There’s so much fun in religious life. We have fun very often in our community recreation every week and especially during Christmas and New Year celebration recently. Besides camp fire, telematch and sports competition we have Christmas Carol with full band (all by the sisters) accompanied by tambourine dance. I see each and every occasion be it successful or failure as a blessing from the Loving God and an opportunity to do His Holy will. He never fails as He’s always faithful and thus I can trust His heart even in the darkest moment of my life. For me, intimacy with Jesus, my Beloved through prayer and contemplation in silence and solitude is the greatest blessing in my life of being a religious. Though knowing that prayer and contemplation should be the primacy in my life, unfinished tasks sometimes distract me in prayer. I normally surrender myself and all my thoughts and plans to Jesus knowing that He’s always there and He never fails to help me.
I’m so much in line with Pope Francis who calls for a Church of the poor. They are still many peoples who are spiritually poor throughout the world and only the joy of Jesus can makes them rich and heals the anguish of their souls. In response to Pope’s call, I would like to increase my reaching out to the poor by going out to the world to evangelize and to share the ‘Joy of the Gospel’ being my most inspiring book at this moment. But as a Carmelite, I like the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux most, entitled “Story of a Soul”, a simple soul yet beautiful and inspiring.
When I’m with my biological family, I like to share my spiritual experience with them and share meals with them too. My favorite food is the modified ‘clay pot chicken rice’ which becomes ‘rice cooker chicken rice’ as we don’t have big clay pot here for the whole community. It’s a special cuisine which can be found in Carmel here only! I like to meditate on nature to relax myself and for me it’s a spiritual relaxation by enjoying and looking at God’s beautiful creation in our hermitage; the hills, trees, river, midst, white squirrel, black squirrel with red neck-tie and birds singing on the tree and many more unique creatures.
