As the year is approaching an end in few days, life has once again shaded in sepia and black and white potraits of the past. Been thinking of things that happened throughout this year. Also, many things so long has passed. People come and go, things done and undone, and everything changes...
Things, people, do not change for the sake of what someone else tell them to, they do not change because one tell them to, or even more because one tell them not to. Everybody has no control in anything other than him/herself. So maybe someone like me should better give up of expecting too much or fearing too much from changes.
People change when they have to. Thus, I am giving up.
December 2011
Days in Stockholm is ending soon. This is the last week and I am going to get myself to work on this mission impossible. I have a final project due on Wednesday, it is a paper, decent publication paper on nanotechnology for atherosclerosis, and I just started to spell 'atherosclerosis' when I typed this post. Presentation will be on Friday. It seems unmanageable because I need to get another take home examination on Quantum Optics done by Friday, too.
And I am trying to squeeze in a weekend pilgrim to Vastedna this week before leaving on Monday afternoon, 5 hour away from Stockholm. It had been my primary reason to go to Sweden for exchange, because it is the country of St. Bridget, my idol and my patron saint. I have not managed to do a single trip since the last 5 months here. I am a boring person, and troublesome one, too. I don't care. But I really want to have this one.
It all sounds impossible, no? But here is the thing:
God does not need great pathos or great works. He needs greatness of hearts. He cannot calculate with zeroes - Father Alfred Delp
So here I go.
Our Lord knew it all along all the sorrow He must endure when He took His Father's will to become man for our salvation. His mother was there all the time, suffering heartache as painful as possible and she was weeping for her tremendous sorrow.
God let this happen to Himself and His most beloved mother. And now that He let some of my dear friends to share His Passion, may we all see that life is more than its visible distress and loss. No matter how painful it is, the Ultimate Truth seeks to console us when we finally get to meet Him face to face. Mother Mary wept, but she knows exactly that God was not dead, something greater than ever was beneath the sorrows. And so us, too, even with tears draining, we keep this hope within.
May God give you the strength, my friends...
She is everything sweet, everything beautiful and everything gentle. She loves everyone and despises not anyone. She is God's beloved and God let her be our refuge and our mother, too!
Hail Mary, full of grace
the Lord is with thee
blessed art, thou amongst women
and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, mother of God
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
As they once did in life, so now from their graves,
they are all secretly stretching
their hands out toward happiness,
And nobody grasp their hands.
Someday a moment will come;
a hand will reach out
from another world,
will reach in from another life,
and will grasp all the hands
that ever stretched themselves
out toward happiness.
It will be the hand of God, and yet
the hand of the most faithful brother.
Dead soldiers, and you who live
because they died here,
all of you who, in secret longing,
stretch your hands out toward happiness:
one day God’s hand will touch you!
one day His hand will come over you,
stroke your hot foreheads,
heal your bleeding wounds,
fill your empty hands.
All of you who secretly stretched out your hands toward happiness:
someday, someone will come
and take your hand!
- by Father Alfred Delp
Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th'encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
Shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!
So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!
Meantime, along the narrow rugged path,
Thyself hast trod,
Lead, Saviour, lead me home in childlike faith,
Home to my God.
To rest forever after earthly strife
In the calm light of everlasting life.
John Henry Newman