20110306

In the great CSPGS PREX tradition, Catholic ears please!

A Meditation on Hope

FAITH is the life of Christian community.
LOVE is the heart of Christian community.

HOPE is the atmosphere of Christian community.
It is both our breath and our breathing together.

Hope is the eternal spaces between our souls
that distinguish us from love to Love.

It is our faith reversed from the view of the Divine
and our faith received into the welcome hearts of others.

It is a thing that awaits our embrace
existing not in the past nor the future
but always in the present moment.

Hope floats from the deep of God's mystery -
Those timeless little white flowers that grow
upon those wide, open plains and rolling hills,
those evergreen valleys and high mountaintops
of the Eternal Kingdom of our Lord Christ
born from seasons of life's comings and goings
anchored firmly upon the Rock of Ages.

Hope is a promise of something good
and a reality that awaits unredeemed
to be perceived by the eyes of our faith
and received by arms of our souls
into the embrace of the love of Jesus Christ
living by the grace of God in our heart of hearts.

It is the unseen substance of the faith
of individuals and families, tribes and nations,
the vital heritage of entire civilizations -
the numberless promises of lives left behind,
suspended in time between heaven and earth,
living in the ether of a sacred silence
as something for our hearts to embrace...
hopes awaiting the community of other hopes
like the past awaiting the quickening of the present
within the eternal remembrance of God.

My precious friend,
from always to always.
Our faith is ever always our own.
It is something we allow.
It is something we nourish.
Like a sacred union professed,
one love alone with the One Love alone,
ever longing profoundly for Itself.
It is something personal and private
and bears its fruits for the Beloved.

But our hope for it to become
is always the promise of something received,
of a good that we can share with another.
It is something that awaits us
like a herald of the benevolent Prince
that bid us to come into His Eternal Kingdom.
Hope is something to be fulfilled
not by the bearer to whom it is promised
but by the beneficent reality of its Provider
and bears its fruits for the one possessed.
For how can one hope in one's own self
without killing the faith that enable us to see?

Indeed, our hope is in Jesus Christ!
It is our LORD's peace that we share.
It is God's promise for you and me
that matters very, very much!

It is His promise that we must hold on to
through our love and faith in Him
for it is to our God that we must trust.

Hope is what keeps us together.
It is our quite common longing as human beings.
It is always something to be shared
and lends warmth to our being human.
It feeds our hearts with goodwill
and keeps our souls good company.

It is the rarefied space where mercy acts
in the timeless moment of the now
to redeem from despair the truth
that live in other peoples lives.

It fills the sails that advance our common humanity.
It is the unselfish pride and excitement we feel
when we honor something true and worthy of praise
in the excellence within the person of another.

It feeds the fire that keeps us Christian
keeping us ever ready and agile
to serve all souls without distinction.

Glory to the God of heaven and earth,

Adoration to Jesus Christ, our Lord!

Peace and Godspeed to our Holy Father,

Pope Benedict XVI,

and all Bishops in communion
with the successor of Saint Peter.

Peace and Godspeed to our Holy Mother Church!
With much prayers for our Church Suffering -
all our beloved Holy Souls
of family and friends
forever transformed

by their final encounter with God.
All who lived so bravely
and loved us so tenderly,
all whose final hopes on earth
they have now lovingly entrusted to us.

Much prayers and loving support
to all our clergy, our religious and
to each other as Christian laity -
all who live to serve the one God of life
in spirit and in truth.

Peace and Godspeed to all of blessed Christendom
and to all the just who walk this world with us -

may we all work together towards a better world

for all men, women and children of all nations

of the one family of the nations of Mankind.

God be with all of us - now and forever.

So lets pick those little white flowers for Jesus,
and give each day our Savior a lovely bouquet -
joyously extend the Love of God to those in need
these make our Savior's Heart very glad, indeed!

---<--@

Rosary of Hope

They say, brothers and sisters in Christ, that the Rosary has a body and soul. The body of the Rosary are its physical gestures - the posture that we take, the Signing of the Cross, the passing of the beads - and also the vocal prayers themselves. And these are like handrails that guide us forward in the prayer. They allow our hearts to venture out into the more vital aspect of the Rosary, its soul.

I would like to put emphasis on the soul of the prayer because it is here where the real work actually takes place which is - in the case of this particular Rosary - the five meditations meant to make us more and more accustomed to our own hope in relation to God's plan for each of us (true self) and also the hope of others (family, friends, nation/s) in relation to God's plan for all of us together (Church).

Because of the darkness, my beloved, we can be certain that there are false hopes out there. Indeed, there is much despairing. For hopes that are false lead no where. The Devil is empty of promise - one can build from his illusions who believes in his deceptions a confidence in a hope that is false, even a confidence approaching faith. One must be wary of such things, my friends.

One may hope in war and reap only despair. One may hope in money and reap only bitterness. One may hope in drugs and reap only loneliness. One may hope in sin and reap only death. All these things take the soul to the perilous brink of eternal damnation.

And all these acts are contrary to the virtue, hope.

I had once hoped in things that are false and reaped much evil. Only by the grace of God, my friends, only by the grace of God am I saved through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is in the course of those events of my past life that I have received this Rosary. It is something I had to gradually learn. It is something I have received from Mother Mary for something I had asked of her which is a freedom from false hopes; a liberation form false addictions.

This prayer is proof against such things. Because through it one may stand to gain a certain sense of confidence (built upon an understanding strength of heart) to help devote the self to those authentic lineages of hope that ultimately lead to the fulfillment of the glory of God in heaven reflected upon our world; peace among our nations and good will among all men and women of peace.

You must first make the intention that you will be praying this Rosary of Hope - you may say: "Dear Lord Jesus, please allow me to offer you this prayer of hope."

Overview:

Hope is a lineage (portrayed by each of the Five Meditations) that begins with God and ends with God. It begins with loving obedience (Our Father). It proceeds as a promise kept in the heart and a labor wrought in time through perseverance, patience, humility and a proven faith in the faithfulness of the LORD (Hail Marys). And a promise fulfilled in the glory of God (Glory Be) in heaven reflected upon the earth; the glory of God being the proper terminus of all hope.

Parts:

The Sign of the Cross - It might be that this has become but a rote gesture. It is important to guard against making this an empty and mechanical gesture.

