Sunday Evenings

I haven't really watched much TV for about two months in a row now. I don't like ingesting too much news. I'm neurotic enough as it is. What I've been watching is House and some good Anime (like SAO). Perhaps, a documentary or two once in a while.

Other times, I either read a good book or play puzzle games on iPad. I still manage to keep abreast though. I think well of our free press. One or two headlines a day however, seems enough for me at the moment.

Notwithstanding my personal idiosyncrasy, there are issues that needs to be looked into with more width and breadth though. Those issues seem to jump at you I have found. You can not not notice them. 

Today though, we will rest. 

We will find ourselves a nice enough far away place with family and friends. Be close to nature. Be near to God. We shall find the time to smile, to pray and be still. To ponder in the calm, the challenges of the week that lies ahead of us.  

Together let us recharge our spiritual batteries.

While we let time in the world play itself out from a distance.

---<--@

Brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,

Let us revere the LORD because it is right. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: Let us love God because He is God.

Let us come to Him. To the Son of Man as Lord of the Sabbath. To Jesus Christ our Savior Who is to us, our most efficacious rest.
---<--@

20111023 PM

Sunday Evenings

Good evening, the Philippines - mabuhay!

This evening, I just want to share with this with you -

The Stranger at the Tabernacle

On 20110908, the feast of the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I went to pray the rosary in front of the Tabernacle located on the right wing of our parish church to honor Mama Mary on her birthday.

During my prayer, three visitors came to Jesus.

The first one was a young mother and her young daughter; the second was a devout woman; and the third was a strange man, seemingly crude and unrefined, who ignoring all the norms of piety came with his footwear on and dirty clothes, snapping his fingers at the Tabernacle, mumbling strange words to God.

I was becoming concerned at the spirit of the latter for it seemed alien to the quiet of the place and then my Jesus made realize: the first visitor was led to Him by her love for her daughter; the second by her love for God, and the third by the grace of God.

All are children of the Father. But of all of them, I was more like the last one.

When I pray to the Father and feel helplessly inadequate as I oftentimes do, it is the welcome of Christ that constantly reassures me that I belong. It is the Spirit of Christ that prepares me to receive the invite of the Father to attend the wedding feast of His beloved Son, my most loving Jesus.

How can I go wrong by listening to Him Who came to save me? And we listen to Jesus when we pay attention to the Gospel.

- selah -

The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 22:34-40 -

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them (a scholar of the law) tested him by asking, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"

He said to him, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the greatest and the first commandment.

The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."

---<--@

Let us pause and reflect on the timelessness of this Wisdom, alleluia.

For it is this love that binds us together as one nation.

Whatever challenges the new week shall bring, if we face it together, if we persevere in our unity, if we keep in mind all that unites us more than what divides us, not only shall we overcome, my people, but in God we shall prevail.

So may the Holy Spirit of God sustain each of us, especially in our continuing quest for peace and righteousness in our Country, as we enter as one nation together into another working week.

My salutation is peace to you all.

---<--@

The DOST Juan Time Campaign -

Juan time starts tomorrow!

No more advancing the time to make up for Filipino time. Let us all set our watches to Juan time and be on time all the time.

Filipino time is a myth.

The truth is we move to the beat of just Juan time.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Filipino

Who is a Filipino?

But the heart that lives

to love the Filipino

and the one Republic

of the Filipino people.

How is the Filipino?

But through faith that seeks

to find itself alive

in the eternal remembrance

of God and our people.

Where is the Filipino?

But in the will that accepts

the trust that embrace

our lives and our fortunes

together as one nation.

Why is the Filipino?

But with every dream that begins

ever like a single breath

to become our breathing together

of the many into one hope.

When is the Filipino?

But at every present rising

from the deep of Eternity

in the every moment that breaks

upon the awakening reality

of the dawn of a new Philippines.

