Feast Bay Area Morning Bulletin for Mar 3, 2019

Enter into Your 40-Day
Personal Retreat
Start Your Retreat on Wednesday
Make Lent your time to go deeper with God.
For the next 40 days, from Ash Wednesday
to Easter Sunday, your goal is to grow closer
to Him.
Here are 4 things you want to do for the next
40 days:
1. Connect with God daily and weekly. Every
single day, connect with God for 10 to 15
minutes, praying and reading the Mass
Readings (Use Didache, Companion,
Sabbath or The Feast App). And yes, weekly,
connect with God at the Feast. Stop
missing the Feast for flimsy reasons like
“It’s raining” or “I don’t feel like going.” And
at any time during these next 40 Days, go
back to basics. Receive the Sacrament of
Reconciliation. (If you don’t know how, get
help from Feasters. Or see P4 for Confession
schedule.)
2. Watch our 40-Day Lenten Devotional
Online. It’ll be on Facebook, YouTube, etc.
It’s a 3-minute to 5-minute video that will
connect all Feasters together in prayer.
Sometimes, it’ll be an encouraging word,
other times, it’ll be an uplifting song.
Through this, you’ll be reminded of your
40-Day Personal Retreat.
3. End each day with profound gratitude.
Before you sleep, write down 5 blessings
you received that day. The simpler and
more ordinary the blessing, the more you’ll
be able to nurture the attitude of gratitude
in your heart.
4. Bless one person a day. Someone who
needs an experience of God’s Love.
It might just mean giving someone a
listening ear, or visiting a friend who
needs encouragement, or actually doing
something practical, like babysitting kids
for a night so the parents can have a date.
Enjoy your 40-Day Personal Retreat!
Opening Prayer to Your Personal Retreat
Lord, I consecrate my 40-Day Lenten Retreat to You.
My goal is to grow closer to You.
To take each step towards You.
I won’t hide.
I won’t pretend.
I’ll come as I am.
I’ll show You my mess.
You’ll show me Your mercy.
On my own, I can’t fix me, but I know your Spirit can.
For the next 40 Days, work in me.
Saints of Heaven, pray for my 40-Day Lenten Retreat.
In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
COME AS YOU ARE
Some people want to impress God with
their good deeds.
Believe me, that’s as insane as
giving your girlfriend a foot rug for her
birthday— but it’s a foot rug that had
been used for an entire year in a school
with 6,384 students. Even if you say,
“Honey, it’s pre-loved,” believe me, she
won’t feel the love.
I give this crazy analogy because
an ancient prophet said that our good
deeds are filthy rags to God (See Isaiah
64:6.). Your good behavior won’t be very
impressive at all.
So when it comes to God, there’s
really only one thing to do. Don’t hide. He
knows you more than you know yourself
(Duh).
As we enter into our 40-Day
Personal Retreat called Lent, surrender
to Him both your strengths and your
weaknesses. Especially your weaknesses.
Come as you are.
Come with your brokenness.
Come with your fears.
Come with your anger.
Come with your sadness.
Come with your darkness.
Come with your sins.
Just come.
He will wash your filth.
He will heal your wounds.
He will make you whole.
He will embrace all of you.
May your dreams come true,
BO SANCHEZ
COME TO ME
The Season of Lent is upon us once again.
I’m fascinated with how the word lent
also means borrowed. No wonder Lent
begins with Ash Wednesday to remind us,
“You are dust, and to dust, you shall return.”
Conscious therefore that our lives
here on earth are but temporary, Lent is a
good time to reflect on what we should do
in this short stay as “we shall never pass
this way again.”
I’m therefore doubly fascinated that
Lent culminates with Mahal na Araw.
Because mahal in English translates to
two words: costly and love.
After all, we were redeemed at a very
costly price – the life of our Lord Jesus.
Indeed, mahal na mahal. Because He loves
us dearly. Mahal na mahal Niya tayo.
That, then, is what we do during Lent,
on Mahal na Araw, and in all the days of
our lives: magmahal. Love. Because all of
our ceremonies and rituals, important as
they are, will ony have meaning if done
out of real love – from God, for God and
for others.
And we can only do this when we
HAVE JESUS, when we COME TO JESUS.