The Sign is a summary of all that we are to take into our hearts during the entire prayer. We must invite ourselves to open our hearts to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by the Sign of the Cross. The vertical is our relationship of faith. The horizontal is our relationship of hope. This prayer concentrates on the horizontal relationship.

Creed - meditate on the glorious unity of the Church - Triumphant, Militant, Suffering - the seen and the unseen - all of creation as one realm under the LORD, our God.

First Our Father - meditate on the LORD - The one, triune Perfection - The Holy Trinity - God as a perfect unity of relationships.

Hail Mary - meditate on the Person of God the Father in heaven

Hail Mary - meditate on the Person of God the Son, Redeemer of the world

Hail Mary - meditate on the Person of God the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete

Glory Be - mediate on the fulfillment of all human hopes.

The Five Meditations:

First Meditation - True Self - Be thankful and bless the Name of the LORD, thy God Who has come to save you. Pray that you may appear to yourself clearly by the light of thy faith in the one, true God - love yourself as you are in God - even as your own true name written in heaven - and know that everything begins and returns again with the true self. Pray for all your needs in relation to your mission and vocation in life.

Second Meditation - Family/Extended Family - Be thankful and bless the Name of the LORD, thy God Who placed you from a place of Love into a place of love. Pray that God might preserve your family and the order of your generations. Pray for an understanding of the hopes of your family - past, present and future. Pray for the hopes of all your beloved kin. Pray for their needs. Pray for their individual needs. Ask for the strength to succor to these needs as much as you could as far as you could. Ask for the strength to be faithful to and forgiving of those people for whom it had pleased God to bring you forth into this world and with whom God has seen fit to entrust your nurture and your care.

Third Meditation - Friends/Local Community - Be thankful and bless the Name of the LORD, thy God Who provide for you, Who has given you all good things in heaven and on earth. Pray that God might provide you with good and faithful friends. Pray for an understanding of the hopes of your friends. Pray for the needs of your friends. Pray for their individual needs. Ask for both discernment and humility in your dealings with and within your local community. Pray for a deeper understanding of the hopes of your local community. Pray for the needs of your local community. Pray for the strength to serve in your local community. Pray for the poor in your locality. Do all that you can to succor to their needs. Pray for the needs of your local authorities. Treat them with honor and respect. Pray that God may bless them with wisdom and courage to govern with virtue. Pray for the grace to cherish forever those good and faithful friends God has seen fit to send you to complete for your own good sake what the LORD, thy God, has begun for you in your family.

Fourth Meditation - Nation/s - Be thankful and bless the Name of the LORD, thy God, Whose will it is to fulfill in you the promise of a national destiny and the salvation of thy own community. Be grateful for the gift of nationhood. Pray for a deeper understanding of the particular hopes of your nation and the hopes of other nations. Pray for the intentions of all your national leaders in the Responsible State. Treat them with honor and respect. Serve. Pray for the poor in your national community. Succor to their needs. Love them as yourself. Pray for the needs of your own nation. Pray for the needs of all nations. Pray for the peace of your nation and of all nations.

Fifth Meditation - Holy Mother Church - Be thankful and bless the Name of the LORD, thy God, Who gathers us all together into one communion in Him and with Him through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord of our LORD - the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Pray for the intentions of our Holy Father and all bishops in communion with him. Pray for the final hopes of the Church Suffering. Pray for all clergy. Pray for all our religious. Pray for all Christians. Pray for the peace of the world and an end to all suffering and war. Pray for the grace to discern your vocation in the Church and the strength to serve your mission. Pray for our Lord's poor. Succor to all of these needs as much as you can and as far as you can according to the freedom of your gifts.

You may add to these or linger on a particular one according to the particular current or need of your own meditation at that particular time.

After every Glory Be:

God of my Heart:

O my Jesus, zealous for souls,
thirsting for the love of Mankind!

Come, be Thou the God of my heart
and accomplish in me Thy will of peace.

This particular prayer above shall be said with Blessed Jacinta Marto, the Flower of Fatima.

Brothers and sisters, try to see the Lord in others through this prayer. He thirsts for our love through others and by our coming to Him we invite Him into our hearts that He may by His Love give us the grace to accomplish in us what we must do for Him today.

Finally, we have always, as Catholics, relied on our Mother Mary for her swift and efficacious intercession. Now in this prayer we are to come with her - hopes in hand - in the actual moment that she intercedes for us so that we may eventually learn to be like her and intercede with her for the needs of others and receive the grace to do all of those works of peace set by God before our hands and our feet - willingly and with joy.

Having said all of that, this Rosary of Hope in all its entirety we shall be saying with Mother Mary as she intercedes for our needs to God. Therefore, you must cling close to the protection of her mantle. This is very important.

QUEEN MOTHER MARY,

I love you.

Recall me to yourself today
under your most glorious service
as Queen of heaven and earth
and Queen of my heart with Jesus.

Grant me the strength of will
to serve you under your banner
with a heart that loves God alone
that I may persevere in the way of virtue
and add to the good of the world.

Please help me deny myself today
enduring temptations bravely
and bearing trials for Jesus
denying evil an entrance
in my heart and in our world.

O that I may please Almighty God
and prosper God's own peace
in my heart and in our world
for love of all thy children
O Queen of my heart with Jesus,

Queen of Peace!

Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

AMEN.

---<--@

Latria

As beautiful as the Rosary is, my brothers and sisters, it really only is the second most beautiful of Christian prayers. The most beautiful prayer of all, Beloved of God, is the Holy Mass.

For it is in Holy Mass that we are through Jesus Christ, as faithful and obedient children of the Father, constantly renewed by the Holy Spirit and constantly sent out by token of that same Spirit to renew the world around our selves.

One would think that the Saints, above all the Holy Mother of God, who along with all the Holy Angels of the LORD who are intimately entrusted also with each our own personal and spiritual welfare would encourage us - as far as it is freely possible for them - according to the will of God - to come to this Holy Banquet and not just on Sundays.

One would think that all our Saints would, as God wills it, seek to add each their own voice to the glorious chorale of the Angels that in the quiet of our hearts constantly invite each of us to come to this most excellent and most efficacious of prayers and join the one whole community of the Church in assaulting the Throne of the LORD with much love and song.

They do. For to God alone belong our worship.

However, in the darkness, this is not always so - or at least it is made to appear that way, but not by any of those whose hearts are called to God: To God alone belong our worship.