= ^.^ =

The Truth

A Friend Like You

20111016 PM

Salutation #58

Lead me, Lord Jesus, to where I end and You begin and all these things shall fall into place behind Thee, my God and my All.

(The Peace of Jesus Christ)

The Peace of the LORD escapes human comprehension

- God encompassing God -

but the Peace of Jesus Christ is given to you,

O Beloved Starshine

of the Christian communities from among all the nations,

- as a blessing, a sign, and a promise -

and with it, a joy without limits.

May the Peace of the Lord Christ be to you, a blessing.

For the Peace of Jesus Christ is the one whole peace

unto which All of living creation forever belongs.

May the Peace of the Lord Christ be to you, a promise.

For within it, you acquire a foretaste of the things to come -

the restoration of the reign of God at the consummation of time.

May the Peace of the Lord Christ be to you, a sign.

For through it you gain strength in the unity of all things -

a truth in thy heart that give thy prayers their ascent to God.

Cherish this gift entrusted to you -

embrace it freely and with an understanding spirit

that thou may stand at one with Christ and the victorious hosts of God

against the War in thy own heart

and the divisions wrought by it upon the earth.

Multiply the Peace of the LORD, thy God

- in all thy Churches, in all thy Masses, and in all thy prayers -

that you may pray to God, beloved Starshine,

- united - as one nation among a family of nations.

For the Peace of Jesus Christ is not a cause of division

but of strength for our national communities.

Neither is the Name of Jesus Christ

a source of division, discord, dilution and dissolution

among the nations but of peace!

- selah -

The beginnings of a better world

begins with Jesus Christ in our heart of hearts.

Therefore,

incline thy hearts to Peace -

forsake War today while it is still today.

As it was before must never be again!

---<--@

Sunday Evenings

Good evening, the Philippines - mabuhay!

Today's Gospel: Matthew 22: 15-21

To give to Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar and to God what belongs to God is the usual Biblical reference for the Separation of Church and State.

However, the doctrine of the Separation of Church and State does not mean the exclusion of the reality of Man from the reality of God.

- selah -

To God belongs everything first. Know this, O my nation, and all things shall fall into their proper places before the face of the LORD.

---<--@

God never fails -

My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus the Lord, I am not the most suitable of persons to proclaim to you the Word of God or the Peace of Jesus Christ which is the Peace of the Times so know ye that I am like you utterly reliant on Jesus Christ!

I know my failings and I know my short-comings and because of these I have no reason to boast and so, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, let me offer to you instead, this one, abiding truth about my little life - our Lord, Jesus Christ, has never failed me - not once!

Truly, my greatest desire is and must always be to serve the Lord, Jesus Christ, in whatever capacity He assigns to me and to fulfill this vocation with a constancy of devotion worthy of the title Christian - an Alter Christus!

Though I want to return to the safety of my previous ignorance of God, there is no more holding back once the Spirit of God calls thee from the heart. How can one resist the one Irresistible!

My refuge now is the LORD!

I must repent of my sins and if I fall a thousand times over, it shall always be the same with me - for I want my repentance to bear fruit for Christ Jesus, my Holy Redeemer, my God, my All - He has never failed me!

It is I who is a constant failure to my Savior. But never again shall I fall into the pits of despair - my Savior has never once failed me!

I have already absolutely determined to give to God what belongs to God - not I but He, I will decrease and He will increase until I am no more - God never fails!

Not I but He - the LORD, He Who Is, He is God and God never fails!

Therefore, if you are a fallen-away Christian of whatever denomination, know this now - come home to Jesus:

Give to God what belongs to God!

Seek a deeper knowledge of thy faith and cling to Jesus Christ believing in the Word despite thy own self and in spite of all things and you will surely come Home in thy heart first and in Eternity with God forever when forever comes around again.

---<--@

Before You, O Christ,
I knew only darkness!
I was a child of the void
destined for destruction.
Until Your Spirit came
I knew no Peace, my God.

