Once I crossed my 70th birthday, I was acutely aware that the greater part of my life was over and I brazed myself to face the advancing ‘twilight’ years and hoped for God’s grace to lead me through graciously and true enough He is faithfully doing just that.
I find myself now in Jakarta, Canossian Novitiate community where days are passing so quickly as I find myself always engaged with things to do. One of the things that gives me joy is my encounters with Sr.Edna Macahilas, who is also in her 70’s and in the nearby St. Magdalene’s community. We meet 3 times in a week, for one hour, to do ‘Spiritual Reading” together. As her eyesight is failing due to her many health problems we use a computer . After a short prayer, we open the computer to get “The Vatican News”, and I maximise the size of the alphabets, so that we can take turns to read all the news about the Holy Father, his homilies, the Church and the News in the World.
We read and rejoice with the good news of the achievements of the local churches in various regions and the Universal Church, their success in spreading the Gospel and the spread of God’s Kingdom. When we read of the catastrophes caused by civil wars, natural calamities and persecution of people for their faith we are moved to compassion for the victims and we resolve to pray for them in our personal and community prayers.
Sr.Edna and I look forward to this hour as we feel a sense of companionship and a sense of solidarity in getting to know what is happenings within the Church.