There are those who love the Saints but not with the love of God but with the love of the self and this is rather sad. That they would rather believe in their own empty creations, be it made in the appearance of popular piety. That they would rather their mind and hearts dwell on other things than come with nothing but a calm and expectant sense of joy to that great and happy Feast of their one and only Creator. That they would rather sit with creatures than sit with our Lord Christ in this supreme celebration pregnant with wonder and hope; a commemoration of the greatest love of all.

Let us not be this way, my friends: Latria!

Granted each of us are come to season in each our own time, but for each of us whose hearts are awakened to an abiding love of the truth that Jesus Christ is Lord, let us know - here and now - with conviction of faith in our hearts that Christ is really and actually present with us and for us in the Holy Eucharist.

From behind mere accidents of bread and wine that our Savior, Lord and God peers at us and He sees our world so needful of His Love, His True Light.

Like a great and eternal Star, Jesus Christ who is Emmanuel shines out to us in the Eucharist - freedom seeking freedom.

Bathed in this illuminating, searching Light, we stand naked before God,

the Light of His Love illuminating for us the great extent of our needs, the most profound depths of it.

"Lord, I am not worthy to receive Thee but only say the word and I shall be healed."

Because, O little flock, it is precisely this sense of a great and profound need within our souls that will serve to fill us with the Bread of Angels. It is our hunger and thirst for God alone that shall satisfy our longing for Him;

God alone Who can grant for our hearts that peace that this world could never even dream of giving us.

And in the Eucharist He offers us Himself. Therefore, we must humbly accept our nakedness and powerlessness before God.

We must never hide from the call of Holy Communion.

So banish the darkness, let us come to Mass! Let us work, work, work to understand it, know it, love it, and live it. Let us

learn the words to this prayer and absorb their meaning so that we may come away filled, fulfilled and ready for service.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

A community deprived of the feminine expression is barren and desolate. For it knows of no hearth, no home, no place of rest...

no company to renew

no heart to come home into

no cheer to grace with solace

no warmth to bless with courage

no gaze to remind of beauty

no love to bear with injury

no touch to soften the harshness

no fire to tame the wilderness

no peace to prosper life

no strength to ward off strife.

I once thought that Filipina hair was just plain black hair and that was all. Obviously, I was not at all in love with my Philippines then. I never really noticed that our women sported not just plain black hair.

Framed by the warm light of our tropical sun, our women's hair is actually cast in many subtle hues in darkest shades of golden brown. Subtle, not obvious - and pretty but only when love is in the eye of the beholder. Exactly in keeping with our conservative nature.

As far as I am concerned, all our Filipinas are princesses. Beauty being what it is, inherited. We should work to make sure this Country of ours is more a suitable place for all our women.

March 2011 is National Women's Month.

---<--@

20110305

Daniel 12

The evils of the present times are manifest enough to satisfy the requirements of human reason unaided by the light of faith. For the need for peace is such that all our nations recognize it by the depth of the darkness war has wrought upon our humanity and our world.

But such is the LORD that God has made provision to fortify the faith of those whose hearts are so inclined that all may indeed work for peace (and peace rightly understood).

Let me now share with you, my friends, my interpretation of the passage in Daniel 12. Far be it for me to be so bold as to presume, I will not suffer to forever hold my peace on something that has time and again proven itself to me as truth in my heart.

The signs of the times seem to me so obvious as to be compelling and since it involves all of us in all our nations, woe to me if I keep it from you. For if I see the danger lurking, if I see the enemy of our nations approaching, will I not cry out to you who share with me a common humanity?

I shall therefore entrust to you what I have long kept in myself and leave it to your discernment.

We have so far sought about this peace enough to understand that peace indeed is the craft of all nations. For in reality, all nations are responsible for each other.

Daniel 12 decisively places its emphasis on the importance of individuals in the healing of nations and the importance of nations in the healing of our failing world.

Time is 1000 years, Times is 2000 years, Half-a-Time is a 50/50 choice - shadow (uncertainty) being made half of light and half of darkness, we are in each our hearts presented now with a choice between war as a paradigm and peace as a paradigm.

The difference between the days in Daniel 12 which is 1290 days leading up to 1335 days being the year 2009 through to 2045.

Because as time flows from the timeless flowing from the Throne of the LORD in every human heart, the work of the heart (which is each individual human heart) always precedes the work of the earth (our X and Y Generations among all the nations, in particular from the three, great Abrahamic lineages).

2009-2012 denotes an initial period of awakening; a period set aside by God. This is most especially true for each of us today in 2011 - a year of choices.

Therefore, the necessary groundwork of effective peace-building both within as well as between our nation-states should be established within this time.

2012 shall be a turning point. How it shall come to pass depends on the choices we make today.

2012 is a time of testing. It is perceived as a burden of expectation and not of judgment. How decisive it shall be for us as nations depends completely on how decisive we allow ourselves to become here and now as individuals - to be present in the here and now for the peace and the peace properly understood.

When the sign appears, it shall be too late.

2012, if war is hastened, shall be calamitous. This hastening, if we shall at present choose to largely ignore the signs, shall be accompanied by fire from the sky which is a large-scale impact event. It is worth noting that in 2009, Jupiter was hit yet again by a Shoemaker-Levy type extra-planetary body.

In the order of grace, my friends, there is no such thing as a random event; that one particular year of years - 2009 - in the context of billions of years of time and space is not coincidental.

However, it must also be duly noted that the main emphasis of the passage in Daniel 12 is the deliverance that is being offered and not the global catastrophe that seem so foreboding in its inevitability with or without the assistance of a large-scale impact event.

An example of this kind of deliverance being Y2K as a non-event was already manifested in the year 2000 but was largely ignored or consigned to the imaginary realm of pure luck: That God delivers from evil, as in our Lord's Prayer, is never due to random chance, this was not learned by our nations in 2000.

It took 2000 (or 2009) years for this choice for peace to become comprehensible to our souls. But after this time, this choice shall no longer be a choice.

Were this same choice for peace presented to our nations at an earlier time than this present time, it would have been futile. For no nation before this time would have had the developed capacity to comprehend it meaningfully.

Therefore, if we in our nations are to willfully pass up this invitation to draw nearer to the LORD, during this season of peace - together this time, we shall no longer be without any accountability.

War which is the enemy of all nations, if we do not bind it today - together this time, shall be set loose upon our generations. And all of our living memory shall not even be enough to contain the remembrance of this destruction.