We welcome you on this Pre-Lenten
Special as we prepare ourselves for this
very blessed season of coming again to
the Lord.
We COME TOGETHER. We COME AS
WE ARE.
And if we come with our wearies
and burdens, then hear our Lord saying,
“COME TO ME… and I will give you rest.”
(Mt. 11:28)
Welcome to The Feast Bay Area
Grand Feast!
“Mayroong Magandang Mangyayari Sa ‘Yo!”
ALVIN BARCELONA
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BLESSING BLOG
TWO TALES OF TWO NBSB’S
Twentysomething Alyanna Mae Ilagan from Feast SM Manila and thirtysomething Rhea Nodado, from Feast PICC AM, both
accountants, tell their different stories of finding Mr. Right.
Alyanna Mae Ilagan
writes: I planned
my wedding day
on May 14, 2022,
summertime before
I turn 26. It would
be a Saturday so
all my friends and
relatives would be
there among the 250
guests. Bro. Bo Sanchez would be one of the ninongs (No harm
in wishing, right?). I would walk the aisle of Baclaran Church
and the wedding reception would be at a hotel nearby.
More than those details, one important detail is missing in
this scenario – my Mr. Right, my would-be husband.
Not only am I an NBSB (No Boyfriend Since Birth), I’ve
never been on a date either. I was always the hard-crusher,
but hardly anybody’s crush. The dreamer, but never anybody’s
dream girl.
Whenever I am exclusively crushing, I would write letters
that would never reach my crush, I would think of what could
be and my heart would break for all the wrong reasons. It was a
tiring cycle. Heartbreaks from crushes are real. However, it’s not
the memories that made me cry, but the time wasted on making
them on my own.
“Why, Lord?” I’d then ask.
His answer came through the talk series: Looking for Mr. and
Ms. Right.
It dawned on me that I had been seeking approval from
others when my Father calls me His Beloved. I sought security in
men when the Lord holds my future. So one day, I scratched out
my wedding plan, moved on from the toxic exclusive crush I had,
sorted my priorities and straightened out my relationship with
God.
Mr. Right is not the priority – being Ms. Right is. God wants
me to be as happy, a woman after His own heart.
And when the Lord deems that I’m ready, I know that my
heartbreaks from the men who aren’t for me will be no match to
the love story God Himself wrote for me. I might have planned
when, how and where I would want to get married but I trust that
He has something better in mind.
Rhea Nodado tells Bulletin staffwriter Timothy Quintos: Back
when I was an NBSB, I was excited to have my first boyfriend.
Then, I met Jojo, through her tita, my colleague. His smile
made me my heart flutter. My father said to choose someone
responsible and mature. But I followed my heart. What if
he had no regular job? We’ll manage, I thought. We became
sweethearts.
After a year together, I got pregnant so we married in a
civil ceremony. Later, my husband decided to work in Qatar to
provide for our growing family.
Friends said, “Naku, dapat alam mo ang password ng asawa
mo sa Facebook para malaman mo kung may iba na siyang
kinakasama.”
I retorted, “Eh, di iisipin pa n’yang wala akong tiwala sa
kanya.” Check on him like that? To me that was being childish.
But fate has a funny way of showing me the truth. In 2012,
he forgot his password and asked me to open his email for
him. That’s when I found out about his affair with another
woman. Immediately, I confronted him. He explained that he
was just lonely and homesick. But when I asked him to choose,
his reply shook me, “Hindi ko alam.”
My whole world fell apart. Di ko alam kung anong gagawin
ko nung panahong ‘yon. While I sought refuge at the Chapel of
St. Padre Pio and surrendered everything to the Lord, I also
sought diversions to numb my pain. For the first time in my life,
I drank and smoked. By myself.
I pretended everything was okay. Papasok ako sa trabaho na
wala sa sarili. In truth, my heart was bleeding. I badly needed
someone to talk to. But instead of turning to my squad – family
or friends – I turned to this male colleague who lent his ear. My
biggest mistake.
Before I knew it, I was falling for him. I prayed, “Lord, I don’t
want to commit the same mistake my husband made. Please,
Clockwise from left bottom: Rhea with husband
Jojo, and sons Daniel and Christian
save me.” After a month, he was
removed in the office.
