(N.B.: This was originally posted on my Facebook wall; but I decided to repost it here in my blog in order to encourage more of my fellow Catholics to take advantage of the gifts that the Church bequeaths upon the faithful as conduits of grace emanating from God and the sacraments He established.)
Recently, I have been sick. My flu symptoms became really evident last week (I think that was a Monday or a Tuesday) where my sore throat was getting worse and I began sneezing so bad. I tried taking turmeric tea twice a day; although it alleviated a burgeoning discomfort in my trachea, still the throat area was aching profusely. I was in the thick of my work and some chores so I never paid things much attention, so when Thursday came, I felt sick to my core. The tea was not working and although I had already been considering preparing a saline solution for my throat, I’ve always never responded perfectly to it ever since before so I usually resorted to cough syrups and other over the counter medications instead like Bactidol. Yet, I could not go out to purchase anything from the drugstore since I was not feeling that well anymore so I merely went on with a salt gargle.
One thing would be unique with the salt preparation though: I used exorcised salt instead of just regular salt. I was also still a little sceptical if it would work because of my previous experiences with salt gargles, except that those were just “regular” salt, i.e., without the blessings of the Church. “Lord, I just hope this works,” is what I thought I muttered at that time.
After the procedure, the result was almost instantaneous based on how I observed it: phlegm began to be mixed with the gargle which was something that I never experienced before. It really astounded me and kept telling myself, “this is weird.” I finished up the entire mug then went to bed.
The next day, I began coughing up a lot of those stubborn sticky phlegm as if I was taking antibiotics (and all I was preoccupied with were my prayers, consuming some exorcised salt grains before bedtime, turmeric tea, Biogesic, my usual hot or warm water). Yes, the cough and colds were really intense but I did not experience having my nose stuffed as if I’d have an asthma attack (a far cry from my usual experiences ever since childhood). The coughing itself was almost like persecution as well; however, despite no antibiotics, it was as if my lungs were being cleared slowly but surely. Fever was also present but it would subside quickly. Also, my SO began praying a chaplet to St Lazarus for my health since Saturday.
Today I feel more relieved. Yes, the cough and colds are still here but I can function a bit better now unlike last week.
This, I daresay, is evidence of how God uses ordinary objects, i.e., sacramentals, like blessed or exorcised salt to impart His healing power (and I speak about this as a person who has always been a natural sceptic). Those are not trivial superstitions nor charms, unlike what our Protestant brethren or many unbelievers would make everyone believe. Such objects, when consecrated to God for a noble and blessed purpose impart both physical and spiritual graces, ππ₯ πππππ πππππππ‘ππ or ππ₯ πππππ πππππππ‘ππ πΈπππππ πππ, aligned with the natural course of things, as a testament to how God’s omnipotence transcends time and space to reach out to us though how lowly we may all be.
In this regard, I leave everyone an excerpt from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on this subject (par. 1668-1670):
The characteristics of sacramentals
1668 Sacramentals are instituted for the sanctification of certain ministries of the Church, certain states of life, a great variety of circumstances in Christian life, and the use of many things helpful to man. In accordance with bishops’ pastoral decisions, they can also respond to the needs, culture, and special history of the Christian people of a particular region or time. They always include a prayer, often accompanied by a specific sign, such as the laying on of hands, the sign of the cross, or the sprinkling of holy water (which recalls Baptism).
1669 Sacramentals derive from the baptismal priesthood: every baptized person is called to be a “blessing,” and to bless. Hence lay people may preside at certain blessings; the more a blessing concerns ecclesial and sacramental life, the more is its administration reserved to the ordained ministry (bishops, priests, or deacons).
1670 Sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church’s prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it. “For well-disposed members of the faithful, the liturgy of the sacraments and sacramentals sanctifies almost every event of their lives with the divine grace which flows from the Paschal mystery of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ. From this source all sacraments and sacramentals draw their power. There is scarcely any proper use of material things which cannot be thus directed toward the sanctification of men and the praise of God.”
It’s been a while ever since I’ve written here and definitely, I love being back to this hobby of mine that I have cultivated since I was a college student. Blogging (I mean, writing on an online journal, not so much with that of documenting one’s preoccupations on video) has been my one and only sport (if you could consider it as such) for years and years of my undergraduate life until work caught up on me as I then began to metamorphose into such a smug curmudgeon whose mental health struggles created a perennial vacuum in me, But after my on and off attempts at reviving this, at last I have written yet another entry on this blog that has become irregularly populated in a sense.
So, what about this post? Actually I don’t really know, with all honesty. It’s merely this kind of hubris perhaps about writing that has kept haunting me for days since I’ve constantly indicated in my planner that I HAVE TO BLOG ONCE AND FOR ALL. I’ve always been putting this off, not for anything else but because I merely think there are more important things to keep myself busy with. As I’ve resigned from job and applied for a retainer/part-time position in that same workplace, I did figure out that I now have more time to allocate for what I ought to do; so I am currently taking advantage of that fact.
Maybe what I should highlight here momentarily is on how I’ve been healing from my recent major mental health debacle that happened last month, a circumstance instrumental for my resignation, somehow. I always felt like I’d be waking up from a very deep sleep almost everyday. There were memories that I’d have forgotten, perhaps due to my brain having bogged down entirely during those two days leadng up to my breakdown, where I had no sleep for two days due to work. Fast forward to today, I have observed that i am relatively more relaxed and I have gone back to analog journaling again (which I could not do quite often still but I do look forward to the day when I’d be able to do so regularly). I am also trying to set up my new creatives business and I am currently designing some sticker and postcard designs for both my business and as a last task for my work.
