Three encouragements

One retreat, three unexpected encounters.

Shortly after my baptism, I signed up for another retreat. It lasted several days and was hosted by the Archbishop of Singapore. It was a popular retreat, with more applicants than available places. To give everyone an equal chance, the organisers arranged a ballot. Each applicant received a numbered card, which had to be deposited in a transparent plexiglass box displayed on a podium in a large room. There were more than twice as many hopefuls as the 135 cards that would be drawn.

When the ballot started, the person drawing the cards first shuffled them. Immediately, my card somehow got stuck at the front of the box. I could clearly see it lying flat against the plexiglass, with the number facing outward.

After more than a hundred cards had been drawn, mine was still stuck in the same spot. I thought it would never be picked. When the organisers announced that the last card was about to be drawn, I had already accepted that it wouldn’t be mine.

Then, just before the lady put her hand into the box, my card came loose, fell back among the others, and was picked. I was the last person to enter the retreat. Fitting, I thought. It had taken me a long time to finally turn to God.

A new thing

Most sessions of the retreat were held in a large room in the building adjacent to the church. Each day there was one session in the morning, one in the afternoon, and another in the evening. In between, we were encouraged to take time to pray, reflect, or meditate. For those few days, the idea was to truly spend time with God, something most people don’t often have the chance to do in their busy lives.

At the entrance to the room, two baskets of cards had been placed. Each card featured a Scripture verse. You could pick one when entering or leaving, to reflect on between sessions.After picking a few cards and spending time with them, I got the idea of doing it the other way around. Instead of first picking a card and then praying, I decided to pray first and then pick a card.

I had two big questions I wanted answers to, so I went to the adoration room, where the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, to ask Jesus my first question.

Sitting in front of the Blessed Sacrament, I said to Jesus: “I feel embarrassed to ask you this, but as you anyway know what’s on my mind… Are you really there? Are you really the one I should follow?” I felt awkward asking this after my baptism and all I had experienced.

Then I asked Jesus: “Could you let the card I pick be your answer to my question?” (Now I know this isn't the right approach to prayer and discernment, but at the time I didn’t.)

I thanked Jesus for bearing with me, returned to the room, took a random card from the box, found a quiet place to sit by myself and read the verse:

“Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord your God, who teaches you for your own good, who leads you in the way you should go.” (Isaiah 48:17)

I was surprised to receive such a direct answer to my question. Indeed, God was teaching me, and I was learning. So far, I had not looked at it that way. It was as though God was speaking directly to me, reassuring me that I could trust and follow him because, as he said, he was leading me in the way I should go.

I believed God had a plan for us. But did that plan include Naomi’s healing? That was my second big question.

I went back to the adoration room and thanked God for answering my question.

“I trust you,” I said, “but will you heal Naomi?”

Again I took a card from the box, and again I found a place to be alone — this time outside, in the small garden behind the church. I hesitated before reading the card. What if the answer was negative? What if Naomi’s healing wasn’t part of the plan?

After a while, I realised I wasn’t doing what I had just said: trusting God. Whatever the answer was going to be, I resolved to trust him.

Then I read the verse:

“Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild animals will honour me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.” (Isaiah 43:18–21)

All this time I wanted things to return to how they were before that dreadful cardiac arrest. I wanted Naomi back to normal. I wanted our old life back—a life that, in comparison, had been carefree.

But God was telling me to “forget” the past, not to dwell on the way things were before. He was doing a new thing. Didn’t I see it?

I did see it. I saw how God was moulding us, how he was reordering our lives. What I didn’t see was how we could ever truly be a happy family if Naomi’s life, and therefore Sienna’s and ours as well, remained so compromised.

It became clear that one of the things I had to learn was to trust God.

Yes, God had allowed us to be struck down, but he was there to lift us up when it happened. I knew I had to let go of the past—and of my former self—and look forward to a new future, shaped not by our effort but by God.

With God leading the way, we didn’t need to be afraid, even if we didn’t know where we were heading.

The imagery of the dry wilderness reminded me of the Israelites spending forty years in the desert after the exodus from Egypt. It was a time of testing and suffering, of trial and tribulation. It stripped away their self-reliance and forced a deeper dependence on God, who cared for them and made even the impossible possible to sustain his people.

Perhaps we were in a similar situation—seemingly hopeless, yet with God leading us toward new life. The final part of the passage made it clear: the “new thing” God was doing was forming us, shaping us to grow in faith and live for his glory.

We still had a long way to go, but we were heading in the right direction.

Light as a feather

One of the retreat sessions was dedicated to the Stations of the Cross, a devotion reflecting on the final moments of Jesus’ life. It follows fourteen moments, or stations, from his condemnation to his crucifixion and burial.

As we moved from one station to the next, we knelt down while a facilitator read a reflection on Jesus’ sacrifice. We then paused to meditate on his suffering. That was the moment when we could unite our own struggles with the cross Jesus carried.

After just three stations kneeling on a tiled floor, my knees hurt so much that I had to sit down several times to avoid becoming so distracted that I would lose focus. Yet it was very moving. Listening to how much Jesus had suffered for our salvation, I felt deeply grateful for what he had done.

It showed me that our lives matter—that all life matters. Jesus did not only lay down his life for his friends, for his fellow Jews or countrymen. He died, conquered death, and opened the way to eternal life for all humanity: for those who had already passed away, for us living today, and for those yet to be born.

The idea that we could unite our own sufferings with Jesus’, making our lives a participation in his redemptive work, fascinated me. It meant that suffering is never meaningless, but can be sanctified when offered in love and union with him. Even daily annoyances, illnesses, small acts of patience and forgiveness can be offered to God for the good of others.