---<--@

The Quest for Peace in the Middle East

The roots of war is ancient. Therefore, who is to blame for the presence of war in the Middle East? No one. Who is to blame for the absence of peace in the Middle East? Everyone.

Now, what I mean to say when I write about the "siege of war" being broken only from the Middle East is that the epicenter of this interpretation is the Israel-Palestine or Palestine-Israel division in general and Jerusalem in specific.

My fellow Filipino compatriots, concerned as we are about the well-being of our own peace, we must also connect (in our minds and in our hearts) our own peace-building initiatives with that of Israel and Palestine.

And I also enjoin the citizens of those other nations longing for a better world to do likewise.

What shall it gain us to achieve a greater peace in our own lands if the labor of building up the (inhabited) earth which is the undertaking of all nations fails?

We must do what we can and work to become bigger than our own national interests.

---<--@

The Israel-Palestine/Palestine-Israel Division

What happened to you, O Israel -
pitted against your own soul,
a nation among nations
at war against thy own peace?

The past has been terrible,

but the night shall soon wane

the darkness shall fade forever

and the dawn shall arrive.

None shall be left in the night!

We will do this - together this time.

The everyday, ordinary Palestinian is like a seed caught in a storm. Indeed, they are as a people like so much seeds blown hither tither, seemingly at random, and mostly by forces beyond their control. But however strong the storm these seeds remain as seeds - in the quiet, waiting for its time to grow. That is the truth.

Now, the Palestinian people are not a perfect people.

But the Palestinian people is a nation. Therefore, there is nothing either on earth or in heaven that can prevent their emergence save their own rejection of this truth. Now, it is you, O Israel, who have helped them to embrace their own nationhood. Therefore it is you, O Israel, who must also stand with them. Do so now, O Israel, do so now.

It is the natural right of all nations to fulfill each their own potential as a particular undertaking of Country upon the earth. This right was not denied you. This right will not be denied them.

So turn now to your brother in unity. You must find it once again in your heart to accept their own humanity with your own. For there is a purpose and an order to all things under heaven, each in their own times and seasons under the LORD.

To reject this truth is to propagate the conflagration of the last great age of war. It is to prolong our suffering and to do this is not human and an inhuman nation is an abomination to God and to itself.

So let the climate of these times turn to the peace, all ye nations. This is our time.

Towards the morn, O ye nations,
towards that awakening dawn!
Towards the peace, O ye peoples,
towards the twilight of the new!
Towards the LORD, O ye numberless stars,
towards that promise made of old!
Towards the Light, all ye living lights
away from the darkness,
where all our roads,
lead back to you, Jerusalem.

It is difficult. But it is not impossible. Indeed, there are many things in the way of our returning to peace that are left to each our own free and human choice. But not war, O Israel, not war.

War is a spirit. It will most certainly prevent the emergence of peace in your region in Asia. The momentum of the last 2000 years will most certainly try to us all into a deadly complacency. For the siege of war may indeed only be broken from your region in Asia. And the beast knows it.

Let me tell you here and now, O Israel, that the blessings of the peace that awaits us all in this new age far outweighs all of these present anxieties. This is not beyond you. In fact, the choice now lies squarely within your reach.

If we work to achieve this necessary requirement under heaven, the enormous potential of the one family of the nations of Mankind shall become unleashed in the service of our common humanity: What once served the will of war shall now be brought into the service of the peace of the LORD, our God, for all Mankind.

We will find respite for our failing world - together this time.

It shall not be perfect before the Day. But it shall no longer be a labor wrought in bitterness and tears. So exercise prudence. Look for wisdom. Seek for justice and the healing of hurts. But you must pray. Pray now with an urgency. Pray now with an understanding of the times. Pray now with a knowledge of our hopes together in time. Pray now with the brightness and the force of a heart undivided.

Let us all pray now for the peace all nations even as we pray also for the peace of each our own. Let us all who desire a better world desire peace with all sincerity.

Finally, to help us understand the question that is now being presented to each our hearts do not look for answers before 2009.

For all of it, (time, times through to 2009) including the "war on terror", is one entire proposition, a plaidoyer if you will, that in the midst of the silence within our souls must, God-willing, incline us all to peace. Lest we forget.

All of it, God-willing, must lead each our hearts, willingly and freely, unto the LORD, our God, the one Sovereign of all nations.

In this way, in this age, which is different from all the ages before this one, we are all pioneers.

May it be so, O ye nations, may it be so, O beloved people Israel. Let us work our way through to 2012. Let us all work to complete each our own remembrances and and make the choice for peace today while it is still today.

No nation learns in isolation. No Country matures on its own.

Palestinian Christian, I believe in your nationalism:

Do not be deluded by the darkness that deceives

for the spirit of war lusts for all nations equally

but your unity is your nation's guarantee.

Do not be embarrassed. Do not be confused.

The God Who loves us all - He is the LORD of our Lord.

Therefore, in God through our Lord, Jesus Christ,

there is both a will and a way for all of us.

Be perfect in this way,

encompassing all things in your heart of hearts -

tolerate no division, no chaos, no enmity...

and all this for love of God and Country

and you will find rest.

The War in heaven is in the heart.

Your place in the Middle East is meant for better things,

much better things...

---<--@

Mabuhay po tayong lahat! God be with us all.

20110304

A Remembrance of Fatima

EVERY NATION as a whole
in time and in dimensional space
is vulnerable to one sin
and one sin alone:
The sin of wars' evil ambition.
The one sin that divides
the one Noahide covenant
that established the one family
of the nations of Mankind.

For each nation is an altar of life
who lives to unite the hopes of her people
that her peace and her people's peace is one
a one nation in the one LORD,
a one whole upon the one greater wholes
within the one governance
of Divine Providence.

O my beloved children, turn away (from war)
and build upon the peace of Country.
Spread thy sheltering wings, my nations
of the one family of the nations of Mankind!
See all thy living communities safely across
the vast desolation of War's great abomination.(All to my All, 20080914)
---<--@

To the NATIONS:

O MANKIND, my nations,
today is not the same as it was
the world is beginning to speed up once again.

Who is thy enemy, O ye nations?

Do not look to Russia, she is as each of you
an integral part of the one Noahide covenant
that established upon the threshold of faded Eden
the one family of the nations of Mankind.
Does not her people hope as we hope?

Who is thy enemy, O ye nations?

