Burning Hearts

The Gospel today, usually given entitled as “The Road to Emmaus”, I will always remember as the Gospel read during First Holy Communion. We had rehearsals on the participative Gospel reading. “Please stay with us. Night is coming.”

Reading and re-reading the Gospel, I am struck by the way their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. Contrary to what the priest said at the sermon, they did not recognize Jesus because of their disappointment. They were “prevented.”

I reckon that Jesus had this cloak of many faces upon his resurrection. I bet that the mysterious Faceless Man character in Game of Thrones was based on this. (Which I have previously blogged about. Hehe)

I wondered how it is to feel ‘a heart burning’. I am recalling how I become engaged and excited in certain conversations, many of them debates and arguments. Certainly, my heart beat races as I try to understand what was being said AND formulate my own on reasoning, counter-arguments, or even just questions to test the rationality of the argument.

Could this be what Cleopas and companion were feeling as the Scriptures was being explained to them by no less than Jesus himself? I imagine how impassioned the discussion must have been as those disciples had made up their mind that the prophet they were following could NOT have been the Messiah. They must have felt so lost as this figurehead they had pinned their hopes on was crucified. They must have felt crushed and humiliated. And they couldn’t wrap their minds around the stories that somehow, he must have resurrected.

They must have tried to argue against the facts being laid by Jesus. Yet they couldn’t. And they began to understand both his horrible death AND his resurrection. They probably had that “Aha” moment, just as he broke the bread. That moment of realization coincided with the ‘reveal’ - it was Jesus, all along who was with on that journey! Jesus, his tasked completed, disappeared. But he left them enlightened and even more zealous as disciples, hearts burning!

How wonderful it must have been to hear Jesus himself explain the Scriptures for us. And to have our faith re-awakened, re-ignited with a clearer understanding of His Life, Death and Resurrection! Such Good News we couldn’t keep to ourselves!

Quarantine Easter

This coincides with my dad’s 1st year death anniversary, his babang-luksa.  Many plans for this day but COVID19 happened. 

26 Days since start of the Enhanced Community Quarantine for Luzon. And it has been 19 days since I have actually went out of the house. I went out for an hour just to buy medicines at Mercury Drug in Wilson. 

Work from home arrangement could be a lot busier. With Viber, SMS, FB messenger, Email, MS Teams, I am virtually connected to the office 16 hours a day. I can be in multiple meetings and chats. I am expected to reply to messages almost instantaneously. 

I have put some semblance of order and regularity in my workweek. I wake up at 6-615am. I do some morning abs workout before taking a shower. I log on at all my Viber groups by 8am (or a little before it). But never earlier (unless there are emergencies). 

I work out after 5pm, usually at the roofdeck so I could have some outdoor breeze. I have started to use all the workout equipment I have always had lying around. MWF strength training using elastic bands, dumbbells and going for high reps. TThS left for cardio burn stuff, from simple calisthenics routines to some HIIT programs. But this changed during Holy Week. I was off the whole week (company VL). Workouts became mornings, finishing by 930 to 10am, fasted workouts. 

Afternoons I spend usually at the roofdeck (pictured) where I get my summer breeze and golden hour view. At one point, I actually climbed all the way the rooftop just to appreciate the sunset and see smog-free Metro Manila. A buwis-buhay shot.

Quarantine weekends have been spent on home projects. 1st 2 weeks saw me and the help cleaning and beautifying the few ‘garden spaces around the house. Holy Week gave me more time to work on cleanup of the storage. Ugh. So much junk and trash accumulated throughout the years. But it also yielded precious items like old photos in albums and picture frames, some books, and lots of memories.

Today was the first time the family got to use Zoom meetings. Since we “attended” the Easter Vigil celebrations last night, we had the morning to finally do that video conferencing app. It was great seeing my siblings, my nephews and nieces interact with my mom and us based here in San Juan City. We tried to do some communal singing. But with differing internet speeds, that was a flop. But we got to share old photos using Zoom. And we got updated on how everyone was doing. It looked like we were all still free from COVID19. 

 No more grieving for Tatay. It has been a year. He is in a peaceful place now. I dreamt about him last week. His message: “I am always around. Haven’t you wondered who has been carrying you?” Strange yet comforting, he is probably looking out for us. And telling us to just hang on, kapit lang as something good will still come out of this. We just have to keep the faith.