"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." - Mark 12:30
Portia Eleene Domingo de Alba is blessed that she is able to live out the call of God in her life the vocation and mission God has entrusted to her and her family.
Growing up in a close-knit family grounded in values and deep in Catholic spirituality, Portia and her siblings were raised in the ways of the Lord which paved the way for them to personally embrace community life.
Such has given her the opportunity to serve in three mission places — her family, her Ligaya ng Panginoon Community and her workplace.
All that I am and all that I do, everything for His glory and honor.
In all these, Portia said she is being used for a Holy Purpose to be a channel of God's grace and an instrument of God. And it is in these callings that Portia is able to practice the virtue of magnanimity.
According to St Thomas Aquinas, "magnanimity by its very name denotes stretching forth of the soul to great things." It is giving glory to God by using the gifts He has given us. To be magnanimous is to give our all in our life, and to recognize that God gave us certain gifts and He is calling us towards excellence in those gifts.
For Portia, it is doing everything she possibly can with these gifts so that God is loved and glorified and she can draw others to His goodness through this excellence.
"The call of being a wife and mother is a higher call. A call within a call. It brings us to a higher level of sacrifice and holiness. Wherever the Lord calls me is my mission field and it has been a personal decision to always give everything I've got to Him."
Pursuing her vocation as a wife and mother further taught her to be more humble and to die to her own conveniences.
"To love the Lord with all my heart, mind, soul and strength has resonated in my heart all these years. Giving my life to the Lord, especially during my younger years paved the way for me to press on and persevere in my discipleship journey. This has carried me through the different seasons of my life. It enabled me to fix my eyes on Him and wholistically live my life for Christ. Every area of my life offered and surrendered to Him. All that I am and all that I do, everything for His glory and honor."
"Remembering the personal call of God to me as His disciple on mission, I thank God for the grace to manage my role as I serve the young members of Community in the University District of the South Sector. It fulfills the call of God to me to love Him with my all with everything I got."
As to her workplace, she works alongside her husband Paolo in the family's restaurant, Alba Restaurante Español. There she is able to maximize the gifts and talents God has given her through the opportunities to influence their staff in small things and to help them in any way she and her husband can. Prior to working in the restaurant business, God has also led her to work as a Human Resource Professional in the Hospitality Industry, her field of expertise. This was also a part of her mission and where the Lord has used her to the full. "With all the gifts and talents God has given me, He placed me in different hotels and maximized my skills further. The fruitfulness opened opportunities for me to evangelize and make God known to others in the way I live my life."
What has been key to her living out her faith and mission is her parents. Portia is grateful to them for choosing to live life in Community. This opened the doors for their family to also choose this kind of life in the Lord. "My parents joined Ang Ligaya ng Panginoon Community when I was young and together with my siblings, went thru the different youth programs such as Children's Formation now Friends of Jesus, Junior Young Adults, Young Adults then University District (UD), Christ's Youth in Action (CYA). I grew up living the way of life of community, surrounded by friends, titos and titas. As the youngest in the family, I truly experienced the love of God thru my parents and siblings. I consider myself blessed by the Lord for the life He has entrusted me with." Portia also considers her former Pastoral Leaders and batchmates in the UD and CYA as the greatest influences in her faith and involvement in Community.
Growing up in the faith, Portia considers her journey as something special as she encountered many ‘Kairos' moments. She experienced God in the seemingly mundane things in life. "I do not have a 180-degree turn testimony like most of us, but I am just grateful to experience the Lord alive in my life at such a young age thru my family and thru Community. This created a greater desire to know and follow Him in my life wherever I am, in whatever season of my life I am at. My parents have been instrumental in forming me into becoming a Christian who would love Him above all and embrace this discipleship journey the He has blessed me with."
God's grace has sustained Portia in her discipleship journey. And the best lesson she has learned in life is to make a mark in the lives of others by having a humble and genuine heart to serve so that they may experience God and make Him known to others. Portia is grateful that she is able to see how God works in the lives of the people He has surrounded her with. Magnanimous in service, she continues to use God's gifts so that He is known more, loved more, and honored more.
"To love the Lord with all my heart, mind, soul and strength has resonated in my heart all these years (Matthew 22:37). All that I am and all that I do, everything for His glory and honor." ###
✍️ Nel de Castro-Ferraris