Hero's Journey Prayer

 Hero's Journey Session Prayer


At the close of our batch's first leadership mentoring of this semester, I find myself in a prayerful moment:

Come Holy Spirit and teach me how to pray

O incomprehensible one, You veil Yourself out of love for us– a love that is so radical that it deeply moves our depths even if we do not yet know it. Each of us have different ways of understanding You, but I know we all have a sense of You. To some You are the ideal version of one's self, to others You are there but indifferent, to many You are a person. 

Either way, we are united in having a sense of You because we have a sense of goodness, of which You are its fullness, that which we all implicitly strive towards, and from which we set our true north in our own lived experiences.

You are the starting and end point of our journey, that by Your very being creates a desire in us– the potential to be actualized. To contend with You is to contend with our very selves, for we are made by You– not just in our conception, but we are made by You in the entirety of our existence unfolding before us. 

O unfathomable one, is it so easy to accept that You, seemingly so distant and almighty, have humbled Yourself for our sakes? That you became human? I know this through faith but it confounds me with its newness. Your story of us affects all of our existences at the very core of our beings– the idea of an incarnation so hidden, gradually becoming made known through Your passion; realizing it is You that pursues and completes us. 

To come to terms with this is not something mere arguments can primarily enlighten– that is secondary. But it is always through the fusion of Your story for all of us with each of our own stories. Not only do You enter the world, but You enter our lives. 

But You are hidden, perhaps for our sake. You dwell in our very relationship with others, and we have come to understand that as Love. Love that we give to others and in this giving, are transformed for the better. Love that we give but realize is not our own but something to be shared. Love that we realize we understand only because we have been loved first. 

Late have I loved You back– so late have I loved myself– for I have still to understand what it means to love Love. But through this unfolding of this "hero's journey", I have come to understand more and more that I am no hero, but am indeed on a hero's journey– a journey of the self's encounter and transformation by humility. That in complete trust in one decisive moment entails giving oneself up– abandoning the self to You, however You show Yourself to us; and for our sake, met where we are. May the unfolding of this journey we call life ever lead ultimately to finding ourselves in You. 

Amen 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

YL5 Week 1 @ASMPH + The Doctor as a Watchman

Image
YL 5 Week 1 @ASMPH + The Doctor as a Watchman This is my first week officially studying at ASMPH, the Philippine Jesuit college that promises to teach the next generation of physician-leaders through its MD/MBA program with an emphasis on Public Health. I won't speak about the transition semester as there wasn't that much studying but may refer to it throughout this project. Though I will say that there is a requirement on performing the Jesuit "Examen", perhaps emphasizing the "studious" nature (study yourself too!) that hinges on Jesuit philosophy– faith and reason ideally does not contradict, and pushing reason at least may leave the door open for faith in people's hearts later on. A long and risky game indeed.  We started off, as all Jesuit institutions do, with the Mass of the Holy Spirit and Opening Ceremonies. The Mass was presided by our president, a Jesuit himself. It is unfortunate to report that many had wanted to skip it. I am rather concerne...
Read more

YL5 week 2 @ASMPH: Public Health to the Private Cell + The Malaise of Medernity

Image
YL5 week 2 @ASMPH: Public Health to the Private Cell Public Health to finish off Principles and Perspectives The 2nd week in was a kind of transition in itself. The first half of the week was spent studying the public health module that will be included for the exam. Since it's quite over, I will just briefly summarize for the sake of memory rather than study. If you're interested in the reflection essay only, scroll down to  The Malaise of Medernity . The public health module talked about WHO approach to health systems as well as the Filipino's Fourmula + one project. We also had to learn about the top leading 10 causes of mortality versus morbidity. Really in this "principles and perspectives" module, the point is to appreciate them as they contextualize the learning of medicine. What stands out in studying medicine at ASMPH is what's different that surrounds the studying of medicine common to other schools?  Another difference was the MBA part of the MD/MBA...
Read more

Semester 1: SOBA (State of the Blog Address) and Final Words for the Semester

Image
State of the Blog Address I haven't been posting as of late, and I had been intentionally aware of the times that I should have been writing to post on this. But in those 3 Saturday evenings, I decided not to write in favor of doing something else. This was partly due to struggling with sin, partly due to realizing the other thing was a "better use of time". Why? In brief candor it is because it became a tedious exercise. One could surely see this from the shortening length of each blog post, and the lessening enthusiasm of the words written. One thing to be gained from this is that indeed a worthwhile topic to write on cannot be expected to occur by Saturday evening every single week, partly due to busyness, partly due to that reflection needing to take two or even three weeks to flesh out in order to properly write. The second reason is that I've been less inclined about talking about the program from a point of view that is "disinterested". Surely there i...
Read more