A Portrait

Posing before Luis Ak-ak's wooden carving of St. Ezekiel Moreno
@ the convent of the Missionaries of the Beatitudes :)

Just got back from my indefinite and unofficial hiatus from blogging :) Been spending most of my time for the past weeks inside the simple and humble convent of the Missionaries of the Beatitudes. I think I just found my second home inside this concrete jungle of the metro. I am so looking forward to a journey of perpetual contemplation :) A Happy Easter to all! 

Our God is not dead! He's alive! He's alive!

On Religious Freedom

Let's all pray for America. The video says it all. For the information of the readers, America's right to religious freedom and the corporate conscience of the people's faith is now under attack with a new mandate proposed by their current administration. It is a door that once opened will put every religion (not just Catholics) and creed at stake. 

"We Hold These Truths" is a video that we felt needed to be produced in order to clearly state the main issue in regards to the (HHS) Health and Human Services Mandate. The main issue is Religious Liberty. The mandate, as it stands right now, violates the Constitution and specifically the 1st Amendment. We have a right to the free exercise of our religion without violating our consciences. Every American should see this as an important issue. It is not a Catholic issue. It is an American issue. Join the movement here. 

Visit the video website here: Spirit Juice Studios 

Check out this another cool video here.

Courage: Liberated Love

Here's a late post on a different kind of love just in time for yesterday's celebration of love :)

Liberated Love | Jim Graves | Catholic World Report

Courage offers compassion fellowship, and hope for those with same-sex attraction 

In January, the Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut announced it was becoming the latest diocese to launch a chapter of Courage, the Catholic apostolate that helps men and women struggling with same-sex attraction live in accordance with the teachings of the Church. Deacon Robert Pallotti, director of the office of the diaconate for the archdiocese, helped develop the program for Hartford. He explained that Courage helps people “who need our care and love. In some cases, they have been rejected by society. They need to be accepted, affirmed, and supported as Roman Catholics trying to remain faithful to Church teaching.”

Courage was founded by Cardinal Terence Cooke, former archbishop of New York, and led for many years by Father John F. Harvey, OSFS. In 2010, Father Harvey died at age 92; the apostolate is currently led by Father Paul Check. There are more than 100 Courage chapters and contacts nationwide; there is also an outreach for spouses, relatives, and friends of persons with same-sex attraction called EnCourage.

Courage makes a distinction between homosexual attractions or feelings and the behavior of acting on those feelings. The feelings themselves are not sinful, the organization notes, but homosexual acts are. Deacon Pallotti continued, “Courage will not reduce a person’s identity to their sexual desire; [those with same-sex attraction] are people with full human dignity not defined solely by their sexual desire.” 

Some of the deacons of the archdiocese initially objected to the program because they mistakenly believed Courage condoned homosexual behavior, but were reassured it did not. Pallotti noted, “Through support and spiritual intervention, we can help people with same-sex attraction lead moral and fulfilling lives. These people are hurting and so are their families. Doing nothing would be a lack of compassion.” 

Read the entire article here: The Catholic World Report . Find out more about the apostolate here: Courage Philippines.

Never Abandoned

Your hands, my God, in the secrecy of your providence never abandoned my soul. 

Silently reading the remarkable life of St. Augustine in his infamous autobiographical work The Confessions, it was exactly those words that brought me a great amount of consolation. Tears of wonder, of gratitude, of an undying hope and joy in his salvation, streamed spontaneously down my cheeks. For truly, it is not the Lord who left me gasping for hope in my previous times of desolation; rather, it was me who forgot him and His constant love and protection. 

But He is truly faithful. In his love He rescued me from the captivity of my own self-destructing tendency. Seeing the wondrous deed that my Lord has done for me, I can truly say that my life has changed completely.

---

Intense. These words made me cry.

"..., God often leads souls to himself along unusual paths: a lack, a loss, or a wound - if accepted and affirmed - can become a springboard for throwing oneself into the arms of God; the God who brings good out of everything and whose greatness can be discovered in redemption even more than in creation."

