A N N O U N C E M E N T S - BLD TORONTObldtoronto.net/downloads/word/livingwater/lw-2014-10-24.pdf · We see people in great need, but from self-preservation, we deny them our help

8 Living Water - October 24, 2014

PLEASE WEAR YOUR BLD ID EVERY FRIDAY

A N N O U N C E M E N T S

LECTORS FOR OCTOBER 2014

October 24

1st reading.....................................................................................Gusty and Annie Andino

Psalm..............................................................................................Gus and Nila Soriano

2nd reading...................................................................................Danny and Remy Argoso

October 31

1st reading.....................................................................................Monina Malolos

Psalm..............................................................................................Boy and Mameng de Leon

2nd reading...................................................................................Mert Geronimo

Toronto Teaching Schedule

For a complete and up-to-date Teaching Schedule, visit: www.bldtoronto.com

Date Time Topic Venue Invitees

Nov 5,

Wednesday

7:00 pm

to 9:30 pm

Gifts and Fruit of the Holy

Spirit

OLA Hall LSS 26-29 &

others

Nov 8,

Saturday

9:00 am

to 1:00 pm

Basic Bible Seminar OLA Hall LSS 30 & others

Nov 8,

Saturday

9:00 am

to 1:00 pm

Advanced Christian

Maturity Part 1

Godly Speech

Handling Conflict

Fraternal Correction

Repairing Wrongdoing

BLD Office LSS 23 to 27

Nov 22,

Saturday

9:00 am

to 1:30 pm

New Creation Realities

Growth in Prayer

OLA Hall LSS 30 & others

Nov 22,

Saturday

9:00 am

to 1:30 pm

Advanced Christian

Maturity Part 2

Christian Discipline

Christian Suffering

Christian Giving

Christian Witness

BLD Office LSS 23 to 27

Living Water - October 24, 2014

October 24, 2014

BUKÁS-LOÓB SA DIYÓS • OPEN IN SPIRIT TO GOD

www.bldworld.org www.bldtoronto.com

THEME

True disciples of Jesus respond with fruitful-

ness when they love God and neighbour as

they love themselves.

WORD

Ex 22:20-23; Ps 18:2-3,3-4,47-51; 1Thes 1:5-10;

Mt 22:34-40

ORDER

1. Love the Lord your God with all your

heart, with all your soul, and with all

your mind.

2. Love your neighbour as yourself.

DIRECTION

Let us be compassionate to the plight of our

brothers and sisters who are in need. Receive

and live the Word of God with joy and be an

example to all.

REFLECTION

Jesus summarizes all the commandments in

just one word: Love – “Love for God and love

for neighbor”. We have heard these words of

Jesus multiple times. He refers to the simplic-

ity of a law we already know – the law of love.

Jesus invites us to pay attention to these words

– love of God and love of neighbour – and to

reflect upon them again without rushing.

To be effective and affective disciples of Jesus,

we need to strengthen our firmness of spirit, to

bear every situation with faithfulness of heart,

greater self-denial and commitment to come

closer to the likeness and image of our one true

God. We must be steadfast in acting upon His

word - to be kind in thoughts, gentle in words,

generous in deeds and, more importantly, be

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

www.bldworld.org www.bldtoronto.com


fruitful in what He asks of us. With the flame of

His divine love that never ceases, we light up our

lamps, never to extinguish them, that they may

burn in us and enlighten others.

The word for this month encourages us: “True

disciple of Jesus responds to His calling to fruit-

fulness” in building His kingdom. If we truly

desire to grow in our lives, we must be energized

by love. Love hopes and plans for the good of

all. Christ’s love is committed, enduring and

tough, not weak and wavering, but strong and

persistent. It is not a conditional love, but an

open-hearted, generous, self-giving love which

God offers to us. And it is His full intent that our

love becomes as steadfast as His.

Christian life is all about love. It is easy to speak

about the love of God, but in reality, is it truly

our top concern? When we say that we must love

God above all things, it means trusting, believing

and clinging to Him at all times and in all sea-

sons and times of our life. It means to believe,

not in ourselves or in our strength, but in the

good that God Himself has promised us, the

good things He has prepared for all His children.

