I have moved on and God walked me through.

To recap and to really just want to refresh your memory, just for the heck of it yeah, (at least to those who may have found me online and those who have been following me all this time) that I joined the Benedictine Monastery of Christ in the Desert in Abiquiu NM, USA so I became monk in year 2002, took my Simple Vows in year 2003, and then completed my monastic formation in Simple Vows three years later.

In year 2006, I received monastic blessings from my Abbot Superior when I professed my Solemn-Perpetual monastic Vows. But I just want to remind you before I skip and totally forget it that prior to that, I have started blogging in year 2004 which is why my published posts were dated back in that particular year. In year 2008, my superior sent me to the Catholic Seminary of Saint Meinrad Theological Seminary in Indiana, USA to undergo Seminary studies and burn midnight candles to be able to get through  with my Priestly Formation Program.

cloistered

This photo was taken inside my room at the  monastery of St Meinrad in Indiana. I was a student monk-seminarian then taking my program for priesthood formation (MA in Divinity). I was still cloistered despite the fact that I was in the seminary with lots and lots of social gatherings that would make one seminarian as busy as a bee.

 Yet, I did shy away from these activities  because i felt uncomfortable making socializations with the crowd of diocesans. This caused my mentor and spiritual advisor to had a talk with me and stressed me out the reasons why my behavior was such. The rest was a history to be told!

listening requires stillness

Now, I can understand very well what people are experiencing in their day-to-day life. There is so much crowdness and busyness people are facing that they have less and less time to commune with God.

 I am talking from the experience which  I  learned  from the people I am in contact with in my everyday life now.

From morning till evening, how many of us have  offered their thoughts about God? Who among of us have really  found  interest  in hearing from God.

I  must let you know that we should  pay a price in listening with God: we must discipline ourselves to be still before God.

This is not an easy task, but it is essential.

 Jesus developed the discipline of stillness before God in spite of his extremely busy life.

Crowds followed Him wherever he went. Daily preached and taught and healed. It was hard for Him to find time alone to pray, and he had to get up long before dawn to do it.

 Times of stillness and solitude were important to Jesus. In those times of seclusion, He not only poured out his heart to the Father, he earnestly listened to Him as well.

He needed his Father's comfort, direction, affirmation and assurance.

 Because of the continual leadings he received from father, there was purpose to his steps.

yesterday, today, tomorrow...

Romance is a term that is described as a pleasurable feeling of excitement and wonder associated with love. It is also used as a way to court or pursue amorously.

In the context of romantic love relationships, romance usually implies an expression of one's love, or one's deep emotional desires to connect with another person. This is especially apparent in platonic love where sexual drive is sublimated into an expression of desire.

Historically, the term "romance" originates with the medieval ideal of chivalry as set out in its Romance literature. Romance also has a strong European Christian tone since in Christianity virginity is considered an ideal for the female.

Even though there often appears to be traces of romance and love being intertwined in various cultures and societies throughout history, Gary Zukav, best selling author of Seat of the Soul and Soul Stories, views romantic love as being an illusion, stating that the concept of romantic love can never be truly fulfilling.

He states that "Romance is your desire to make yourself complete through another person rather than through your own inner work.", thus isolating the idea of romance from the concept of "true love." His argument is that "real love" is more beneficial than romantic involvement alone.

Romantic love may then be a sexual love that attempts to transcend needs driven by physical appearances, lust, or material and social gain.

This transcending ultimately implies not just that personality is more essential and a view that might appear without much regard to character.

Rather, romance tends to strive to see, or suppose it can see, personality as attractive in a fundamentally higher sense.