Do not look to the honorable ummah of Islam,
for she is as much a holy vessel
in the service of Sacred Life
as the honorable religions of our world -
an imperfect child among imperfect children
and born of the one Abrahamic promise
much misunderstood, yet willing to give much.

Who is thy enemy, O ye nations?

Look into yourselves, O Mankind, repent!
None have been found but many are being sought.

Look into yourselves, O ye nations, repent!
Establish thy ground upon the holy ground of life
and believe again in the sacred hope of thy founding.

For War itself shall test thy limits
but only those nations of good will
who are destined by our LORD to prevail
will be converted to the one peace.

The rest will not withstand War.

For those that continue to sow in war
shall begin to reap the fruits of war.

But those who are of good will shall sow in peace
and those who shall sow in peace shall labor in the land
and those who labor in the land shall reap prosperity
adding to the life of her people, giving length to their days;
a hope that endures unto many generations.(All to my All, 20080914)
---<--@

A Prayer to Mary, Queen of Peace

O Immaculata!

My Mother and Queen of my Heart,

I love thee but do not deserve thee.
For it is the boundless mercy of God,
O Blessed Virgin Mary,
that made thee my Mother
and I thy unworthy son.

O Refuge of Sinners,
without whom I would perish,
I am thankful to God for thee!
O dearest Lady,
may my love and appreciation for thee grow,
by special grace of God,
with each day I walk this life with thee
in the path that our Savior has chosen for me.

O great Mother of God!
I humbly beseech thee,
give me strength against thy enemies
and allow me to praise and honor thee.
O glorious Leader!
Help of Christians, lead us to victory -
toward a new age of peace and renewal for our world
through the Eucharistic reign of Christ
in the hearts of all Christians
in the Name of the Father
and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit.

AMEN.

---<--@

A Message to the European Community

FORGET NOT the cradle that gave rise to your present hope of civilization.

For hope is a lineage, it's strength lies in the anchor of it's promise and a promise never made by human hearts. And thy anchor, dear Europe is Christianity.

To forget this lineage is to become mired in a seasonless existence, one that is completely detached to the sage counsels of the past and utterly oblivious to the near infinite promise that the momentum of the present is able to unleash at the approach of tomorrow.

Do not lose yourself in shadow, a denial of both the light as well as the darkness, a denial that shall ultimately deny thy peoples their sense of common destiny.

O dear Europe, if you earnestly desire to show universal religious respect, then begin by showing a fearless respect of your own, because it is only by doing so, that you shall learn that happy sense of reciprocity that shall lead you to a sincere respect of other honorable religious traditions without syncretism or hypocrisy.

As a tree without it's roots shall never bear fruit, a nation without a soul shall never discover it's dream and those nations who do not dream will never awaken to the labor of it's own hope.

A continent is as an orchard of these trees and tasked with the care that ensures that every tree bears abundant fruit and as an orchard can not be denied it's soil, a continent can not be denied it's roots. And thy roots, dear Europe, is Christianity.

Realize this, O dear Europe, without being colored by the distorting paradigm of War as a whole. And then be at peace with yourself, your past, your present and your tomorrows.
---<--@

SALUTATION #2

(One Whole Sky)

Look at our time today
and the world we move in
everything about it
is born of the will of war.

There is much despair
there is much suffering
as all our kindred peoples
labor through oceans of tears
our common human hopes

- forsaken -
in the darkness of our time.

Let us then take ownership
of the status quo
and instead of feeding
into war's evil ambition
the near limitless
potential of our own souls
let us apply ourselves
under the eternal vigilance
of our one Almighty God
to the labor of each our Country
by our absolute turning away
from the descendant gravity
of war's evil ambition
into the ascendant direction
of the one whole peace
and build upon our civilization
the sheltering wings of God's peace
to serve and defend
the life of our common humanity
wheeling as numberless as the stars
shining across the midnight emptiness
of the season of the sky
toward the twilight breaking
of the new millennial age
and a better, kinder, safer, brighter world
for all men, women and children
of every nation
of the one covenant family
of the nations of Mankind.
---<--@

Mabuhay po tayong lahat! God bless us all.

20110303

The Common Market

Time, Territory, Treasure: Of the three elements of Country, one characteristic sets this one apart - it is material and therefore, temporal in scope. Therefore, every consideration must be viewed with regards to the Common Market with this nature in mind.

It is limited in its material nature.

The problem with wealth and wealth generation, most especially here in our midnight world, my honorable compatriots, is that the definition of wealth and its honorable pursuit is often profaned by things that are the means created to attain to our prosperity.

The Common Market serves the national wealth. And this wealth is not wholly material. The building up of the (inhabited) earth is a labor that is an economy of both matter and grace.

The end that the Common Market serves is in fact, spiritual. For the happiness that it enables Man to pursue is ultimately one that must transcend it.

The true Filipino dream is freedom.

This freedom in the absolute sense is freedom from all forms of temporal bondage; an end to suffering, an end to war, an end to exile tears and a return to our original Promise.

In terms of the national destiny - this freedom is the natural birthright of all Filipinos.

Therefore, this national destiny must be perceived by all Filipinos to be available to all Filipinos.

---<--@

From Emerging to Developing...

Once again, my fellow Filipino compatriots, we are feeling the effects of our own vulnerability. God love the Philippines, O my nation, but there is still a quite significant lack of opportunity in this Country. The repatriation of our OFW's fleeing the turmoil in the Middle East have forced this issue upon us now.

We have much work to do: Opportunity is key. For a culture of opportunity is a culture of hope and a culture of hope is the cradle of leadership. It is where leaders beget leaders and where service is distinct from servility.

The refining place of nations is like the birthing place of stars; a place of great internal activity. Here the dust and the darkness of the void is transformed into energy and light. Therefore, given the troubles of this present time, we are not far from this culture of hope, O my nation. The labor that through our ages in time will take us through from emerging into developing only takes humility and heart.

First and foremost, we must work to achieve a lasting, durable and meaningful peace through to next year. We owe it to God and Country to devote ourselves to this essential task. Because we can not harness our fullest potential divided and dark from within our own self - without this peace, my people, we are only a shadow of our real nationhood.

Indeed, we must complete our remembrances through to next year.

In every Filipino individual (most especially in our youth) are the seeds of something great and these seeds of human potential are nourished first and foremost within the embrace of every Filipino family.

Do you yourself share this conviction?

Then let us work for a culture of hope and desire in our hearts to obtain from God the peace that ensures the order of our generations: A culture of hope nourished in an atmosphere of peace is a culture of life.

