Edward Steichen, Camel Cigarettes, 1927

Reflection: See Grace Beyond Limits

When Saint Patrick was captured as a young man and taken to Ireland as a slave, his life seemed hopeless. But even in captivity, Patrick found God’s presence. He prayed constantly, and when he escaped years later, he felt called to return to Ireland—not as a slave but as a missionary. Patrick used simple things, like the shamrock, to explain the faith to the people. His life reminds us that God’s grace can work in unexpected ways and through the simplest things.

This connects to the story of Jesus and the crippled man at thePool of Bethesda. In those days, people believed an angelstirred the pool’s waters, making them miraculous. The sickgathered around, hoping to be healed if they could reach thewater first. In the Gospel, however, Jesus heals the crippledman not through water but by His word alone. He shows thatHe is the true source of grace and healing. Sadly, the Phariseesdon’t see the miracle. They focus on rules and miss God’s work.

Like Saint Patrick, Jesus invites us to see grace with purehearts. This Lenten season, we are called to turn away frombias and malice to recognize God’s mercy. As the Beatitudesays, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.”When we focus on grace rather than limitations, we find joyand salvation in God’s presence. Let us, like Saint Patrick, usesimple things to remind ourselves and others of God’s love andgrace in the world.

~ Fr. Toto Cerada, SDB

This Lent, what biases or distractions in your life prevent youfrom fully seeing and embracing God’s grace? How can youmake your heart purer to draw closer to Him?

Lord, cleanse my heart. Help me let go of my biases and embraceYour grace. Renew my faith and fill me with Your love and mercy.Amen.

Prayer

… for a deep and profound respect for life, especially for the unborn.

… for the strength and healing of the sick.

… for the healing and peace of all families.

Finally, we pray for one another, for those who have asked our prayers and for those who need our prayers the most.

GOD BLESS

Distractions.

—A small journal entry, or product of reflection. Not selectively crafted poetry like a good portion of my writing; but something I felt might connect with someone out there. So take my thoughts.

The world I live in, the one I built around myself, is one of distractions.

I am in a constant state of distract and reflect and distract and repeat— I have been dragging myself along for stars know how long, to the point anything else feels meaningless. I am unfifilled and undeniably in a status of zoochosis that only the human experience could bring about.

It feels like me, alone, so small against what lays beyond the occasionally disrupted walls of my room.

Because, at the end of the day, that’s all that I’ve made for myself.

It’s true. That I have friends who always carry a piece of my heart; those who have my upmost loyalty and this overflowing love that is my anchor to this planet; ones I could go on and on in poetry and journaling and words that never meet the light of day when it’s just me and my nightly melancholy— yet this way I’ve chosen to live is a systematic cycle of dodging my reality in the bigger picture of our generation. The one we are fated to carry on.

And in moments like these, where I just lay in my sonder. I feel nothing more than helpless.

It is me and my thoughts and these constant distractions

And a world to which I am anchored to live in until the spin of fate consumes me

Where I will be with no God, with no soul, within no stars or cumbersome body,

But with the soil and the water and the drowned-out song of our modern earth.

Until Then,

The world I live in, the one I built around myself, is one of distractions.

御薬園

The Record of a Thinking Person

I do not want to be remembered as someone who wrote from only one corner of life.

I want the record to show that I paid attention.

To feelings.
To the quiet mechanics of human relationships.
To technology and the strange pace it has imposed on our lives.
To power, and the way it hides behind respectable language.
To the small decisions that shape entire destinies.
To the direction our world seems to be taking while few pause long enough to examine it.

Because something troubling is happening in plain sight.

Human beings are thinking less and reacting more.

We move faster.
We produce more.
We optimize everything for efficiency.
We measure our days in output, deadlines, and the quiet pressure of money — the necessary fuel that keeps the entire machine running.

But the question beneath all that activity is rarely examined.

Why are we doing any of this?

Money has slowly become the explanation for almost everything.

Work more.
Produce more.
Compete more.
Acquire more.
Have more.

As if the entire human experience were nothing more than a race toward accumulation.

Yet the ending remains the same for everyone.

Death has never changed its schedule.

Which makes the race itself somewhat strange when we step back and observe it.

People running endlessly, organizing their lives around deadlines, promotions, acquisitions, and status.

All inside small worlds that rarely allow enough stillness to question the direction of the road itself.

