A thankful Leper

For the year of 2020, our prayer group is blessed to have the whole year booked with the prominent keynote presenters including our own Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, from the Archdiocese of Vancouver who is scheduled to come in July 2020. Having different presenters add different characteristics and dynamics to the prayer group which attract many people from our own parish and the surrounding parishes.
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I love dealing with different presenters, each one of them is unique and wonderful. I look forward to every prayer meeting. Meeting our presenters and our members bring me special delight. Sometime though a presenter might need to cancel due to health reason or an emergency that cannot be averted, then a replacement must be found or try to find a different way to fill in the time, if in any case all efforts were in vain, then the prayer meeting has to be cancelled. So far, God always provided me with a presenter needed for that particular month, He provides the replacement speaker. Praise God. I have never had to cancel a prayer meeting. But that was before COVID19 outbreak!

I have been delaying in announcing the cancellation of our prayer meetings. I feel that if I just wait, there may be breaking news of discovery of a cure, and everyone can be nursed back to health again and soon this COVID19 virus nightmare is history.
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Also, I have been racking my brain to be creative. For example, perhaps to replace a prayer meeting with a mini reflection video clip, so that all members can watch this at the comfort of their own homes, to reflect or meditate. In order to make that happen, I am going to need a material that can be put together into a meditative clip. After several attempts I realized that this isn’t likely to happening. No temporary replacement of the prayer meeting will become a reality. 

In the meantime, as part of the monthly preparation of a PPPG prayer meeting, I begun to make presentations again, this time with a very mixed feelings knowing that there is likely to be no prayer meeting for the forceable future. I want to use this time as productively as possible. I read the materials and transfer them into presentation slides as usual. One slide after another, tears coming down my eyes. I feel a deep sense of thanksgiving in my heart. Lord, thank you for giving me three years to promote Padre Pio, your beloved Saint and at the end to promote You. I hope I did not disappoint You. I thank you Lord, for the people whom you sent to be part of this prayer group, who love you and Padre Pio. I thank you for giving me many creative ideas, for the kind-hearted presenters, and all the beloved volunteers and members of the prayer group. As I prepare for future prayer meeting, it’s not in vain, when the chance arise, I will be ready.

A few months ago, I taught my young-adults group ministry about the Ten Lepers (Luke 17: 11-19). We want to be the one leper who came back to Jesus to give thanks, not only in good times but in bad times too. Let us all to be the One Leper who give thanks to our Lord, for his generous blessings including all trials to help us learn and get to know Him. I want to be the one leper that returns to Him. With a heavy heart I posted in our Facebook page and website that the prayer meetings will be cancelled until further notice. If you are always a Martha in your life, perhaps now it is the time to be Mary. Let us continue to pray the Rosary together with the prayer intentions of the month and remember to give thanks. God has cleared up our busy schedules and we have only one appointment left with God in our calendar. If He chooses to cleanse us again, thank Him, if not, thank Him anyway.
Have you thanked Him today?
 
Written by Lucy Rodjito on the Feast of St. Joseph on March 19, 2020, sometime after the announcement that all Masses are to be offered without a public congregation, until further notice.