visible rhetoric

There was once a hermit who lived in the deep forest in order to dedicate his life solely for the Lord. In the course of many years this hermit befriended a fly, a mouse and a rooster. The rooster would mark the times when the hermit should pray. Kon magsugod na gani tukturuok ang manok ang monghe magabangon na agod makapangamuyo sia. The fly, ang langaw would guide him in his prayer by jumping from one sentence to the next sentence in his prayer book. And lastly the mouse would stay on his shoulders when the hermit prays and when he dozes off, kon matulugan sia, the mouse would gently nibble on his ears to wake him up and keep him awake when he prayed. This was their arrangement everyday in the life of that hermit deep in the forest, until one day, mortals as they were, the dying began. First to die was the fly. Then a few days later the mouse died too. And still a few weeks later the rooster died and the hermit was all alone in the deep forest. He cried and cried and was fi

In the time of Jesus diseases are caused not by viruses, not by infections and bacteria and not by plagues, but it is caused by the weakening of the human spirit and this weakened spirit becomes susceptible to the possession of the evil one whose actions in our bodies produces the symptoms of various diseases and in the case of Simon’s mother it caused a very high fever. This is the reason why Jesus rebuked the spirit and with the spirit gone and with equilibrium of the body established once again, the fever subsided.

In your eyes I might be a deprived celibate: I am a priest, I have no wife, no children to cuddle, no grand children to look forward to, no one to personally care for me during my retirement. In a lot of ways and in a lot of things too common for you and probably things you take for granted, I am deprived. But, this I would insist strongly, my priesthood may have deprived me with a lot of things but not everything. Take for example my presence in Tabuc Suba Ilaya yesterday for lunch. I came late. The people were already finishing lunch and when somebody asked if I have eaten and when I replied not yet, everything became almost automatic.

A - I believe most of you, if not all, would agree with me that this occasion is just too big for one person to handle. Clearly I could not and I would not even dare to carry the responsibility alone. And so I asked the help of two others to prepare and to deliver this homily. They are going to introduce themselves. T Theodbriel Villariza - theobird to my classmates, Assumption Iloilo, batch 91 - 95. R Richard Daulo - Richard to my classmates, Assumption Iloilo, batch 87 - 91. A Alejandro Esperancilla, Alibabes to my classmates, Assumption Iloilo, batch 79 - 83 T We represent 3 decades of Assumption, not enough to cover the 10 decades, R but more than enough to speak for the majority of us gathered here today.