Allocutio 30 June 17- Gospel of Matthew 27:45-50

New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE) can be accessed in the following link (courtesy of: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops)

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For the past few weeks, I have felt quite lost and disconnected from God. Several continuous mishaps, misfortunes, plans-go-wrong, and all other similar stuffs have clouded my days and I just couldn’t seem to find Him in it all. The situation was worsened by the fact that I was also struggling with my prayer life. Half of me was like, “I’ll pray to Him no matter what”. The other half was like, “Hello, God, where are you? Can’t seem to hear anything from you.” He was just, too far from me now.

And so, with all these dark clouds above my head, I sat with an empty head and empty heart on Thursday night. I was trying to fulfil my task of delivering an allocutio to my fellow legionaries. I felt helpless, and so I devised a plan. I was thinking to apologize in the meeting, and just read out the daily reflection from “Laudate” apps as replacement for the allocutio. With that in mind, I went ahead to open that apps in my mobile. I clicked on the first tab, “Daily Readings & Saint of the Day”. The page opened up to reveal more tabs, one of them is the “Reflections” tab that I was looking for. But before I went straight to it, my eyes caught sight of another tab, “Saint of the day”. I didn’t intend to see, but I clicked it anyway, thinking that perhaps reading some saints’ stories could lift up my mood. (I liked reading saints’ stories when I was younger, FYI)

There, I was greeted with the title, “Saint Maria Goretti”. I remembered I have read it once when I was young, but I couldn’t remember the details, and so I decided to read on. Beautiful, pious farm girl, Maria Goretti was martyred at the young age of 12 years-old. A 19-years-old male neighbor has tried to rape her, but she fought fiercely, even reminded the attacker that he could go to hell for his sin. The attacker, Alessandro Serenelli, tried to choke her into submission, and then stabbed her 14 times. Maria Goretti survived in the hospital for two days, enough for her to forgive her attacker and even asked God’s forgiveness for him, before died holding a crucifix and medal of Our Lady. As for Alessandro, he later received a vision of Maria Goretti which will then lead to his repentance and conversion.

I felt ashamed. At such a young age, Maria Goretti displayed great spiritual maturity. Despite the horrific thing that she experienced, she remained firm in her faith. And yet, here I am, a 26-years-old woman, whining at God for some petty stuffs, in comparison with what Maria Goretti had endured.
I felt even more embarrassed, when I remembered how Legionaries are always called to persevere. How am I suppose to live that calling up, if even for small stuffs I have already whined to God?

At that moment, I decided not to proceed with my initial plan of “replacing allocutio with daily reflection”. Instead, although embarrassing, I decided to share with my fellow legionaries on my struggle, and this embarrassing realization on how childish I was, spiritually. Never again this thought of giving Him up comes to me, I hope!