For many years I participated in that race.

Most of us do.

Not always because we want to.

Sometimes it is a distraction.
Almost always it is a necessity.

Bills exist.
Responsibilities exist.
Survival itself demands movement.

And so people run.

Not because the race was carefully chosen, but because the structure of society makes standing still feel almost impossible.

Until one day something interrupts the rhythm.

Fatigue.

Disillusion.

Illness.

Moments that force a person to stop long enough to see the machinery they were moving inside.

And in that pause something becomes visible.

Freedom may require stepping outside the race entirely.

Because once the running stops, the rules begin to look different.

Sometimes the rules disappear altogether.

What once felt inevitable begins to look like a system sustained mostly by habit, expectation, and fear of stepping away from what everyone else continues to do.

The noise becomes clearer when you no longer move inside it.

From that distance, the movement of the crowd begins to look different.

People rushing.
Producing.
Competing.
Exhausting themselves.

Often without ever examining whether the race itself still serves them.

It can begin to look as if many people are moving through a pattern they never truly examined.

Days filled with urgency.
Years organized around expectations.
Entire lives structured around roles accepted long before they were understood.

Not because people are incapable of thinking.

But because constant movement leaves little room for reflection.

When survival, obligation, and pressure dominate the rhythm of life, questioning that rhythm can feel like a luxury.

And so the race continues.

Not always because people want it.

But because momentum, habit, responsibility, and fear of instability keep it going.

Still, there are moments when the pattern becomes visible.

Moments when a person realizes that many of the rules guiding their life were never natural laws, but arrangements created by systems that reward productivity far more than reflection.

At that point something important appears.

Choice.

Not unlimited freedom.
Not a perfect escape.

But the awareness that life does not have to be lived entirely inside the machinery that society built.

Some people recognize that moment and change direction.

Others continue moving forward, not because they are weak or blind, but because circumstances, responsibilities, or fear make stopping too costly.

Human lives are rarely simple enough for clean decisions.

But recognizing the possibility of choice changes the meaning of the race itself.

Because once a person understands that running forever is not the only path available, continuing to run without reflection becomes something else entirely.

Not survival.

Not necessity.

But surrender.

And perhaps the quiet tragedy of modern life is not that the race exists.

It is that many people spend their entire lives inside it without ever realizing they were allowed to decide how far they truly wanted to run.

Ultimately, confident people are also aware that there is a higher power above them. This awareness allows them to understand their place before the Creator who gave them life.

A truly confident person knows where they come from, understands where they are going, and recognizes the purpose of their existence in this world.

If these qualities resonate with you, then perhaps you are already one of the most confident people you know.

36

The Quiet Spark of Becoming

At some point in our lives, many of us have felt out of balance. We lose our spark, feel left behind, and grow desperate for validation. It’s as if we’re losing even without competition. We wake each day with the urge to prove something, to show we’re not falling behind — and that alone is exhausting. It’s draining to validate yourself over and over, knowing deep down that you’re losing pieces of yourself in every aspect. It’s tiring to act unaffected. It’s tiring to argue with your own thoughts. And perhaps the hardest part is facing it without knowing the root, the cause, or why it even began. Worse still, you don’t know how to deal with it because, again, you never wished for it. You have no companion to go through it with — not even your best friends — but yourself.

Yet self-acceptance and self-actualization overpower the weight of exhaustion that fills our system. They remind us that validation is not borrowed but built, not granted but grown. When we learn to accept, our minds suddenly recognize the quiet truth that worth is not a race but a rhythm. Life is not just about championships and victories — it’s about living it to the fullest, breathing fresh air without constant worries about tomorrow. Acceptance allows us to breathe differently, not in shallow gasps of comparison, but in steady inhales of presence. It stops us from chasing the illusion of “enough” and guides us toward the realization that we already carry more than we think, that we are already doing more than we believe ourselves capable of.

Photo source: Pinterest

Self-actualization teaches us that becoming is more than just proving. It is the deafening silence of realizing that value is not scaled by who has seen us, and our progress does not diminish when it fails to receive the recognition we crave. It is the moment we reflect that no one knows us as deeply as we know ourselves, no one sees us as clearly as we see ourselves. It is time we recognize our talents and capabilities without overthinking whether they are enough, whether they are seen, whether they are worthy. Because at the end of the day, no one will trust us but ourselves. Even when everyone looks down on us, even when they perceive us as weak, we remain the number one witness to our growth.