We are called to share the life of God, to come to

a union (communion) with the Triune-God. The

first commandment assumes that the person who

loves God does so because he has reasons for

loving God. The one who says he loves God says

so because he has experienced God’s love in his

life. He has seen, heard, and felt deeply in his

heart God’s loving concern for him and for oth-

ers. Everything we experience is a sign of His

love, even the trials and difficulties that come

our way. When we go through hardship, it may

seem at first, like an insurmountable problem, an

obstacle in our path. But later, we get to realize

that it teaches us lessons and helps us to be-come better persons.

Hearing the word of God is not enough, we

need to act upon it, as our theme this week

exhorts us: “True disciples of Jesus respond

with fruitfulness when they love God and

neighbour as they love themselves.” Our

love of God is made known and made visible

in our love of neighbour. To love ourselves

and others, we need our hearts to be opened

and healed by the therapeutic touch of divine

love. Our love of God pushes us into active

compassion and concern for the neighbour

who needs our help, although at times, our

love is restricted by our fear of getting hurt.

We see people in great need, but from self-

preservation, we deny them our help. Chris-

tian faith should bring us to a level of matur-

ity that enables us to see the face of Jesus in

each person, especially the lost and the least.

If we truly love God, then we can accept and

trust the neighbour who failed us, or fell short

of our expectations, just as we may expect our

neighbour to overlook our own shortcomings.

If we honestly love God, then we will be sensi-

tive to the urgent needs of our neighbour and

will not hesitate to forgive those who have

wronged us. To love our neighbour is to

show willingness to serve, to understand and

to forebear and forgive. We must love our

neighbour as we are loved by God, and find

God in loving our neighbour. We come closer

to God by loving our neighbour and loving

our neighbour is our way of showing God that

we love Him.

The love of God and love of neighbour gives

us both grace and mission. God’s love pours

Living Water - October 24, 2014 7

Marriage Encounter Weekend #37

ME #36 & ME #37

ME #36– Sponsoring Class


(ME #37...Continued from page 5)

Thank you as well to our DSL couple (Philip & Clarita Malolos) and DCSs (Herbert & Vangie

Artes, Joey & Susan Linsao, Ross & Rose Dioso, Tony & Angie Ng, and Pat & Rose Canlas) for

their untiring help and support to the Marriage Encounter Ministry.

Lest we forget, we are eternally grateful to our Lord God, Jesus Christ, who made the weekend

blessed and successful.

The whole BLD community is indeed one body of Christ.

Lito and Arlene Martin

M.E. Ministry Coordinators

CONGRATULATIONS to our ME # 37 Graduates!

Ding & Neth Acenas, Francis & Olive Alagao, Danny & Lyn Cancio, Arman & Row-

ena Celestial, Ralph & Evelyn Drake, Guni & Shalini Kariwasam, Norm & Ginger

Membrere, Reg & Lisa Membrere, Gerry & Ness Muyargas, Raffy & Dane Novillas,

Stephen & Anie Palalon, Romy & Debbie Pascua, Mario & Lena Sacdalan, Dennis &

Ever Venzon, and Rony and Didith Villaranda.


grace upon us, love of neighbour gives us our mission. Jesus calls us to be part of this community

of faith to extend His compassion to others and to be instruments of His peace. Love of God and

love of neighbour are distinct but they are on equal footing in importance and necessity. They are

“greater” than all the other commandments, for as the Lord reminds us, upon these two “depend

all the law and the prophets” (Mt. 22:40). Jesus links them together when He says: “live these two,

and you live all the commandments. Live these two and you are doing God’s will”. And in so do-

ing, we hold on to His promise: “If he cries out to me, I will hear him for I am compassionate” (Ex

22:26b).

(Taken from http://www.bldworld.org/Weekly-Reflection, October 26, 2014)

PROMISE

“If he cries out to me, I will hear him for I am compassionate.” (Ex 2:26b)

(Fr. Labor...Continued from page 4)

Fr. Labor echoed what the famous author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey,

has affirmed, that we have 100% control of how we respond to any stimulus. We are given the free-

dom to choose to respond either proactively or reactively to any given situation. Our attitude is

visible in the way we take responsibility and accountability of our action, the values and principles

we base our choices on, the focus of our energy and the language we speak. Contrary to reactive

people who tend to lead a miserable life due to the choices they make and the negative use of their

energy, proactive people choose to experience growth and true happiness.

Blessed Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa devoted herself to caring for the sick and poor. Her life painted a living example of unconditional love.


Authentic change is always self-change, says Fr. Labor

The OLA Hall was jam-packed with almost 200 BLD members

who were all eagerly anticipating not only an enjoyable and

amusing event but also an insightful one. True enough, every-

one’s thirst for something valuable to feast on was satiated

with the teaching conducted by Fr. Labor on Wednesday

night, October 15, 2014.

