Remain in Me

Reflection on Night of prayer and Vigil with the Lord

On August 1st, we, the Verbum Dei Missionaries, organized a night of prayer, songs and silent reflection open to people from all walks of life. The theme of this night was “Remain in Me as I remain in you” John 15:4. The objective was to awaken the call and be reminded of Jesus’ promise in our vocation - a life of loving especially in this time of pandemic when there are many uncertainties be it in our career, our dreams and choices in life.

There were about 55 participants who signed in on Zoom individually and as a family. It was an experience of how many are hungry for the time and space to be with Jesus whether personally or as a community praying together as one. It reassured us to keep holding on together on the certainty in life believing and knowing that Jesus walks together with each one of us on our unique journey towards the same goal.

A time also to strengthen His love for us was when we sang the song “No greater love.” We invited the participants to type in the chat the word or phrase that spoke to their hearts.  I recall reading many of them that wrote “No greater love than a man would give his life for a friend” and “there’s no higher sacrifice than a man would give his life, he has paid a precious price for me.” These two sentences really spoke to my heart there and then, the greatness and value of our friendship with Jesus, that nothing can be exchanged for. Our Lord and God calls us his friends and invites us to the call to share this special friendship to others. As it was shared in the introduction before the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament that “Many are awakened by an alarm while some are awakened by a call.”

Though we may not always get the response immediately, we know to whom we can find the answer to our many questions in life. We ended the night with a couple of sharing from the participants on their experience and fruit of the prayer vigil.
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The fruits on this night were gratitude for the time and space that was provided and the awareness of hunger and thirst of many to be with Jesus. The personal invitation was to listen to Him in the silence of our hearts where He is able to speak to us.  

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With thanks to Priscilla Su and the WordNews team