But You came to me
to make me anew...
I do not understand, LORD,
but You came to me.

And as Thy Love hovered

over the waters of my heart
to calm the raging storm
I began to see... myself.

- excerpted from Foundling

---<--@

Everybody have a great working week ahead! Remember, there is always work in the vineyard of the LORD - do not be worldly-wise, be wise with Jesus in thy heart and God in thy world and all will be well for thee - God never fails!

Glory to God the Father!

Adoration to Jesus Christ!

Alleluia, peace be unto our nation

and peace be unto all our nations;

good will to all men and women of Peace.

20111002

Sunday Evenings

Good evening, the Philippines - mabuhay!

I had wanted to speak to you about many things this evening. But now that I've sat down to put the words to my thoughts, there is only silence.

A moment ago, I thought to write you about the things I thought to write you about. But now, I realize I only want to enjoy this moment with you.

Let us share this moment with someone we love.

Let us tell them from the heart -

"There will be plenty of time to talk about plenty of things."

"But now is not the time for much speaking."

---<--@

REMEMBER: Most of the things that love says is never said at all.

---<--@

Everybody have a great working week ahead!

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Moment

20110918 PM

Sunday Evenings

Good evening, the Philippines - mabuhay!

A good working week deserved to be topped off with a great weekend, don't you think?

Since the above statement is true for almost all people, I could just leave it as that. But brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ that we are, we must ask ourselves again: How true is it for us?

What constitutes a great weekend for us?

During the creation event, the LORD God, also topped off with a great weekend. He spent it appreciating His work of living creation; in communion with the All of life. He did not go away to a far off place; He went near to us that we may be with Him Who is our rest.

When Adam found no companion in God's living garden, God did not decide to re-program Adam. Instead, God created a new community for Man in Woman.

- selah -

Our Creator is not a distant God. Truly, the LORD is not a tyrant. He is a God of communities; the one Source and the one Summit of all our relationships. We should be thankful indeed for God is and He is God, the LORD, my people - our God - especially on this days of days.

As Christians, we should be acutely aware of this fact.

It is in this spirit of communion and community that we are called to celebrate our Seventh Day obligations to God. Only in this way - with family, friends, parish, and God - may our weekends be deserving of our hard-won time away from the labors of our working week.

Having said that, I hope we all were able to fulfill our Sunday obligations to God today. May it form the basic structure of the pattern of our days that God may fill the years of our lives with much fruit and much company.

Let us all have a great working week ahead.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

A Friend like You

20110911 PM

Sunday Evenings

Good evening, the Philippines - mabuhay!

I do not have much to add this evening. I am eager to go home, relax and watch the specials as regards the 10th year commemoration of 9/11.

You know, it is much easier to hate than to love. Hatred burns with almost any kind of fuel. Love, on the other hand, is often fraught with difficulties. For love burns only with love.

Where hatred is safe, love is often not safe. Love, by nature of its own truth, has to make itself vulnerable.

And you can see this interplay between love and hate in the life and times of our Lord, Jesus Christ. I trust we were all able to fulfill our Sunday obligations to God today.

You can never notice these things if you constantly renege on our Christian duty to offer worship to the Father through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit above all, in this day of days.

If you reflect on the Gospels, persisting in prayer, especially during Holy Mass, then by a certain grace of God, you will be able to see through the words into the Word and the story shall in the eye of thy heart come to life.

This is why Holy Mass is the pivot of my week. And as far as I am able to, I seek to go to Holy Mass more than once a week. And I go to Mass not because I am holy but because I am a sinner in much need of holiness. I am a creature in desperate need of his God. I will perish if it were not for His mercy.

Now, the Gospel this week (Mt. 18: 21-35) is all about forgiveness.

Loving and forgiving go hand in glove. In the Gospel, Jesus instructed Peter about the nature of forgiveness.

Jesus said "seventy times seven" times.

This means we are expected by our Lord and Savior to be able to forgive others as well as self - always - and to do so - perfectly.

