Life Out of The Spirit

Its been a while since my last posting.
Last week for me was a real Life Out of The Spirit experience.
And it was only when I went for the Life In The Spirit Seminar (LISS) that I realised it.

Firstly Uncle Francis and Aunty Catherine our sacristians went to melbourne for their daughter's graduation. So I helped to cover their duty for the evening mass. This meant i couldn't spend my 1 hour with the Lord before mass. And coupled with that every nite I had LISS, sharing, open house meeting, parish council meeting, ppc meeting. Couldn't go for to ador in the nights either. Actually it was more of a didn't want to, after late meetings, just want to go home and sleep.

And to top it off, things like the problems with the catechist, and the direction for MSC didn't help much either.

The end result was that I didn't pray much except for the morning and evening prayer. Totally stopped reading the PDL, in fact stopped reading pretty much everything.

And then something happened which hasn't happened in quite a long time. impatience and frustration reared its ugly head. Things were said and done which I'm not proud of.

Then monday's LISS was the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and I left that night with the whole feeling of struggling. And at first I thought that it was because of the way that Charlie Goh and our charismatics did it, and their whole focus on the gift of tongues... But on reflection, I think its also because I have not fully prepared my self for it. Not doing the reflections, and not praying, didn't put me in any position to be receptive to the Holy Spirit into my life.

Well, I can't say that the Holy Spirit is not in my life, and that He has not given me gifts. But I guess, I have to start doing my ministry and exercising my gifts then I will find out what they are.

And so today's PDL chapter which I finally got around reading was on how I am shaped to serve God. And linking it with last saturday's recollection, the theme "Generosity" is a real challenge that I have to live up to. Probably my next posting will be on that.

Oh yah, the one thing that I've learnt from this whole saga is "Discipline". I can't blame the whole thing on being busy. Like Fr William Goh said, everything can be sacrificed to do God's work....except Prayer. And in my prep for the confimation camp, I've come to realise the link between discipline and being a disciple.