Maligayang Pasko ng Pagkabuhay

New life, new hope, new beginning.

Today we again celebrate Easter Sunday, the day of Jesus’ resurrection. During baptism, our godparents said our baptismal vows for us but today, we renew our promises, reject Satan and evil and believe in God. And what are the four renewal of baptismal promises?

– the communion of saints

– the forgiveness of sins

– the resurrection of the body

– and life everlasting

The priest blesses the parishioners afterward.

I can’t count the times I’ve blogged about Easter Sunday since I started in Friendster. It is always a happy occasion for us Catholics. A friend sent me this Easter greeting from Pinterest.

Fr. Lovell texted me last night and asked for our special intentions so he could include it in his Easter mass early this morning. He is always thoughtful that way no matter where he is assigned. I consider him a member of our family and my eldest son.

❤❤❤Happy and blessed Easter everyone❤❤❤

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Remembering Those First Meetings With My Religious Friends

What a mouthful of a title.

Yes I met those cute and smart seminarians when I worked as a student librarian at the UST Main Library. Since I was assigned at the Humanities Section where they frequented, I met so many of them. That was wayback in the 70s. Our Prefect at the library was a Spanish priest who is now in Korea. My fellow student librarians at the section and I were even invited to some ordinations of our friends. Some are now friends on FB.

I met Lovell for the first time when he graduated in Theology in 2008 but he was Nissa’s friend in UST during their college days. I remember him gifting me with a Vatican rosary when we met. He is now almost 10 years into the priesthood and is assigned in Iloilo down south. He is one of my prayer warriors and we get in touch from time to time. He calls me his spiritual mother.

Fr. Louie who is also a Dominican is the creator of The Filipino Catholic page on FB. When he learned that I am a friend of Lovell back in 2010, he asked me to be one of the co -admins of our page which I hold until now. The family met him for the first time when we went to Santo Domingo Church during our Visita Iglesia in 2011. He came back here after his doctorate in Rome and is now the Secretary General of UST. I met the rest of my Dominican friends then.

I met Fr. Rey when he was still a seminarian in UST. We are from the same province so we speak the same language. We lost touch after college graduation. He went to the US for further studies and came back here when he was ordained as a priest. He stayed in New York for a number of years and came home I think a couple of years ago. We are now friends on Facebook. We always have a healthy exchange of comments when it comes to politics.

I have been a friend of Fr. Pao since 2018 I think but we haven’t met personally until last Monday. I often attend his masses online. Met the rest of the Paulinians friends when we went to the wake of my friend’s mom.

Last 2014, my friends and I had a small gathering here at home, pot luck but I did most of the cooking. For the first time I personally met Fr. Tacky, a Franciscan and Fr. Boy, who is a Dominican. They came over too. That was a lovely occasion, full of laughter and food. I also met some online friends who are members of our page.

Funny how after all these years, we are still in touch, kumustahan once in a while. Like Fr. Lovell, they are my prayer warriors too.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMA MARY

A lovely image of our Blessed Mother. I always look forward to this day every year. I always blog about her on her birthday.

Pueblo Amante de Maria❤❤❤🌷🌸💐🌹

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Happy And Blessed Easter To All

I attended mass at our church, St. Francis of Assisi at 7am today. I didn’t understand much the mass because the sound and singing seemed too loud in my ears. As always, the feedback is so poor because of my defective sense of hearing when I am in a group. I will have to attend another online mass later. The best part was the renewal of baptismal vows.

A blessed and joyful Easter to all of you.

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It’s Good Friday

We are celebrating Good Friday today. Josef has work (from home) so we were not able to do the Fourteen Stations of the Cross. I watched the Lenten Parade though in our town online. Later it will be the Seven Last Words to be broadcast by several Catholic Churches here. I always watch the reflections of several priests around 3 pm.

It isbthe best time to reflect about life. Past experiences taught us several lessons to reflect.

A blessed Good Friday to you all.

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As We Celebrate Holy Thursday

 “Do you understand what I have done? You call me your teacher and Lord, and you should, because that is who I am. And if your Lord and teacher has washed your feet, you should do the same for each other. I have set the example, and you should do for each other exactly what I have done for you..”John 13:12-15

For the past several years or so, we started our tradition of Visita Iglesia every Holy Thursday and I always look forward to it every year. It’s one way of celebrating Holy Week by visiting old churches and praying the fourteen stations of the Cross.