If we are to really become one of Mother Asia's new tiger economy, we must work to inculcate in our culture, a real appreciation of the raw power of our local potential as a nation. As I have written to you before, my honorable compatriots, there is merit in our people - we are a nation not because of weakness or evil but because of what good there is and what good there is is because God is and that is all: He is the LORD.

What of the movements seizing those undertakings of Country in Middle East Asia? Are these mass outpourings of popular sentiment secular or are they religious? They are neither. All of these movements are essentially human because of the fact that they are national. They are by nature civic in scope and are therefore fueled by issues that concern the citizenry.

Therefore, only in human terms can we attempt to perceive them. There are no precedents to these events. However, there still remains that familiar danger of distorting the essential nature of these movements.

It is important that we arrive at a right understanding of these things. Because the current of these days events lead us on toward solutions - if we are attentive.

Darkness is but darkness that does not lead us to the light: As we are a nation distinct but not apart from our other kindred nations, we must not be one to stand aloof from the suffering of other peoples. If we are to love others as ourselves, we must understand that they too are as ourselves - human with common human needs.

There is a risk that these movements might become radicalized.

Therefore, we ought to pray for and respond to these needs not just as human individuals but as a nation in ourselves - ever with an understanding heart and a willingness to be decisive.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Common Human Needs

20110226

"If the veil of time were withdrawn and the Kingdom of God stretched forth in plain view before thy sight, if the LORD does not incline thy heart unto Him, O Man, thou still would not be able to believe."

The Story of Being Special

The LORD God created all living beings to be unique - Angels and Men - the LORD created them, seen as well as unseen, We became. And All of us are made to be special.

But the Devil and his angels, they said, "since the LORD God willed that all living beings are special then I must be special".

And so was division in heaven sown. For the Devil and his angels undid in themselves the life that the LORD God in each of us did bestow in abundance.

They cast themselves into the void.

But the Holy Angels of the LORD said, "as the LORD God willed that all living beings are special, then you, O my beloved, must be special".

And so they were in God gathered. For the spirit of the world is a scattering spirit. But the Spirit of God gathers together.

You make me special, beloved of God, and so I am. And so you are, alleluia.

Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

God saw how good the light was. God then separated the light from the darkness.

God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." Thus evening came, and morning followed--the first day.

- Genesis 1: 3-5

---<--@

Now, I should like to share this with my brother and sister Christians:

Litany of Love

Have mercy on us, dear Jesus! From behind mere accidents of bread and wine, You peer at our world so full of war and sin.

Incline our hearts to Thee, dear Savior, that we might better serve the cause of Thy peace.

And as we journey together as Thy Church in this world (during the season of Lent add: towards Thy Holy Mountain of Easter), renew us in our togetherness and faith. Make us hungry for God and thirsty for the right things of God, dear Jesus, out of love for Thee!

Deign to bless us in our nations as keeper and friend, one to another, and prosper us in our hopes to build a better world.

AMEN.

(Here follows my personal pattern as an example)

God the Father in heaven, I love You.

God the Son, Redeemer of the world, I love You.

God the Holy Spirit, I love You.

O dearest LORD, my one, triune Perfection, I love You.

Holy Mary, Queen of my heart, I love you.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Patron Saint of the Suffering Addict, I love you.

Blessed Jacinta Marto, Flower of Fatima, I love you.

Blessed Francisco Marto, Helper of my Lord, I love you.

Sister Lucia, Servant of God, I love you.

Saint Lorenzo Ruiz of Manila, I love you.

Saint Therese of Liseaux, I love you.

Saint Josemaria Escriva, I love you.

Saint Anthony of Padua, I love you.

Saint Peter, I love you.

Saint Paul, I love you.

Holy Father Dominic de Guzman, I love you.

Holy Father Francis of Assisi, I love you.

Saint Lawrence the deacon, I love you.

Saint Dymphna, I love you.

My darlingest Annelies Marie Frank, I love you.

All you Holy Innocents of God, I love you.

All you Holy Souls in Purgatory, I love you.

All my family and friends, I love you.

O my Philippines, I love you.

All you nations of Mankind, I love you.

Angel Caritas, my guardian dear, I love you.

Saint Michael the Archangel, I love you.

All you Saints of God, I love you.

All you Holy Angels of the LORD, I love you.

---<--@

Meditate on each your loving relationships. Wonder at the fact that we are able to love. Because it is no small miracle in itself that we are made to be aware that we are in love at all.

If faith is light, then hope gives it brightness, but it is love that gives to it sharpness and clarity.

Love sees far, overcoming both distance and time. When love holds us near, we perceive a sense of the timeless. For when we hold near to our love it hold us near to Itself. All lasting things are preserved by it.

In its embrace, our spirits are quickened. And in this prayer, brothers and sisters, we mean to encounter that embrace.

To be in love is to be aware. To be aware is to be alive.

I hope it helps.

---<--@

Let us pray for the victims of the recent earthquake in New Zealand and for peace in Libya.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

20110225

Completing our EDSA

"How long ago is 25 years?"

This question seems to ask something more from within itself, something else more existential than a mere passage of time:

"How much of it have we forgot?"

Brother and sister Filipinos, let us never again forget our nation's potential for good in this world. For just as all human beings are equal both in dignity (being) and potential (becoming) so too are all human nations thus endowed with a just equality. From this equality we all must begin. From this equality we all must return.

In sharp contrast to the national movements seizing the consciousness of other Countries, ours still stand out as a truly well-inspired, grace-filled transition into our own better selves; a truly remarkable feat of nationhood.

Our EDSA is exceptional in its non-violent character.

For what revolution truly is is a willing disintegration of a Country into violence and uncertainty. All revolution being a measured descent into fire and shadow.

What tempers the violence however, is the discipline of the nation but what makes the uncertain certain may be decided only by God without Whom no nation may survive this descent.

We should indeed be thankful and properly proud of our faith both in God and in our people.

This is not to say however, that this transition is anywhere complete. For the work of our nations is never complete until we have all arrived. So while we are yet here we must always make due provision for the generations that are yet to come - their songs must not remain unsung.

EDSA is EDSA. There are no sequels to this, our timeless coming together. Every other lesser movement that our EDSA has thus far inspired in ourselves is both enhanced as well as embraced by it. So that what we are always desiring to obtain out of our EDSA is not another EDSA but the completion of our first and only one.