+ YOUCAT, par. 65, part I: What We Believe; p. 48

Best Video of the Week

Saw this cool video response of the much circulated Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus Youtube video. What I liked in this response was the clarification Fr. Claude Burns (aka Father Pontifex) made on the 'use of illogical terms and definitions' that time and time again we hear from the Evangelical realm (i.e. the false dichotomy of 'Religion Vs. Relationship'). Truly this is something that must be addressed :)

A response to the video "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus". The purpose of this video is to do a response from a Catholic perspective, in a spirit of love, but also with a spirit of passion to defend our Mother the  Church. The things that are said are not meant to offend, but we do have to be direct about what we believe and what we stand for. Join the discussion here.

Visit the video website here: Spirit Juice Studios

A Blessed 2011. A Better 2012.

My Lord have been very gracious to me last year. And truly I have much to be thankful and joyful for. I can only hope that the best of His plans for my life is yet to come. He has been preparing my heart for months now as I hope in entering the formation program. May his mercy and love continue to transform me in His days. And may the Blessed Mother, together with the angels and saints, guide me in Hope and in Patience - the proper virtues and attitude in waiting - as I slowly witness the unfolding of his plans in my life.

Check out these readings for New Year's Day:

• New Year's Day - New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia 
• New Year's Eve Activities - CatholicCulture.Org
• Resources for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God - Phat Catholic Apologetics

The Miracle of Blessed Pedro Calungsod

From his childhood, Pedro Calungsod declared himself unwaveringly 

for Christ and responded generously to his call. 

Young people today can draw encouragement and strength from the example of Pedro, whose love of Jesus inspired him to devote his teenage years 

to teaching the faith as a lay catechist. Pope John Paul II

Remarkable recovery by comatose woman

By Jason A. Baguia, Inquirer Visayas

CEBU CITY — She had no idea who Blessed Pedro Calungsod was until she benefited from a healing miracle attributed to the intercession of the young Visayan martyr.

The miracle, recorded in March 2003, had since led the woman to start a devotion to the 17th century catechist from Cebu, said Msgr. Ildebrando Leyson, a lead advocate for Calungsod’s sainthood.

Officials of the Archdiocese of Cebu have chosen not to disclose the woman’s name for now out of respect for her privacy. But her identity will be made public when she accompanies the Philippine delegation to the Vatican for Calungsod’s canonization, now a certainty thanks to a papal decree issued last week. Leyson described her as a businesswoman in her 50s, not a Cebuana but someone who hails from Eastern Visayas.

The woman knew nothing of Calungsod prior to her astounding recovery within hours after falling into a coma at around 2 p.m. on March 26, 2003, due to insufficient oxygen in the brain, Leyson told the Inquirer on Friday. The coma rated “3” on the Glasgow Coma Scale, meaning she had no verbal or motor response, and could not even open her eyes.

It was actually one of the doctors who prayed to Calungsod for help after the patient suffered complications a day after undergoing heart surgery in a Cebu City hospital, the monsignor recalled. “Those who were looking at her brain data knew from experience that the woman would die the next day,” Leyson said.

It was at this point of near resignation that the doctor uttered a prayer to Calungsod. At around 6 p.m., the woman woke up.

The Lord is with Us!

EMMANUEL!

Image borrowed here

Roaring Lion

Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for [someone] to devour. Resist him, steadfast in faith, knowing that your fellow believers throughout the world undergo the same sufferings. The God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory through Christ [Jesus] will himself, restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you after you have suffered a little. 1 Peter 5:8-10

Makes Sense

Fr. Ferdinand T. Hernando, MB:

Among the finite creatures in the world, only the human being is endowed with body and soul--a body that makes us humble for all its limits and limitations, a soul that makes us hope for transcendence and salvation. Any thought that reduces the human to the level of the physical and biological, without any regard for the transcendence of the human spirit, will logically end up in despair and frustration, as the finite can never satisfy the infinite longings of the soul. Conversely, any reduction to spiritualism without any awareness of human solidarity and interrelatedness is devoid of any social relevance and will end up in hollow spirituality, aloof and uninvolved. 

The Advent Conspiracy

Worship Fully. Spend Less. Give More. Love All
Check out their site here.

Vatican Takes over Liturgical Art and Architecture

The controversial Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove California (Image borrowed here)

Great news that just gave me a brilliant idea for a thesis proposal next year! 