Fr. Labor’s teaching revolved around the following topics: 1)

Perception, 2) Paradigm Shift or Perceptional Change, 3) Cir-

cles of Life (Problem Areas in Life), and, 4) Contrasting Atti-

tudes (Proactive vs Reactive Response to Stimulus).

Five formative insights were identified regarding perception.

1. Every perception is okay when understood from the context of the perceiver.

2. Every perception is coming from one's conditioning and conditionalities.

3. Attitudes and behaviours are coming from one's perception.

4. Quality/Quantum change is a change from within, a change from one's perception.

5. Authentic change is always Self-change.

If we will only give a closer look at these insights every time we relate with others, then maybe, we

will be more understanding of where they are coming from and more respectful of their perspec-

tive. This paradigm shift may translate to an enhanced relationship with people around us, in our

family and in our community.

While personality ethics is instrumental to achieving earthly success in the present time, it remains

that primary greatness is about character. Character ethics is doing what is right regardless of what

other people are saying and doing. In contrast, Personality ethics promotes conformity with what

others are doing regardless of its rightness or wrongness. Character ethics is about our values and

virtues which serve as the foundation of our character. As Christ’s disciples, we should see that

character ethics is primary and personality ethics is just secondary.

As asserted by Fr. Labor, it takes wisdom to realize that in this lifetime, we constantly deal with

three challenging areas, namely: 1) areas where we have direct control, 2) areas where we have

indirect control, and 3) areas where we have no control at all. The best approach to handle prob-

lems on these areas effectively are: Problem area 1 - changing our habits, problem area 2 - changing

our methods of influencing others, and changing the way we see the no control problem areas by

learning how to accept the reality that there is nothing that we can do about these.

(Continued on page 3)


Marriage Encounter Weekend #37 bears 15 lovely couples

God is truly amazing! He has blessed our BLD community once again with another victory. He

showed us His bountiful love and mercy through the successful Marriage Encounter #37 held

at the Valley of the Mother of God (Christian Retreat Centre) in Orangeville last October 17-19,

2014. Fifteen couples are the new additions to our growing community.

Willie and Viv Saguil were assigned by our servant leaders to shepherd this flock of ME Class

#37 so they will be guided in their walk toward attaining spiritual growth as married couples.

We are truly grateful to Fr. Felix Labor for his inspirational talks on the different topics of the

ME Weekend and his insights on how to improve our marital relationship. His talks on the

different aspects of life kept the class wanting for more.

Tony & Angie Ng’s and Willie & Viv Saguil’s life experiences as shared to us showed the trans-

forming power of God in their marriage from their brokenness to a life lived with Jesus in the

centre of their lives. There were a lot of tears shed on the weekend as they bared their lives to

us and in some instances we too shared their own pains and joys as married couples.

2 Cor. 9:13-14 “Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise

God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your

generosity in sharing with them and everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts

will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you.”

We would like to express our profound gratitude to the sponsoring class of ME #36 (Ian & Joy

Aguas, Dennis & Mila Calim, Rudy & Amy Canlas, John & Fely Clark, Anton & Edna Ebeo,

Ronnie & Alma Ferreros, Solon & Jo Guzman, Bong Juson, Joseph & Maricar Liberato, Joel &

Josephine Marilla, Engie & Helen Navarro, Manny & Nilda Raymundo, Rudy & Anna Sadia,

and Ruben & Len Suason) and more especially to Fredy and Glo Carandang for providing the

impetus to the success of the ME Weekend. The camaraderie and unity of purpose shown by

the members of the class before and during the weekend were just so infectious. High in the

spirit, they never got tired or sleepy during their sponsorship.

Kudos to our community’s supportive DLCs and members of various ministries, Service, Lit-

urgy, Intercessory, Praise, Treasury, Secretariat, Mission, and our volunteers in the working

team. To ME #35 class led by its couple shepherds Manny and Letty Buado, thank you. To all

of you whom we failed to mention, our felicitous appreciation for your help. Ditto with all of

our sponsors and benefactors in providing their time and treasure to this endeavour.

(Continued on page 6)

Documents

A N N O U N C E M E N T S - BLD TORONTObldtoronto.net/downloads/word/livingwater/lw-2014-10-24.pdf · We see people in great need, but from self-preservation, we deny them our help