This labor to complete our EDSA, all its signal graces and its right season under the sky, now lies before our hearts and before our hands - right here, right now - in this present time.

This is no time to dwell on past mistakes but on the wisdom that those trials have produced in our people. This is no time to argue what void there is but what we can do - together this time - to help steer our one Republic clear of the impending perils that clearer understandings now perceive.

No longer shall past shadows hold sway that we shall not allow in our hearts this time. For the times are sufficiently changed. What we shall will to leave behind, shall now depend upon what we shall choose to freely and humanly embrace.

For the essence of EDSA is a transition to peace, the peace that prospers - our original peace, our one Republic peace. It is this work that shall define us, my honorable compatriots - this work of peace.

It is our work; the labor of these present times:

Now is the time to complete our EDSA.
---<--@

The Responsible State

Upon the Responsible State is vested the authority to govern the people. This authority is a divine authority.

For this authority is the right to govern your peers and therefore, belongs to God alone.

Upon this vital mandate is built the structure and the systems (Constitution or Ideals of State) from which the Offices of State derive both form and power.

And these Offices are served by their various national institutions.

These institutions when their purpose and design are directed toward the nation (not towards persons or personalities) are what safeguard the national good.

Duty is empowered and rights protected. Peace is preserved and prosperity assured. Hope is sustained and service made meaningful. Law is observed and justice is vigilant. Civil order is maintained and freedoms understood. Vision is perceived and the national destiny clear.

These proceed from a strong and empowered Responsible State.

"Verily, every living thing, above all every human being shall be accounted for - to the very last hair on their head."

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Forward Thinking

20110217

A Plea to China

I am making this plea on behalf of my fellow citizens convicted of drug trafficking in your Republic. I am fully cognizant of the penalty that your law prescribes for such an offense. Having said that, I am also duly compelled to respect the law of your land with due recognition to the sovereign will of the one Chinese nation. This is why I am not making this an appeal to the law.

I am making this as a plea to your sense of justice.

Your civilization is old and your history learned. Through all those years, the virtues of your people have shaped the form of your civil society and the laws that govern its necessary peace. I myself have read, studied and reflected on it. It is also part of my culture here in the Philippines.

Indeed, your common experience as a nation is both varied as it is also diverse. This kind of tempering, through which all nations are subject, in the long withering away of time, must have unfolded through great adversity, as a flowering of the wisdom of your culture.

Therefore, I am making this plea in good faith to your sense of common humanity. Because law is constrained by its incidence in time, but virtue is timeless and resides in the wisdom of nations. Justice is such a virtue.

A great demographic of my people are presently living in poverty. We, like your nation, is also inescapably involved in that inevitable struggle to mature into our necessary ages in time. Those three Filipinos who were convicted by your court are part of this demographic.

That the poor in our humanity are vulnerable to exploitation is an inherent trait of the evil of every age, and one that is universally expressed in the strictures of all human moral traditions meant to counter it, as well as the laws, derived from these, meant to bind it.

It is clear to me that my compatriots were exploited, and their humanity violated. They were either deceived or coerced or both into exposing themselves to the penalties of your law by those who intend to defeat it. They were acting as drug mules.

And they were indeed vulnerable to this exploitation for the simple reason that they were poor. The were overcome by evil intentions. And they succumbed to it not by their own choice because they were, in fact, not given a choice. It is the unhappy circumstance of those who are in need to be vulnerable in this way. Prudential action, in this case, is often not the luxury of poor people. There are entire institutions of state that serve this cause.

Prudence here require an act of justice. Evil when repaid with more evil propagates it. Law by itself is not cognizant of this unless it is animated by the spirit of justice.

If this primary mitigating circumstance is ignored, the poor in my own Country will all the more become vulnerable. They will all the more feel defeated and unrecognized for their being in need.

And what of their immediate kin and kith? They themselves will feel deprived of the very causes that are meant to guide and to help their human development. These causes are universal and are present in the essence of every undertaking of Country because they are also present in the longings of every human heart.

Our Republic undertaking does not have legal recourse to capital punishment. This is the choice of my nation and one that is expressed in our laws. As a courtesy to our Republic undertaking, this is a secondary consideration. For what good there is in one Country is also the potential good of another. No nation learns in isolation. No Country matures on its own. There is an unspoken kinship that have long been eclipsed by the conflicts of the last age, among peoples, that through it all has always been.

It is in this spirit of a common humanity that I make my plea to you, the one Chinese nation and the older Republic that serves your people, trusting that those kinship bonds of good will have always remained between our two nations, to hear out the concerns that impassions me and my compatriots regarding that case of the three convicted.

I am humbled by the occasion to communicate this to you and thankful for your consideration.

Peace is all that I desire for your nation.

---<--@

20110209

My honorable Filipino compatriots, don't you know we have not yet begun to build?

You must never allow yourselves to become prone to comparing our Country with others before our time. This inclination only leads to disillusionment, bitterness and despair.

Whatever difficulties God has set before our nation is sufficient for us in our day. Verily, God allows each undertaking of Country upon the earth a measure of evil sufficient for the good of each nation according to His most beneficent design for all the children of Mankind.

If today we somehow feel we do not yet possess a sense of national history illustrious enough to satiate that desire within our collective memory as a people, it is only because this history is still being written for us and by us even this very day.

Never must you delve again into the things we ought not to be, my nation, because what we take into our hearts these days will invariably dictate what our generations make of this land and its peoples.

Therefore, we must, under the eternal vigilance of Almighty God, exercise our citizenship to each other with the utmost fidelity.

If we are to emerge into our ages in time, we must know by instinct that as far as Country goes, we are all Filipinos - one work, one people, one destiny.

This is not to say that we shall allow evil to dwell in our land, this is to say that we shall now work to banish it - into the void, forever. For true citizenship does not make deals with the evil in all evil things.

But let us also not forget, my fellow Filipino compatriots, here in this present time, that we are still at the twilight of our present awakening. Here, O my nation, where our greatest enemy is truly only the darkness itself (or as Kenneth Cragg eloquently stated in his book, "Palestine", the guilt of structures, the wrongs of society i.e. the inhumanity in interhumanity).

Therefore, let us be gentler in our dealings with one another. Let us be kinder in our perceptions about ourselves. We have no other master now but the freedoms our nation have gained for itself at such a cost; a liberty we must continually purchase with much sacrifice and vigilance of heart.