(Vatican Insider) - A team has been set up, to put a stop to garage style churches, boldly shaped structures that risk denaturing modern places for Catholic worship. Its task is also to promote singing that really helps the celebration of mass. The “Liturgical art and sacred music commission” will be established by the Congregation for Divine Worship over the coming weeks. This will not be just any office, but a true and proper team, whose task will be to collaborate with the commissions in charge of evaluating construction projects for churches of various dioceses. The team will also be responsible for the further study of music and singing that accompany the celebration of mass.

Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Benedict XVI, consider this work as “very urgent”. The reality is staring everyone in the eyes: in recent decades, churches have been substituted by buildings that resemble multi purpose halls. Too often, architects, even the more famous ones, do not use the Catholic liturgy as a starting point and thus end up producing avant-garde constructions that look like anything but a church. These buildings composed of cement cubes, glass boxes, crazy shapes and confused spaces, remind people of anything but the mystery and sacredness of a church. Tabernacles are semi hidden, leading faithful on a real treasure hunt and sacred images are almost inexistent. The new commission’s regulations will be written up over the next few days and will give precise instructions to dioceses. It will only be responsible for liturgical art, not for sacred art in general; and this also goes for liturgical music and singing too. The judicial powers of the Congregation for Divine Worship will have the power to act.

Continue reading full article here.

Christ the King!

Here are links to cool articles on scriptural and theological reflections on the readings for The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King.

• What is the "Kingdom of God" and How Can I Join? by Nicholas Hardesty
• Christ the King and the Works of Mercy by Fr. Jojo Zerrudo - Sense of the Sacred
• Who will judge and who will be judged on the last day? by Fr. Ryan Erlenbush
• Jesus Christ, Shepherd and King by Carl E. Olson
• The King and His Kingdom by Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar - Ignatius Insight

In a Nutshell: The New Roman Missal

Cool video from Life Teen: 

Mark Hart helps high school teens understand HOW and WHY the words of the Mass are changing. Mark compares the "dynamic equivalent" and the "formal equivalent" of how we translate words from Latin to English, and then explains the elaborate process used to create the new Roman Missal.

The challenge for us is to study, to be obedient and to embrace this new Roman Missal with love.


UPDATE: Fr. Timoteo, Ofrasio, SJ on the new English translation of the Roman Missal and Liturgical Renewal :)

Gospel according to RH Bill

Today is the Feast day of St. Matthew the Evangelist. Below is a supposed 'Gospel' written from the point of view of those who are Pro in the legalization of the Reproductive Health Bill, intended for them to realize what kind of 'evangelization' they have been promoting all along.  If you have read C. S. Lewis' known Screwtape Letters, notice the striking familiarity in the approach and the way the whole thing was written. Please do take some time to read this :)

A Reading from the Gospel according to the Reproductive Health Bill

v.1 Brothers and sisters, love one another, but bear no children. Loving is expressed in making love, but children are the burdens of love. Without the burdens of love, making love is enjoyable, satisfying and free. 

v.2 It is all right to have sex with partners before or outside marriage. The more protected you are from sexually transmitted diseases, the better for your salvation.

v.3 I beg you to spread the Gospel of "rights without responsibility" and call it "responsible love," with particular emphasis on "the right to informed choice."

v. 4 Bear no burden of telling the people about the morality, not even about the side effects of contraceptives, least of all cancer. Do not be afraid to tell them about safe, legal, accessible sex and the advantages of remaining childless in favor of your career or your health.

v.5 By all means, change the definition of when life begins, as the Epistle of Science suggests, so that you will unburden people of guilt about abortion.

v.6. As much as possible, use any of the various artificial contraceptive means by which you can attain satisfying sex without burdening yourselves with children. Abstaining from sex, whether with one’s spouse or not, does not lead you anywhere near the idea of satisfaction.

v.7. Treat fertility or pregnancy as though it were an illness. In that way, contraceptives will later be considered by the majority as “essential medicines.”

v. 8. Employers should also be enjoined to give reproductive health services to their employees as an act of justice and charity, even if sexual activity has nothing to do with their job description.

v. 9.  Enjoin all public officials, whether appointed or elected, to allocate public funds even for personal purposes like sexual satisfaction. It is your right and, indeed, your duty, to give the poor and the sick the much needed access to public funds. In this way, the poor will not think of unemployment, as they easily get distracted from the more substantial issues of survival, and think only of sex.

v.10. Those who insist that job creation is more important than contraceptives or that contraceptives are dangerous should be reported to authorities for their acts of disinformation and for heaping insult on women’s reproductive rights. If they do not heed the authorities, treat them as you would a gentile or a tax collector!