So far, I believe I am thriving but with finances as my only difficulty. Yet, I still wake up with gratitude that I am stlll alive despite everything that makes me anxious every now and then. As this is the week before Holy Week (as of this writing), I am reminded of how much God has been keeping my company amidst every experience I have, whether good or bad.
So, as always, in typical Benedictine fashion: that in all things, God may be glorified.
NOTE: I have thought of posting excerpts every two days at the least of the Rule of St. Benedict as a way of starting 2025 right, as a means to uplift the spiritual life. I shall also be writing some reflections about the Rule every now and then that shall feature my insights about St. Benedict’s teachings. May God bless us all.
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Listen, O my son, to the precepts of thy master, and incline the ear of thy heart, and cheerfully receive and faithfully execute the admonitions of thy loving Father, that by the toil of obedience thou mayest return to Him from whom by the sloth of disobedience thou hast gone away.
To thee, therefore, my speech is now directed, who, giving up thine own will, takest up the strong and most excellent arms of obedience, to do battle for Christ the Lord, the true King.
In the first place, beg of Him by most earnest prayer, that He perfect whatever good thou dost begin, in order that He who hath been pleased to count us in the number of His children, need never be grieved at our evil deeds. For we ought at all times so to serve Him with the good things which He hath given us, that He may not, like an angry father, disinherit his children, nor, like a dread lord, enraged at our evil deeds, hand us over to everlasting punishment as most wicked servants, who would not follow Him to glory.
Let us then rise at length, since the Scripture arouseth us, saying: “It is now the hour for us to rise from sleep” (Rom 13:11); and having opened our eyes to the deifying light, let us hear with awestruck ears what the divine voice, crying out daily, doth admonish us, saying: “Today, if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Ps 94[95]:8). And again: “He that hath ears to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches” (Rev 2:7). And what doth He say?β”Come, children, hearken unto me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord” (Ps 33[34]:12). “Run whilst you have the light of life, that the darkness of death overtake you not” (Jn 12:35).
Welcome to my new blog at the onset of 2025. Honestly, I am celebrating right now without much of the hype and fanfare except the resolve to spend time praying: not because I do not wish to be overrun by holiday glee but more of harbouring an inner desire to look back at the previous years where I’ve been too remiss about many things and neglectful of what matters most.
As someone who has dealt with depression all my life, I have always found it difficult to adjust with mainstream ways of coping, or how people may describe as a more “normal” approach to facing life as a whole. Moreover, not a few has had a glimpse of my life constantly riddled with emotional and psychological triggers left and right, sometimes robbing me of the ability to be more aware of my reactions, character, or interactions. Year in and year out, I have always found myself resolving to “do the right thing” or “change sundry aspects of my uneventful, unpredictably sad life” but mostly to no avail, as the cycle of the repercussions of abuse would continuously haunt me even in my subconscious dealings with my own inner demons. All I would know is pain, hurt, depression, rancour; an unabatingly dysfunctional frame of mind about a myriad of things front and centre and mostly I would end up wishing I had never been born.
However, just as they say, as you grow older you make attempts to grow wiser—whether it emanates from a more conscious effort on one’s part or just because the self has to mature in one way or another. Perhaps I am now at the threshold of such a stage in my life, well, thanks to the fact that I needed to take it upon myself to assume the responsibility to heal once and for all. Indeed: forasmuch as it does not ever more profit a man to constantly harbour rage against the self, experience, existence, or perhaps even merely that constant battle against melancholia that plagues the mind far more often than not, Time shall eventually take matters into its own hands in order for pain and hurt to dissipate into oblivion. As the old saying goes, Time heals all wounds; and underlying all these would be grace that infuses into us inner joy despite, perhaps, that we are not most likely to be entirely conscious about transitioning from our own sorrowful state unto ineffable bliss. Then again, because everything is grace.
So should I hypothesise for myself on what 2025 has in store? I would rather not dabble in that. What matters anyway is that of valuing each process that I ought to undergo towards perfecting my mind, soul, and spirit. Besides, being more predisposed to simplicity would do my soul better—for to cherish supernatural grace and be thankful for it proves to be more valuable than all the gold and silver in the world.
Recently I had the chance to view one of Anderson Cooper’s 360 Specials entitled “Being Thirteen: Inside the Secret World of Teens”. What followed after I clicked on the “play” button on the video itself shocked me: teenagers in middle school, with their seemingly childhood innocence intact, spewing vitriol on social media against peers who do not click with their interests, humiliating a classmate by failing to tag them on Instagram just because they looked “uncool”, or posting heart-wrenching cries of help virtually invisible to their parents’ watchful eyes. Indeed, gory details of parking lot encounters with bullies from higher grade levels—once a flavour of a typical high school in the 80s and 90s—have now escalated into an even more volatile medium of spite, wherein teenagers channel their unbridled angst for all the world to see, even unto those unbeknownst to them on social media but still accepted into either their “friends” or “followers list because, as one student remarked “The more the merrier.”
This very alarming trend happening amongst teens are all done betwixt class discussions, with sexting as the norm while good ol’ teacher expounding on the American Civil War continues to take on her tasks diligently, unwary of all the equally perturbing activities happening online in her students’ lives. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, we begin seeing headlines on Fox News about a middle schooler’s lifeless body merely dumped in the woods, with two college students who “followed” her on Twitter as perpetrators. All these and more, plus the neverending assault on young students’ minds by pornographic images on Snapchat, notwithstanding a diversity of attempts by parents to monitor their children’s online activities. Indeed, the perversion of social media has gone too far, eventually compromising a youngster’s self esteem and mental health.
Without further ado, here is the video which I believe is a must-watch and a must-share. Likewise, kudos to Anderson Cooper and his CNN team for fearlessly exposing the dangers that America’s kids—and ultimately, all kids regardless of race or creed—face on a day-to-day basis.