I continued my drinking and
smoking for months and fell
into depression. When I couldn’t
take it anymore, I wanted to end
my life. When I was about to do
it, I saw a picture of Jesus from
the window. He was hugging
those who pray.
That brought me back to
my senses. I realized I should stop
focusing on my husband’s misdeed and instead focus on my two
little boys –Daniel and Christian. I went back to the Chapel to
nourish my spirit.
A month later, I received an unexpected call. It was Jojo. He
was in the airport. He asked for my forgiveness and said, “Gusto
kong baguhin ang lahat ng maling nagawa ko.” Like a real man, he
also asked forgiveness from our boys. Finally, my Mr. Right was
home.
Our relationship with each other is now way better than
before. We regularly attend The Feast and our two teenagers are
active at Youth High, thanks to their Camp Calye experience.
Got an inspiring story? Email your respective Feasts.
Feast Ermita: a1media.feastbayarea@gmail.com
Feast MOA: info@thefeastmallofasia.com
Feast SM Manila: shareyourstory.tfsmm@gmail.com
Feast PICC AM: iamblessedatthefeast@gmail.com
Feast PICC OPM: fba.opm@gmail.com
Feast PICC PM: fbamedia.m3sy@gmail.com
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SCENES FROM LAST WEEK
Across the Feast Bay Area
The happiest servants are at The Feast (left) because we say,
The Feast is the happiest place on earth. That’s probably why
we’re always packed during the Feast PICC AM sessions.
At the Feast PICC PM, Bro. Alvin Barcelona, Feast Bay
Area district head, and his son, Aio, love to sing and
play music together. Here, they render Father and
Son by Cat Stevens and other hit songs to culminate
the talk series, Looking for Mr. and Ms. Right.
Fr. Bob McConaghy blesses
the kids after the Mass.
Guest speaker Rissa Kawpeng, book
author, inspires the singles of Feast
MOA to enjoy life.
Kuya Lep Sumera (top photo) and Doc Ryan Capitulo (bottom
photo) tell their young audience, “You are valuable than you
think you are.
The Feast Ermita is where healing abounds and love
overflows. Its builders, Bro. Adrian Panganiban and Bro.
John Ben, exchange banter onstage.
Through a skit, at the Feast MOA, actors illustrate how like
the blind we try to search for our partners when we don’t
use our head with our heart.
Right: Feast PICC OPM Coach JC Libiran exhorts Feasters of PICC Overflow, also
called OPM, to listen to the Word of God. Left: Coach JC and his wife Milen, ask Jel
Directo, founder of Verses.ph, and March Nacino, digital marketing expert, about
the blessings of being single.
Right: Youth Home attendees listen to Bro. Tony Valenzuela’s talk. Left: Bro. Mon
Reyes (right) announces YH’s new Instagram account – @youth_home – where
the young can stay connected virtually.
RECAP
The Gospel According to
Luke 6:27-38 | Love Your Enemies
“Forgiveness is setting
the prisoner free and
discovering that the
prisoner is you.”
-Fr. Michael Laguardia
Why do good to those who hate
us and forgive those who have
offended us? When we forgive
those who have offended us,
we’re not doing them a favor,
but setting ourselves free from
bitterness, anger and hatred.
Who Do You Deserve? We don’t attract
whom we deserve, we attract whom we
think we deserve. If you have a negative
perception of yourself, you will attract
a broken person. Do not be impatient.
Be the right person first and the right
person will find you.
Accept singleness as a gift. While
unmarried, expand your world, form
your character, join and serve ministries,
deepen your spiritual life, build your
business and focus on yourself first.
Accept the struggles of singleness.
Singles are prone to loneliness and
Series: Looking for Mr. & Ms. Right
Big Day
Big Message: God is enough.
sexual temptations. The antidote: Stay
with your squad. Invest time with your
family and friends. Join an LG or a Light
Group at the Feast. (See P4 for details.)
Single Life Is Blessed. Enjoy this
season. If you’re not happy while
you’re single, then you won’t be happy
being married. Understand that you
are complete because you have the
Lord with you. You don’t need a spouse
to complete you. God is with you. He
is enough to give you the joy, peace,
purpose and the love you need.
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