"Hanapin mo ang kalooban ng Diyos. Sabihin mo lagi 'Panginoon, ituro mo sa akin ang kalooban Mo'". (Search for the will of God. Always say, 'Lord teach me Your will') These were the words I would often hear from Lola Piling during my teenage years. For some time, I would just let the words pass from one ear to another. Like any teenagers, I wanted to gain that independence, to seek my will and not someone else's. Such was my stubbornness that I didn't even bother to ask her what God's will is.
One time, Ms. Melba Silvela, our Religion teacher in 4th year high school, asked us to write an essay. I can't remember now what the topic was all about, but I wrote something like it was God's will that something bad has happened (An earthquake perhaps? Mind you, there was an earthquake that hit Luzon that year). Nanay Bang, as I now call this beloved teacher, read my paper aloud and corrected me. She said it wasn't God's will that calamities happen. Rather God permitted them to happen. So from then on, I learned that God's will isn't the same as God's permission; particularly that God won't will for His creation to be destroyed.
I continued to ask my peers (rather than my superiors). One classmate Fernando Lopez (not the former Vice President!) who once was a seminarian told me that God's will is in His 10 commandments. Later in college, when I was studying Ethics, I learned that to know God's will is to read the Scriptures. Finally, another ex-seminarian, told me that God's will can be discovered when you are at peace with your decisions.
We've often prayed "Thy will be done" without fully understanding nor sincerely seeking for it. However, as a parent now myself, I realize the huge responsibility of raising my child as a good Christian. I dread the day Chiara might ask me what it is and I'll find myself dribbling my answer like a basketball. Worse, I might set a bad example to her (and to others).
During Lola's final phone call to me and my siblings in Manila about 15 years ago, her last words to me were "Always communicate with God." What a perfect way to know the Lord's will than to communicate with Him!
Lent gives us all that opportunity to have a hard look at our stubborn selves. Is our will working? If not, then it's definitely time to try someone else's; someone who is faithful (1 Corinthians 1:9). We may not find it straightaway and be perplexed like St Joseph when he discovered his future wife to be with child. But if we are humble and open like this son of David, we will soon discover what God really wants.
God's will may seem to be undrinkable like the cup of suffering that Jesus referred to in His agony in the garden (Matthew 26:39), but let us trust the Father the way Jesus did. Didn't Christ say that "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work." (John 4:34)?
Going back to Lola, she was a devotee of St Joseph. Her favorite color is green which is one of St Joe's symbolic color (the other being yellow). But beyond the green attire she wore, I found in her persona the true essence of being a devotee of this great saint: obedience to God's will.
Happy 100th birthday, Lola Piling! Thank you for your unfailing love and motherly guidance. Thank you for putting up with such a hard-headed grandson. Thank you for always reminding me with what matters most in being a Christian, in being a person. Keep on inspiring us, keep on praying for us that our hearts too may always say "Thy will be done"! Rest in God's abiding peace. I love you!