The Catholicism Project by Fr. Robert Barron

"The Catholic story is being told but being told by the wrong people in the wrong way. We need to tell our own story. We need to get the message out so as to draw people in." 

This is something I watched earlier from Raymond Arroyo's show, The World Over Live, in EWTN. A book and a 10-part DVD series by Fr. Robert E Barron that exposes the rich heritage of the Catholic Faith in architecture, art, literature and history from a thematic and visual point of view. Check out its cool video trailers below :)

Fr. Robert Barron created this groundbreaking program as a thematic presentation of what Catholics believe and why, so all adults can come to a deeper understanding of the Catholic Faith. Not a video lecture, Church history or scripture study, this engaging and interesting formational program uses the art, architecture, literature, music and all the treasures of the Catholic tradition to illuminate the timeless teachings of the Church.

The CATHOLICISM Adult Formation Program presents the strong, ecclesial dimension of the Catholic Faith – God’s revelation through Jesus Christ and His Church. It is comprehensive and faithful, appropriate for: RCIA, adult lay formation, training adult catechists, deaconate and other ministerial training and mature high school or college/university course-work. Word on Fire

For more information click: Catholicism Series and Word on Fire

Importance of Dating

• The Inevitable: Relationships and Dating - cool article on dating and romantic relationships with emphasis on growth, maturity and being realistic :) This is something in contrast with a bitter post about online dating I did back then.

Update 8.15.11: Bed-side Books

My free time have awarded me with a chance to catch up with some of my reading backlogs. There are at least six bed-side books that I've been reading alternately lately, most of them are catholic reads. By far, I've been enjoying quite a lot the book 'In Pursuit of Love: Catholic Morality and Human Sexuality' by a Jesuit priest, Vincent Genovesi that discusses a handful of hot-topic issues - premarital sex, contraception and marital sexuality, homogenital expressions of love, masturbation and abortion - from a philosophical and theological stand. Challenging, sometimes I'm even forced to read a paragraph twice or thrice to digest and understand. Then even sometimes followed by a momentous stop of pondering. Truly is the joy of reading a book on Christian Ethics for the first time :) 

Sinong nakaka-relate sa mga binabasa kong book? Raise your hand!

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

'The Four Loves' (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1960)

As quoted from ‘In Pursuit of Love: Catholic Morality and Human Sexuality, 2^nd edition’ by Vincent J. Genovesi, SJ

Music and Architecture: Dos Bravissimos Concert

I had a blast last night at the Cultural Center of the Philippines with my brothers and sisters of Awit Papuri. Ate L (a Voice Major at UST) invited us in this wonderful rare joint concert by the world's most awarded choir from the University of Ljubljana, Akademski Pevski Zbor (APZ) Tone Tomšic of Slovenia and our very own Choir of the World winner, University of Santo Tomas (UST) Singers.

I was ecstatic because I had a lot of 'firsts' in that event. It was my first time watching a choir concert. Second, it was also my first time in CCP (I was literally and 'addictively' breathing and sniffing Leandro Locsin's concrete edifice paying close attention to the monumentality, intricacy, and 'sense of place' of the place). And last, who-are-you-freakin'-kidding-that-was-the-best-performance-ever! I tell you, there is a lot of reason to be jumpy because the theater I've been to last night was able to fuse two of my best love ever - quality choir music and quality architecture.

Refreshingly soul-stirring, I honestly had a deeper and more profound appreciation of the beautiful voices God gave us, and the ideas he continuously inspires upon the top stewards of built environment, our Architects. Swear I will never take these things again for granted. (Might as well check out this article and this article for more information about Dos Bravissimos).

Akademski Pevski Zbor (APZ) Tone Tomšič from the University of Ljubjana in Slovenia

University of Santo Tomas Singers