Photo source: Pinterest

And in self-recognition, loneliness softens. The arguments become dialogues of earned validation and messages of proud appreciation. Sometimes, loneliness allows us to discover that solitude is not emptiness but space — space to grow, to listen, and to rebuild. Our spark returns not as a blaze demanding attention, but as a steady flame that cannot be dimmed despite strong winds, a light that brightens the path forward.

“The caterpillar does not become a butterfly by telling everybody it has wings. It actually buries itself in darkness and grows those wings.” - Joybell C.

La nuit est le temps des rêves, mais pour moi, tu es le rêve de chaque nuit.

Perception is everything!

Je suis fascinée par la perception. Cet état de conscience qui est à la fois personnel et social. Saviez-vous que trois personnes peuvent vivre le même événement mais en tirer quelque chose de complètement différent? Par exemple, je peux faire une conférence sur la maladie mentale et aucune de ces trois personnes n’en tirera le même bénéfice. Une en sortira encouragée, l’autre découragée et une dernière peut en sortir indifférente. Et la collectivité aura aussi sa propre opinion.

Et votre perception de vous-même? Est-elle bonne ou mauvaise? La mienne varie beaucoup et est souvent influencée par les événements extérieurs. Honnêtement, c’est difficile d’être objectif avec soi-même. Les autres agissent comme un miroir de notre réalité. Selon moi, c’est une raison pour laquelle l’être humain est un animal social.

La perception amène à se questionner sur ce qu’est la réalité.

Est-ce que la réalité est quelque chose de fixe, ou est-ce plutôt un filtre que notre cerveau applique au monde? Nous voyons tous le même ciel, mais nous n’y projetons pas les mêmes histoires. Notre passé, nos blessures, nos croyances et nos espoirs deviennent des lentilles à travers lesquelles nous interprétons tout.

C’est peut-être pour cela que deux personnes peuvent avoir des visions totalement opposées du monde. Pour l’une, la vie est pleine d’opportunités. Pour l’autre, elle est pleine de menaces. Pourtant, elles vivent dans la même société.

Ce qui devient intéressant, c’est de réaliser que notre perception n’est pas immuable. Elle peut évoluer. Elle peut s’élargir. Parfois un livre, une conversation ou même une épreuve peut complètement transformer la façon dont nous voyons les choses.

La perception est donc à la fois une prison et une clé.

Une prison lorsqu’on croit que notre vision du monde est la seule possible. Une clé lorsqu’on accepte qu’il existe d’autres perspectives.

Et peut-être que la vraie liberté commence exactement là : dans la capacité d’observer notre propre perception.

Parce qu’au moment où l’on réalise que notre regard colore la réalité… on découvre aussi qu’on peut changer la couleur.

Et soudain, quelque chose devient possible.

On cesse d’être seulement spectateur de notre vie.

On commence à en devenir l’interprète conscient.

La réalité n’est peut-être pas aussi solide qu’on le croit. Elle est en partie construite par le regard que nous posons sur elle, moment après moment. Et lorsque ce regard change, le monde peut sembler changer avec lui.

Peut-être que la perception est l’un des plus grands pouvoirs que possède l’être humain. Non pas pour contrôler la réalité… mais pour transformer la façon dont il la traverse.

Alors je vous laisse avec cette question :

Si votre perception crée en partie votre réalité… quelle réalité êtes-vous en train de nourrir aujourd’hui? ✨

Passez une excellente journée ! 🌸

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16/3/26

I feel different since I’ve started school. Just way more unhappy to be here, I can’t believe I have to go to class everyday. I feel like I’m wasting time, stuck inside learning, when I should be outside living, experiencing things. Doing the same thing everyday, with the same people in the same place feels so surreal. I don’t know how to stay grounded. I feel trapped like I’m wasting time. I also feel some kind of disconnect with my friends, like I don’t fit in like I used to, but I don’t know what it is, something is just off. I feel like I need some time away, but I don’t know what to do.

I keep thinking nobody would ever

Care what I would think or feel and yet

A lot of people seem to

There remains a cavern inside me that

Sometimes pulls me down so violently

All I can do is pray for the wracking pain to end

Today I saw a movie he said maybe

One day you’ll learn to forgive yourself

And yet Maybe. One day. Maybe maybe.