A Gift of Bread

Last Thursday, December 10, which happens to be the feast day of Our Lady of Loreto, I asked the Lord for a Honda Civic LX.  That was the prize for the lottery in Catherine’s House and I earnestly prayed that God give it to me as my birthday gift. He didn’t. The good news is, I won in our school Christmas party’s lottery, the day after my birthday. It was a Panera Bread Gift Card worth $15. Yay!   The next day, Saturday, the 12^th, I went to Perpetual Adoration. As I sat in front of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, I read the story Hidden Inner Wounds on Through the Eyes of Jesus by Alan Ames.  As I read, tears begun to roll down my cheeks as Jesus healed the woman of her unforgiveness and her past memories. I felt like Jesus was talking to me, too. My catharsis was intense but when I reached for my tissue, there was none. I left for the rest room to get some. When I came back, I looked at the entry date on the book. Alan wrote it on Dec. 10 of 1996 as the Lord directed him to.  “Wow! Same day as my birthday. Thank you Lord!” became my heart’s response as I reach out for more tissues.

The Panera Bread Gift card also came to my mind. My husband and I have been married for 15 years in the Catholic Church. Bread. What about it? The bread is the symbol of the Eucharist.  A communion with Christ. The breaking of the bread with others and with my family.  I believe this is what Jesus wants me to do—to share Him with others through small, everyday kind deeds. And isn’t that a challenge that we all can do? “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer (Acts 2:42 NIV).”

Pope Francis raises the host during the Papal mass at the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia.

My adoration time finished at 9:00 o’ clock, so I headed for mass. In the beginning of the mass, Fr. Gabriel mentioned that it was the feast day of our Lady of Guadalupe. “How can I forget?” I asked myself. “It must be my back pain again blocking the travel of information in my brain,” I thought. The tissue became handy again. In the mass, Fr. Gabriel talked about our Blessed Mother, who was chosen among women to be the Mother of God. The angel Gabriel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you (Luke 1:28 NIV). The mention of angel Gabriel then brought me memories of something uncommon that happened in the afternoon of my birthday. I was helping the little children at work login in the computer. I was unusually tired and somewhat impatient for a lot of them were raising their hands or poking me for help. After I finished assisting this one boy, he blurted out “You are doing a very good job of helping us.” That surprised me. “He sounded like an adult,” I thought.  I looked towards his index card to find out his name. His name was Gabriel. “Wow! Amazing Lord! Thank you St. Gabriel!”   Although, I thought I wasn’t deserving of the compliment, He still blessed me.

After mass, around 9:15 am, I saw our old friends Beth and Steve, so we chatted as we usually do. I shared with her my reflections. Then Beth responded, “This morning, God told me to put some cookies in a Ziploc bag.  I asked God to whom I should give it to.  He said, He will direct me. Now, I know He wants me to give it to you. Happy Birthday!”

An assortment of yummy breads await those with sweet tooth at Sweet Inspirations, a restaurant/bakery along Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City, Philippines.

PRAYER: Lord, thank you for blessing me for the 51 years of my life. Though I am very imperfect, you continue to shower me with your blessings and your Presence. May I not forget your Presence in simple and hidden ways in my life and please bless also all the people I come in contact with.  May we all be a blessing and a reminder of Jesus to each other! Also, thank you for sharing your Mother to us, who also treats us as Her children. Amen.