I could immediately make such an offering, because by the final station my knees hurt so much that I no longer knew what position to take to be even slightly comfortable.

We then had a short break, during which the facilitators cleared the room and prepared it for the next part of the session: a kneeling pilgrimage. We were to carry a sizeable wooden cross for about 15 meters from one side of the room to the other on our knees, in imitation of Jesus’ journey. The middle part of the cross rested on your shoulder, while the bottom part dragged behind you across the floor.

Sooner than I had hoped, the pilgrimage began and five people at a time made their way across the room. When it was my turn, I was surprised by how light the cross was. I could carry it easily. At first I held it with both hands, then with one, and eventually I realised I could keep it in place with just a finger.

Halfway across the room, I suddenly realised that my knees weren’t hurting at all. The pain I had felt earlier was gone, and “walking” across the room felt effortless.

When I reached the other side, the cross was taken from me and passed on to the next participant.

Later, once everyone had completed their pilgrimage, one of the men from my group mentioned that he had struggled to carry the cross because it was so heavy. He was a muscular former army officer, so I assumed they must have given him a heavier one. I told him they had given me a lightweight one, but one of the facilitators assured me all guys had carried the same cross.

Now curious, I asked him if I could see it. When he showed the cross to me, I saw it was made of solid hardwood and had considerable weight. When I placed it on my shoulder again, it immediately felt heavy and uncomfortable.

Only then did it occur to me that I hadn’t carried the cross alone. Jesus had carried it with me. He hadn’t taken the cross away, but he had made it light as a feather.

I felt that in the same way, he would be with us, helping us carry the burdens we face each day. He would not allow our suffering to become unbearable.

The warmth of Christ's love

One evening, we were invited to participate in Eucharistic adoration. The consecrated host—the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist—was placed in a monstrance on the altar so that we could spend time quietly praying and reflecting in his presence.

After the adoration, the archbishop covered his hands with a humeral veil and carried the monstrance with the Eucharist around the room to bless each one of us. This is called the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The blessing comes from Jesus present in the Eucharist, not from the priest.

They told us that when we received the blessing, some of us might “rest in the Spirit”.

I had seen that happen before during a praise and worship meet-up we had attended with Naomi and Sienna some time earlier. We were in an old church that still had its original wooden pews. As we were standing between them, I suddenly heard a loud bang behind me. When I turned around, I was shocked to see that the elderly woman who had been standing behind us had fallen onto the wooden kneeler and was now lying motionless on the floor.

Certain that she had broken some bones, I tried to reach her, but her nephew gestured for me not to touch her. He whispered that she was resting in the Spirit.

I had never heard of that before, so I wondered what it meant. She did seem surprisingly peaceful there on the tiled floor between the pews. It looked as if she had suddenly decided to take a nap.

After some time she “woke up”. Her nephew helped her to her feet and she was standing there again as if nothing had happened.

Afterwards I went to see them, and everything was fine. The nephew explained that his grandmother often experienced this during praise and worship. She would suddenly fall to the ground, remain aware, but rest peacefully in the presence of the Holy Spirit. It was, he said, a moment of bliss. She had never hurt herself. Amazed, I wondered what it must be like.

So when the retreat organisers told us that some of us might rest in the Spirit after the blessing, I hoped to experience it myself. During the blessing two facilitators would stand beside us in case someone might fall. They would catch the person and gently lay him or her on the floor.

Similar to how I had been picked last to join the retreat, I was also the last to receive the blessing. Before me, one by one, everyone had fallen. I thought it was amazing and I began to look forward to experiencing the bliss that grandmother seemed so familiar with.

But when the archbishop brought the Blessed Sacrament to me, I didn’t feel anything.

I didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe if I leaned back a little, I might “trigger” the moment. So I did. The catchers beside me immediately took that as the start of me falling, grabbed me and gently laid me on the floor.

So there I was, lying on the floor like a fool, wondering why I had ruined a perfect opportunity to rest in the Spirit.

The next day the organisers told us that the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament would be repeated that evening. They also encouraged us not to “try so hard” and simply relax. I guessed I was not the only person who had let themselves fall without actually resting in the Spirit.

I was happy to get a second chance and was determined to indeed just relax and see what would happen.

That evening I was one of the last people to receive the blessing. Once more, the people before me had fallen and were all lying on the floor. As I stood there waiting, I couldn't help anticipating my own falling and found myself already thinking about how not to make the same mistake as the day before.

As the archbishop turned and began walking towards me, I was so focused on the falling that what happened next completely caught me by surprise.

While he was still about four metres away, I suddenly felt a warmth that seemed to come from the Blessed Sacrament. I noticed it immediately because the room was so cold. In Singapore, the air-conditioning is usually turned on full blast.

As the archbishop came closer, the warmth grew stronger and definitely came from the Blessed Sacrament. It felt like a ray of warmth touching my chest and from there spreading throughout the rest of my body. The feeling was profoundly comforting.

When the Blessed Sacrament was right in front of me, I had completely warmed up. I thought that must be the moment when I should fall backwards—and so I did. The moment I fell, the warmth was gone, and once again I lay on the floor regretting that I had interrupted the moment.

Later that night I reflected on the past few days and felt blessed. Jesus had spoken to me through Scripture, shown me that we were not carrying our burdens alone, and then allowed me to feel his presence.

That last illustration in Naomi’s booklet came back to mind. Just as it had been drawn there, I had felt the warmth of Christ’s love. Jesus truly was with us in everything we were going through.

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