Goodness

I am writing this from some fancy hotel outside my own country, surrounded by some of the people closest to my heart and most involved in my journey.

I had some reluctance in making this trip.  With what my country has suffered and is going through, with the workload getting more intense as the year ends, with urgent concerns coming up instead of winding down, pursuing this trip seemed unreasonable.

But I decided to make it.  After a full day of celebrating the Solemnity of Christ the King and the Closing of the Year of Faith at the event of the Catholic Social Media Summit version 2.0 and in my parish, among the committed youth in our youth ministry for a creative formation session, I packed my things and readied myself to make this trip with three of my close friends.  Even before leaving the country, goodness and beauty already touched me: The wonder of being reunited in a man, apparently in his 60's, an OFW coming home to Cagayan de Oro, who asked for help in contacting his family who will welcome him at the airport, since his phone battery lost power.  The joy of humor and a light heart in an airline staff who received our baggage and engaged us with his sense of humor, in which we willingly complied.  The satisfaction derived from giving without counting the cost in brief encounters with airport personnel who seemed not in the mood to be personable very early in the morning, who still received my smile.  And upon landing, the welcome of my niece and her fiancee, the immediate connection with a new acquaintance who went out of his way to welcome us, the spontaneous decision to adjust our plans for the day for something which turned out to be better... All these afforded me a glimpse of joy that is simple, of goodness that is beyond the external, and of beauty that calls forth gratefulness.

And at the end of this day, at prayer with my friends, I rediscovered God as deliberate in His desire for me to experience Him, His beauty and goodness.  He doesn't will me to suffer, to be destitute, because He is pure, full goodness; however, though suffering be a fact of earthly life, He gives me countless opportunities to see Him at work, in those moments, places and people who open me to the experience of His goodness, and to allow Him to work in me by bringing His goodness into those moments, places and people who thirst for it.

So even if I am called to deny myself, take up my cross and follow not myself but Him, this path leads me to meaning and magnificence because it is along the path of Him who is truth, goodness and beauty.