I just want to leave you with this thought before we enter into another work week.

Forgiveness breaks the cycle of hatred - in ourselves.

It frees us from the grip of our enemies not by subduing them but by breaking the power of nemesis by allowing ourselves to become their friends.

Everybody have a great working week ahead!

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Blindness

20110828

Sunday Evenings

Good evening, Philippines - mabuhay!

The Roman Catholic faith, for it to catch on, must be experienced -

Christ must be experienced!

As I share this faith with many of my fellow Filipinos who are all of us, along with all others in this nation we call home, brothers and sisters of the Promise, it would be lacking of me if I do not exhort you, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, not only to keep our Christian faith but also to revel in it and prosper in its embrace.

From now on, I am reserving Sunday evenings to have a casual conversation with you regarding our Roman Catholic faith.

And I shall be doing this in the context of the peace of the times. We shall relate our faith to our own experience of Country.

If you have been following our conversation, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus the Lord, you will know what to expect.

The past has been terrible. Our world is devastated. Every one of our nations is broken. As a result, many hearts are left empty and desolate. There is as much loneliness out there in our world as there is darkness in our midst.

Our work here, under this season of heaven, is not to put and end to war or the spirit of War but to reverse the tide of this darkness and revive the strength of the human spirit.

The everlasting Peace is the prerogative of God alone.

Our labor as nations has always been to give shelter to the strength of human community and to prosper the peace of Man on earth as an extension of the governance of God's Providence in all visible creation.

This shall also be the work of our one Filipino nation.

It shall not be as the past: We will make the transition from age to age.

Therefore, I will not be encouraging in any of you, division in the one Filipino heart.

You yourselves should know by now - by weight of history and by strength of destiny - that this division, this War in the heart, is an abomination before God in the heart of any nation. What this sin in the heart of our nations produces upon our earth should be clear to us now.

Our Roman Catholic faith is integral to the peace of our Philippines. But like I said, a Catholic who does not experience his or her own faith and does not come alive to it is really, really missing out big time. Why?

Look around you. God is calling us all to Himself - if there is any time to encounter Jesus Christ in your life, it is now.

I tell you, show a sincere interest in matters of the faith and manifest an open heart and the Holy Spirit will surely fill your life with good things.

So this Sunday Evening, my beloved brothers and sisters, I bid us all to return to Holy Mass and to understand it with heart and faith.

Prayer is the first thing and the last thing. And the best prayer of all is Holy Mass.

- selah -

Remember, brothers and sisters, we are transitioning from age to age - from old to new - from Night to Day - from War to Peace - from forgetfulness to remembrance. Put this in mind when the darkness of the past shall tempt you with bitterness and despair about things regarding our Roman Catholic religion, our Christianity as a whole, all honorable religions especially Islam and Judaism, and our nations.

May the Peace of Jesus Christ which is beyond all understanding sustain our desire to make this Republic of ours more perfect.

Glory to God and peace to our one Filipino nation!

---<--@

Prayer requests -

Let us pray for the people along the East Coast of America - may Hurricane Irene be broken by the power of God through our good will as nations prevailing upon the earth and through our love for our fellow human beings in this world so full of loneliness and trouble.

Let us also pray thanks to the LORD in behalf of our own Country for seeing us through Typhoon Mina and ask His consolation and help for those who have been directly affected by its evil.

May this need in our nation help to temper all of God's instruments among us that we may be led to become a more loving and compassionate people.

Everybody have a great working week!

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Ita Missa Est

Common Ground

20110731

A pleasant Sunday evening to all!

It's a damp and rainy evening here in our Philippines so let's always remember to wear a smile, my constant friends, beloved compatriots, and brothers and sisters of the Promise - why?

"Because the weather that matters is the weather we keep inside of ourselves!"

Tomorrow is a new day, a new working week, and a new month. Let's start it all off in the right spirit!

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Smile