Holy Thursday marks the end of the forty days of Lent. Holy Thursday is the day that we Catholics commemorate the institution of three pillars of the Catholic Faith: the Sacrament of Holy Communion, the priesthood, and the Mass. During the Last Supper, Christ blessed the bread and wine with the very words that Catholic and Orthodox priests use today to consecrate the Body and Blood of Christ during the Mass and the Divine Liturgy. In telling His disciples to “Do this in remembrance of Me,” He instituted the Mass and made them the first priests. And it’s the beginning of the three-day celebration of Easter. We call it the Maundy Thursday. Maundy is a Latin word “mandatum” which means a commandment. It was during the Last Supper that Jesus commanded:

‘And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.‘ John 13:34

The washing of the feet represents  the service and charity of Christ, who came “not to be served, but to serve.” It reminds us of  the tradition  of spring cleaning, that we have to be clean, both in body and mind to welcome the glorious celebration of Easter.

Here’s wishing you all a Holy and Blessed Maundy Thursday!

(A repost from 2012)

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Oh Yeah!

I have these one Catholic page and two Catholic groups at Facebook of which I am an admin. Yesterday one of my co-admins featured me at Sambuhay Interaktib, a Society of St. Paul offshoot from their program every week.

Here’s what she posted at our site.

One of my grade schoool classmates who is a doctor disagreed with the word remission. According to her “remission of cancer means reduction of the signs and symptoms of cancer. Arlene is cancer free for many years now. Not on remission because cancer no longer exists within her. God is so great”.

All these years I also thought that once you have cancer and you get well, you are in remission. Now I learned another medical word with its true meaning.

I do enjoy being an admin of Sambuhay Interaktib. I get to meet SSP (Society of St. Paul) priests and brothers along the way and some members who work mostly outside the country.

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First Sunday Of Advent

Wrote this blog back in 2011. Around that time, there were no options of likes and comments. It’s a gloomy Sunday but I am happy because Advent season is here.

HAPPY NEW YEAR. New Year in the Catholic calendar begins each year with the season of Advent.

It’s the Holy Season of Advent and we’re now celebrating the first Sunday. Every year, we look forward to the coming  of Jesus and pray those beautiful prayers of longing and waiting and sing those beautiful songs of hope and promise.

The Advent season is full of God’s blessings for all of us. He makes  us realize and remember to look back at the whole year that is about to end and to look forward to a new and hopeful  year that is about to begin.  Are we ready to take Him into our hearts? Are we ready to accept Him in our lives?  True, we always say time is gold and we should not waste it but we also need to take stock of what is more important, a quiet contemplation, a moment of silence, a minute of giving thanks.  Let this be a season of joy for all of us, awaiting a most precious event of the season – a baby born in swaddling cloths to save  mankind.

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Un Pueblo Amante de Maria

The Philippines has been a nation known for its devotion to Mama Mary

Pueble Amante de Maria. People in love with Mary. It is an endearment we use for Mama Mary. Roughly translated in Tagalog, it’s bayang sumisinta kay Maria.

Tomorrow is Mama Mary’s birthday. I was always in awe of the stats I gathered on my previous posts about her birthday. I garnered the highest stats in one day in one of my birthday posts about her. If I remember, got a total of 4,843 visits. Amazing.

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Relaxing Wednesday

Finally, I could relax. We were done trimming the carabao grass yesterday afternoon. Gardening is hard of course but it is a fulfilling job. So lovely to see a clean garden from weeds and unwanted growth of grass. Now I can concentrate on replanting and sowing some seeds I bought earlier.

It seems I’ll be able to finish my Goodreads’ reading challenge for this year afterall. I was not able to read when we had Covid last May. It was almost two months before I started again. I’ve said before that I committed myself to read a hundred books this year. I am on my 86th book now. I found this lovely book online entitled No Promises In The Wind by Irene Hunt.

Here’s a brief summary of the book culled from Goodreads:

It’s a tale of a brave young man’s struggle to find his own strength during the Clutch Plague. In 1932, American’s dreams were simple: a job, food to eat, a place to sleep, and shoes without holes. But for millions of people these simple needs were nothing more than dreams. When he was just fifteen years old, Josh had to make his own way through a country of angry and frightened people. This is the story of his struggle to find a life for himself during those turbulent times.

It is actually a short novel which you could probably finish in one day. I slept late last night just to finish half of it. I am beginning to discover some unknown authors whose works are equally absorbing.

Today is the Feast Day of St. John Mary Vianney, the patron saint of Catholic priests. St. John Mary Vianney, pray for us as we continue to beg God for more priests who shine with holy and human virtues. HAPPY FEAST DAY👏🙏⛪

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