasa syukur dan pujian. Hal ini menuntutku "melangkahi" hatiku yang terluka dan syarat yang kuberikan. "Melangkahi" ini adalah disiplin memaafkan, bahkan lebih ke arah "memanjat". Sering aku harus "memanjat" tembok argumen dan amarah yang berdiri di antara diriku dan mereka yang kukasihi namun tidak membalasnya. Tembok rasa takut diperalat atau disakiti lagi. Ini adalah tembok harga diri dan keinginan untuk tetap memegang kendali. Tetapi setiap kali aku melangkahi atau memanjat tembok tersebut, aku memasuki rumah Bapaku, menyentuh sesamaku dengan cinta kasih yang tulus. Memaafkan adalah sebuah cara untuk melangkahi tembok ini dan menyambut sesama ke dalam hatiku tanpa mengharap kembali." (Visual dibuat sebagai pengingat pribadi)

[cuiyenn]

Cure VS Healing

Paul had thorns. He appealed to the Lord about this more than once, to have it removed from him, but His reply was: "my grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect weakness." Then Paul goes on to say that he will boast his weaknesses, so that the power of Christ dwells in him. That he is content with his hardships and calamities for the sake of Christ. . What if the Lord chose to grant his supplication, gave him "the cure"? I think Paul will not grow out of himself, just thank Him once then leave. But now I kinda get why He willed those thorns remain in Paul... They kept Paul humble and close to Christ. Here, grace is synonymous with "healing". God uses his afflictions to draw Paul close to Him. . This used to stressed me out. I went around, hunted for a cure, searched high and low. I confronted Him, "why do you favor some, cure a lot, but not me? why do you need me to walk around the mountain when I can just walk straight down the road?" (Yeah, the road of doom. 😂🤣) I don't see myself as the beloved. . Paul experienced transformation through a deeper and more intimate relationship with the Lord. I myself have witnessed how He prefers to offer healing and not to cure. I am able to see God working in my life more clearly.. He didn't abandon me, on the contrary, He draws me closer to Him. Just this past Sunday I heard, "the deeper the relationship, the stronger the identity". Amen to that! . Then...if you will me to have these thorns, then so be it. As long as I have you, your yoke is easy, your burden is light, Jesus gentle and humble of heart, let me learn from you.

[catholiclink-en]

GIF: Try again, this time with God

[saskiakeultjes]

[saskiakeultjes]

oldie but goodie

[giovanna-giuliano-blog]

[cuiyenn]

“Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”  This valentine’s day, I had the most beautiful encounter with God’s love, feeling a surge of deep peace after an outpuring of The Holy Spirit. I feel like being in silence, being quiet, simply nothing went through my mind; not a single worry, not a single problem, not a single fear. They say having a new life in Holy Spirit is like being in love...and I believe I can take it literally because, obviously, God is LOVE. :) (found the photo from Fr. James Martin, SJ FB account)

[words-going-across-the-universe]

Faith is believing in something even without proof, because you know it in your heart to be true.

Helene Wecker, The Golem and the Jinni (via words-going-across-the-universe)

[operamatic]

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker has ruined my life

go read this book so that you too can lie on the floor and weep over the lack of fandom for this glorious story

[cuiyenn]

EXACTLY. Excited for the sequel tho. Please make it good, dear Helene Wecker! Sincerely, your readers.

[lavishliterature]

endless list of books you should read ⤍ The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

[cuiyenn]

Seriously. Go and read this.

[problemsofabooknerd]

Submitted by iwillnotchange

[cuiyenn]

This is so me on Goodreads. Apparently I’m reducing my to read list...

[problemsofabooknerd]

Submitted by queen-of-terassen

[cuiyenn]

This is the epitome of my problem here wanting to order English books. Once, it took a month to arrive.

[knowninhell]

“Are you Christian or Catholic?”

This is something of a loaded question, and considering how different the Catholic Church is from many other Christian denominations, I can see what this question is getting at. However, I do not think it is accurate to place “Catholic” in an entirely separate category from “Christian.”

It would be helpful to begin this post with a closer look at what exactly defines a “Christian.” When you go down the the very basics of the word, it simply describes someone who is a follower of Christ. When it comes to what Christians believe, most would agree that the universal standard for measuring Christian orthodoxy is something that we call the Nicene Creed. The Apostle’s Creed is also a good measure, and is basically a shortened version of the Nicene. The global body of Christ contains people of a broad spectrum of practices and beliefs, but these are the center of the Christian identity.

It is worth mentioning that the Catholic Church holds several beliefs which most other denominations either question or flatly reject. A few other denominations hold some of these beliefs as well. Here are the main ones that come to mind:

Intercession of the Saints - Doctrine that the Saints can pray for us, and that we can ask this of them.

The Sacrament of Penance - Doctrine that after baptism you must confess your sins to a priest in order to have your sins absolved.

Transubstantiation - Doctrine that when you take communion you are literally consuming the body and blood of Christ.

The Immaculate Conception - Doctrine that the virgin Mary was free from original sin and immaculate since the moment she was conceived.