We have no other sovereign now but the LORD Whose manifest will it is for us to succeed in our quest for an abiding peace and true self-determination; God Whose most efficacious and decisive assistance we may always rely upon.

Never again must you lose sight of the hope that we have always possessed as a people. Nor the love that must forever bind us all together in our authentic human freedoms. Nor the faith that allow for our nation to overcome all that is adversity.

In the midst of these present travails, O my people, never again must you believe in despair. Be generous in this way, my nation Philippines, and we shall not fail to see the morning dawn upon this Land of Promise.

---<--@

For the Philippine Peace Process:

Concentrate on building up the national community. This is our primary task.

Let us not forget that the foundation of a meaningful, sustainable, durable peace is a strong and vibrant national community.

If we neglect this or lose sight of it, we will - as ordinary citizens, lose our necessary sense of an abiding connection to the larger process of peace-building that we, as a nation, have duly invested in our responsible state.

This larger peace process is only secondary to this task of nation-building with which we as ordinary citizens are everyday engaged.

Everything we do as a nation is connected to this larger peace process (and this larger peace process is also connected to the greater peace-building initiatives around our world).

In this way, your smallest kindness counts for much. If you are to be kind to our poor and needy compatriots, you affirm the peace in our communities. If you help them but above all teach them to be right about themselves as citizens, one to another, you add to the strength of our civil order.

Nothing that is good is ever lost. For all good things contain in them something that is true about ourselves as human beings and all true things cleave to each other in the light - for as these are the things that are truly worth remembering, these are also the things that angels remember, that God does not forget.

So strive to always fulfill what good God places before your heart. Do not cling to evil things nor be influenced by it.

The peace process walks on two fronts - nation to nation and state to state. I am speaking this to you as part of the nation.

It would be a hollow victory indeed to have peace on paper alone. Do not be discouraged. Break the rule of war (division) in your hearts and make the choice to shed away the darkness forever.

Be generous in this way, my nation Philippines, and we shall not fail to see the morning dawn upon this Land of Promise.

---<--@

An Abrahamic Prayer:

LORD God, We humbly implore Thee: help all of Thy Muslims, help all of Thy Jews, help all of Thy Christians, help us in all Thy nations, dear God. Help us to find each other in the dark.

Incline each our hearts unto Thee, O LORD, our one True Light. Refresh our spirits. May we be as a people after Thy own Heart, O LORD, all Thy numberless stars, guided by the light of Thy peace and blessed by Thy will of good for all Mankind.

Forsake us not, O LORD, lest we perish in the darkness. Fulfill in us that promise Thou swore to our Father Abraham, that promise Thou hast made of old, O LORD, that Thou shalt lead us ever onward, that Thou shalt guide us toward the building of a better world for all Thy nations.

By the light of Thy own faithfulness, O LORD, bind us together in the unity of Thy own Truth. Establish Thy Holy Presence in our hearts as a revelation upon the nations, that Thou art God, O LORD, He Who is, the LORD and let this be as the dawning of Thy glory upon the earth.

AMEN.

---<--@

Serviam (Serve): This is what is meant by the last will be first and the first will be last.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Angelo Reyes (19450317 - 20110208) via con Dios.

Are we not all Filipinos? This is the bottom line: We have lost one of our own.

However which way we are to receive his passing away, we are still the lonelier now for it and for this I am grieved.

Nation-State

20110201

I am just going to speak to you freely about some things here...

Some of the things I am feeling I find difficult expressing in words. Because if I do, they will become distorted. Usually, these things just need a little more time. But sometimes, they do not need any form of expression at all. Regardless of which it is, what I put down I must put down or else not at all.

But let me tell you of what I am feeling instead of what it is all about. You know that line between patience and impatience; where anxiety meets daring right at the confluence of faith and hope. I am there. Because, my fellow Filipino compatriots, the world is speeding up again.

You know that holiday lull, that sense of a calm in the storm? It's over now and the calm that we felt we now realize was the calm right at the beginning of it.

Moreover, we can no longer afford to be insular in our thinking as a nation. I know this thinking because I used to have it. Before I left for overseas, I thought Filipinos were all there is to our world.

But our world is a community of peoples - a family of nations.

And it is getting smaller in a sense that we must be able to take it all into our mind and hearts to understand how we fit in and how to go forward from where we are.

What's happening in Egypt seems far but it is no longer so. We must remember we are now presently living at a transition into a different age; a twilight if you will, and that in this twilight, it is so easy to be lulled into a deadly complacency.

What we have discovered so far about ourselves as a nation seems easy to dismiss. For they are mostly immaterial in nature. But the work of the heart always precedes the work of the earth. Indeed the calamities we must now face on a planetary scale have all precipitated from a neglect of these same things.

I know that there will be those who will find their security in complacency; that there are those who will deny themselves the effort and the concentration to even attempt to understand the work that is being proposed to us. Indeed I am fully aware that there will be those whose hearts God will harden. It is written.

But it is not for the unwilling that I am writing, it is for you - my fellow Filipino compatriots - for us and for all those other free and willing citizens of our kindred nations in general - all the people of the peace - so that what belongs to you might always be yours in peace and good will. And that we all (including myself) might become better for it - as a nation, indeed as one family of nations.

For in my heart, O my nation, as I know you do, the colors I have chosen to wear is that of our Old Defiant. So I will have nothing to do anymore whatsoever with that Old Compliant: I reject the lie of war (and its train of social and personal sins along with it). Therefore, I must tolerate no division in my heart and strive to constantly uphold the honor of the LORD in my soul. For the LORD is God and He alone is God, one, peerless and eternal: My one, triune Perfection.

So what is happening in Egypt affects us indeed. Therefore, may peace reign in Egypt. May the people over there including our fellow citizens find safety. Above all, may peace reign in the Middle East and in our native Philippines. Let us not forget to put these in our prayers to God today.

We do not have to exceed our promise nor must we hold back on it: We are one whole sky after all, my honorable compatriots.

Today is the first day of World Interfaith Harmony Week: Try to learn something about those who are different from you and use this learning to enrich your sense of our nation today and all this week.

For me particularly, I think the Muslim hijab (head dress) is a beautiful thing. As a Roman Catholic Christian, I see it as a true symbol of a woman's right to choose; it is a practice that encapsulates a freedom that is not license; a responsible freedom; a freedom that leads to good things; a freedom that is pleasing to God Who Himself is free.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Forward Thinking