A Common Goal

-Raffy Adan

Since the inception of our Sts. Louie and Zelie Martin Church, a common goal arose in
our minds: we need to expand our place of worship so as to accommodate all our brethren who
are also increasing in number. In order to achieve this goal, all of us must become more united
as one in faith. Through the past years, all of us became witnesses in our redevelopment
project. This served as an inspiration for all of us to continue our journey in ultimately achieving
our common goal which is to expand our place of worship and truly satisfy our moral and
spiritual needs.
Just a personal experience when we were in college, we had a group report wherein our
professor demanded so many topics to research on to the extent that even the internet could
hardly explain. We read several books and scholarly done articles so as to fully elucidate the
subject matter assigned to us. At first, there were doubts among themselves if we can able to
come up with an informative group report. There were times that we have wasted so much time
just thinking on how to attack the subject matter assigned to us. But all of us, as members of the
group, shared our different ideas. We divided the subject matter amongst ourselves and each of
us were able to accomplish the delegated tasks. After all the time, efforts and our faith with each
other that we will be able to accomplish the report, we were able to accomplish it and all of the
information our professor asked for were all in the report. In the end, all our efforts were worth it.
Vis-à-vis our redevelopment project, we think that at first it might be impossible. “How
will be able to do this?” “How will we able to raise funds for this redevelopment project?” “Will
the community support this?” There will be doubts. Doubts that will try to hinder us from
accomplishing our common goal. There will be times that the progress of the construction will be
slow. There will be times that our resources will be short. There will be times that our hopes
seem to be lost. But we must not let all of these hinder us from achieving our common goal.
These are only challenges and we just have to overcome this as one in faith and in community
for the Lord. As we help each other and make our own personal efforts and sacrifices in
achieving this goal, we must stand tall and face altogether the challenges that come our way.
The road will never be straight. There will be obstacles along the way. But all roads come to an
end.
Last May 5, 2018, masses were already moved at the back side of the Chapel so as to
give way to the construction of the inner portion of the Chapel. Benefactors have also donated
and helped in this redevelopment project. Different fund-raising projects were already held and
all of these were successful. These successful projects make us more motivated in achieving
our common goal. This just shows that all of us, as one community, through the intercession of
Sts. Louie and Zelie Martin, have this common goal and all of us are led to ultimately achieve it.
As the years pass by, our parishioners have truly increased in number. I can see that
during masses, both the left wing near The Pietà and the right wing near our Promenade is full
of mass-goers. That is why this common goal of expanding our place of worship became very
timely. What we need in further growing effectively is to have more faith that this common goal
will be at hand. We just have to continue to pray and be more faithful that we will all reach this
common goal. We just have to make little more sacrifices and in time, we could ultimately
achieve this goal. And in the end, when we reach this common goal of ours, all will be worth it.
Our sacrifices will be forever pleasing to the Lord and this will make us stronger in faith as one
community.
I would like to end by sharing a quote from St. Therese of the Child Jesus, daughter of
Sts. Louie and Zelie Martin: “Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by
a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.”
This implies that even the smallest sacrifice would be a great contribution for this common goal.
Imagine if all of us, as one community shared our smallest sacrifice that we could give. No
matter how small it is, for so long as it is from our hearts, it could really go a long way.