While these beliefs are seen as a bit unusual or even unbiblical by many Christians, does holding these doctrines make a Catholic or the Catholic Church unchristian? I would argue no, because when you get right down to it, the Catholic Church adheres to the Nicene creed and strives to follow in the ways of Jesus Christ. As I mentioned above, it is this quality that defines a Christian, regardless of other doctrines that are adhered to.

When I challenge the nature of the “Christian or Catholic” question, I get two general responses. The first is to say that “what I really meant to ask is whether you are Protestant or Catholic.” I would say that’s a bit of a different question, especially if you grant that both are subsets of Christianity. The second response is to point out that they’ve met many people who are “culturally Catholic,” or Catholic in name only. Yes, there are plenty of people who are culturally Catholic while not practicing the Catholic faith, but there are also a lot of people who are “Christian” (Read: Protestant/Non-denominational) in name only. In truth, I can think of no sect, denomination, or religion in the world that is completely devoid of those people that simply go through the motions without really believing or practicing that particular faith.

In closing, I urge you to think about what you say before you say it. Asking someone whether they are “Christian or Catholic” could really rub them the wrong way, especially if they are a devout and practicing Catholic. Christ taught that the world will know us as Christians by our love for each other, and that is what I propose: that we strive to be a body of Christ that is united in spite of our differences, rather than divided because of them.

[cuiyenn]

Free.

Do you know how to be free?

(Note: this is a lengthy post from me. Ha. Lengthy for me.)

I know one thing that’s keeping me enslaved. Something that may create creases between your brows, puzzled, if you couldn’t understand why would this be something so bothering me yet at the same time had kept me in comfort.

I deactivated, deleted my social media account with the red logo--just about a month ago--where people can post pictures, location tags, what entertainment we’re enjoying at the moment, even our thoughts in a form of timeline. Everything can be seen when you keep on scrolling, unlike the blue social media which shows only most seen/highlighted/more feedbacks posts.

They say it’d be a private social media where we can truly share only to our closest. Yes, it did, for some time. Then somehow it became a place to show off at its best. It became somehow more relatable because they includes ‘emotions/emoticons/emoji’ as exchange to only “thumbs up” on posts, making it clear how people feels and react to your posts. It became my daily life, almost had been four years using it and I surely had certain moments where I found it useful. I rarely went through a day without opening it, can’t hold the urge to scroll down and get to know what’s happening with people - not wanting to miss something. OK, so far, do you think I’m weird enough? Frowning yet?

Don’t worry, because it gets worse from here.

I can call myself an addict for being so utterly distracted every minute of everyday, my mind wandered elsewhere while my body still affected by gravity. I can not think clearly, not even focus. My mood is swinging endlessly like a Newton’s cradle. Discipline is a word I barely knew, strong-willed is nowhere to be found in me, let alone make good decisions. Solitude is a state I seldom felt, not even liking it when the phone’s on and blinking at me. I kept longing for the short-lived joy given by the impulse; the more I posts & check on it, the more I know something, the more I get feedback and it feeds my hunger for attention. It drives me kind of mad, this attention. Of course this madness, weird happiness is never etched on my face - it’s happening inside, under the surface of my ‘very sweet’ resting face.

This revelation of calling myself an internet/social media addict is not made by friends or anyone related to me, it’s being told by so many books, articles, and videos explaining symptoms of an addiction. (Here’s ASAP Science’s fun explanation of it: link.)

At a point of desperation, I pushed myself to do something, at least something to put an end to this misery. The very thought of closing an account forever is beyond me--it’s horrifying. It’s disturbing me, felt like it’d be such a loss, something to be mourned at as much as losing your favorite stuffed-animals.

But somehow in my seldomness of entering solitude, it brought me so much questions: would they even care if you’re gone from their cyberspace (does anybody use this phrase anymore? ah, nevermind.) Don’t you think they’d even feel happier without your updates of songs you discover, your thoughts on long-overdued movies? ...without you in their timeline fangirling over and over again on British actors?

The answer is loud and clear: No, they would not care. Yes, they’d probably feel so. and another thought springs: you wouldn’t really lose something either.

Guess what? I did it, finally, after so many uninstalling-reinstalling, I let it go. It gave me the greatest joy it ever given to me, and it’s not short-lived. Days after it, when I look on my phone I still felt the impulse to open it but the icon was not even there on my screen, leaving me no choice but to keep my screen black.

It is a loss, a loss that gains me something.

I did not really lose connections; now I have real connections. I started to notice a lot more things happening around me, found myself less distracted, felt calmer, even be a lot more positive in my lowest days. I look at people in the eye, not down to my screen while listening to what they have to say, gave away the chance to only “focus on myself” all the time. Reading more books helps me a lot to focus and prolong my attention span as I can now read a lot more pages than I used to few months back.

Well, it hasn’t been going long, but if this is going to be such delightful ride, I am very grateful for it, wishing that one day I’ll be totally free from all of the ‘other kings’ in my life that enslaves me. Each day I shall renew this intention, denying my old self, as Someone would want me to. ;)

n.b. Deleted my Snapchat account, too. Congratulate me!! :p and friends, if you’re reading this, know that I did not delete you from my friends list, I simply deleted myself from yours... ;) ...the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it...