'Calming the troubled waves of passion which agitate my soul'

It;s been a while since I blogged! Missed me?? ;)

It's exams again...trials! Amazing, I;m not freaking out! In fact, I'm pretty calm, in spite of all the activities I was engaged in... Confirmation Retreat, Booklet and the non-stop night dance practices till the D-day! Mind you, my trials was one week before the holidays and it resumed for another 2 weeks after the holidays. The above activities I mentioned, I shall pen it down when I have the time to reflect back. They were great and memories to be cherished for eternity.

Reflecting back, I was such a stressed up maniac before my last Semester exams and I terrorised my family and close friends with jokes and blah blah blah! Ugh... cannot believe I did that! Guess what?? They were wonderful people to with stand my onslaught of momentary madness! :S

Well, the reason I;m writing this is to give tribute to a great lady who has influenced me with her music.... Margaret Rizza! I take my hat off to this 75 year old lady who was recently the guest speaker at the annual John Main Seminar here in Penang. Though I could not meet her, as I had my trials coming up and was very sick, she wrote me words of inspiration. Mum was so sweet to buy all her cds and the musical scores for ME! THANKS mum and dad!

When I listen to her music, I turn off all the lights, draw the curtains, lie on my bed and close my eyes. Her music is based mainly on psalms, of the sounds she hears from nature or deep within her soul, of extracts from St. John of the Cross and Meister Erckert and so on... I let her music slowly flow over me like ripples of water while I draw on my prayer word. Slowly with each breath, the aggressiveness, anger, frustration, dissapointments, annoyance, sadness, tension and stress of my day eases out of me as I draw on gentleness... gentle music, speaking gently to my weary soul. When a chant is played, I find, I discover an inner being within me is praying, is being spiritually enriched by the Divine within me. I feel comforted, I feel loved. I feel like being cradled in the arms of One who loves me unconditionally. Soon, these negative feelings diminish. Often I find my eyes filled with tears at its wonder and often, after letting my prayer word go, I go into deep slumber only to awake refreshed, renewed.

The gift of Margaret Rizza to the meditative world is a gift from God indeed and I have been priviledged to be able to be a recipient of this wonderful gift. There are things which are sometimes too difficult to express even in prayer to God for there are no words apt enough to discribe, as St. Anthony says, 'The troubled waves of passion which agitate our souls.' Oh! I love that expression!

Some of her great albums are Fountain of Life, Fire of Love, Awakening in Love and New Dawn which I love to hear. She has touched me with her spirit of music which can only be God given.

Here are some extracts which is worth to remember...Enjoy!

'Music is one of the greatest gifts
that God has given to us:
it is divine. For with its aid many
dire temptations are overcome;
the devil does not stay where
music is.'

Martin Luther

'After silence,
that which comes nearest to
expressing the inexpressible,
is music.'

Aldous Huxley

'The man who has music in his
soul will be most in love with
the loveliest.'

Plato (The Republic)

'The language of music is
common to all generations and
nations; it is understood by
everybody, since it is
understood by the heart.'

Giacchino Rossini

'Which of the two powers, Love or
Music can elevate man to the
sublimest heights? It is a great
problem, and yet it seems to me
that this is the answer:
"Love
can give no idea of music,
Music
can give no idea of love."
Why separate them?
They are two wings of the soul.'

Hector Berlioz