visible rhetoric

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Lorenzo Ruiz, the first saint, the first martyr of the Philippine church to be officially recognized by the universal church. When we speak of martyrdom we cannot help but meditate also on the silence of God, the silence of God in the midst of the sufferings of his children, more specifically the silence of God in the midst of the sufferings of those who chose to remain loyal to him.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Luke. He was a doctor by profession before he became a companion of St. Paul during his many journeys. That is why St. Luke is the patron saint of doctors. He is also the patron saint of artists most especially of painters because legend says that he was the first to have painted an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Most of all St. Luke is known because he wrote two books in the bible, in the new testament, the Gospel according to Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. His version of the life of Jesus is unique. His is the Gospel which cites the most instances of the Blessed Virgin Mary – the annunciation, the birth of Jesus and many others. His is also a go spel wherein Jesus reaches out to all men and women. They call this universalistic – he sought to include all. He reaches out not just to men but also to women. He reaches out not just to the Jews but even to Samaritans, Romans and gentiles. He reaches out not just to the rich and the ...

I remember when we were still high school in the seminary while we were praying in the chapel a power outage occurred, so all of a sudden there were no lights except the lighted candles on the altar. And as it always happens during brownouts everybody gasped, giggled, talked and even teased one another. Then amidst the darkness a booming voice was heard - the absence of light does not diminish the presence of God in this chapel. Most often we lived a compartmentalized life, marked by boundaries which differentiate our moral actions from one compartment to the other. Like the servant in our gospel today who concluded that since the master is delayed in coming he did what he wanted to do with his fellow servants. God is not yet, so he does what he wants. Little did he know that in the end there a reckoning, an accounting has to take place.

The Jews believed that God punished the builders of the tower in Siloam because they knew that the money used for the project of Pontius Pilate came from the temple treasury. The Jews believed that whatever is offered to the temple belongs to God alone and it could never be used for other purposes. Thus they believed that the tower of Siloam was cursed and true indeed it collapsed and 18 workers died. People thought they saw the connection – gingabaan sila. This also happened with the Galileans who while offering sacrifices in the temple protested against the policies of Pontius Pilate and because of that they were killed and their blood mingled with their sacrifices.

Two days ago a strange thing happened with the park lights that you see in front of the cathedral. The story goes like this. Days before while digging through the garden some workers thought they saw what looked like human bones near one of the lamp post. They picked these up and placed it on a corner where they forgot about it. One of the electricians working in the area saw the bones and promptly reburied them as he was covering up the wirings beneath the pavement and forgot all about it. Days later while they were testing the lights, one lamp post would not light up. They tried to trace the problem and fixed it, but it would not work. They took down the lamp post, examined all the connections, changed a socket and put it back again. Still it would not work. They took a tester and discovered that no current was flowing. So they cut the wire. Then the electricians retested the wire from another post. To their surprise current was flowing . But they have already cut the wi...

The Basilica of St. John Lateran has a long history dating back to the time when Christianity was accepted in Rome as one of the major religions of the empire. The lot on which it stands was owned by the Laterani family, hence its name – the Lateran. It was donated by Constantine the great to Pope Meltiades and excavations today proved that it is standing on the barracks of the forces of Emperor Maxentius. It was built, vandalized, destroyed and rebuilt several times. It has to contend with Barbarian invasions, fires, earthquakes through the centuries. It is dedicated the Christ the Savior then later to John the Baptist and to John the Evangelist thus the name St. John Lateran. Four ecumenical councils were held there, 28 popes are buried there and for a thousand years it was the seat of Church government until the pope moved to the Vatican. Pope Benedict as pope has his seat at St. Peter’s, but as bishop of Rome which the pope truly is first and foremost, his seat is the L...

This is a take your pick homily. In other words I cannot make up my mind what single topic to develop into a homily, so I put into it everything that comes to my mind. So take your pick. One or two may be right for you. First. Have you ever climbed a tree? I believe most of us are already too old to climb trees. So all we have now are memories of the feeling and probably what we saw when we climbed a tree. The last time I climbed a tree was caused by a dog which came running after me. It came running after me and so I ran as fast as I could and climb the nearest tree. Climbing a tree you get a different perspective. You see things you don’t normally see down here. You can see your roof and what part needs repair. You can see the topmost portion of your plants and bushes that needs trimming. You can even compare what you see on your side of the fence to that of your neighbor, on the other side of your fence. It’s seeing things from a vantage point, seeing things from afar...

As priests we are obliged to undergo an annual retreat of not less than three days. It is an obligation spelled out in canon law - a practical regulation borne out of centuries of experience intended to rekindle the flame that sustains us in our ministry. It is also a time where we can be together with our brother priests, at least by batches, for a longer period, and renew the ties that bind us in our work for the church. This year’s focus of our retreat is on the value of stewardship. What is stewardship? Stewardship is the humble acceptance of God’s gifts in our lives and the readiness to use them for others. My priesthood is a gift. The exercise of my leadership in the parish or in a particular area of apostolate is God’s gift. The sacraments that I dispense, the word that I preach, the funds that I manage . . . everything, even my life are God’s gifts - gifts intended to be used for others.

When I read this gospel I remembered immediately the late Fr. John van Leewen, the priest who lovingly called himself ang carabao sang Dios. Probably the old folks here would remember this Dutch Mill Hill priest who had served St. Paul’s Hospital for the longest time. And he is known by a lot of people because he is one of those very rare breed of priests who loves to hear confessions. Anyway I remembered him because whenever someone goes to confessions but instead of admitting outright one’s fault would twist a few facts here and there in his or her confessions so as to make oneself look good, nga ang gwa daw ikaw pa maayo. When somebody did this, Fr. John would softly sing inside the confessional, kulas dayaw. And that would remind the person that in confessions you just have to admit your fault without going through a litany of justifications to make yourself look better. Kulas dayaw.

Last two weeks ago I went to the World Heritage City of Vigan sponsored by UNESCO to represent our very own World Heritage Miag-ao Church. All representatives of World Heritage Sites in the Philippines were there for this important gathering - for the once every six years periodic review and for the reformulation of the Statement of Outstanding Universal Value (SOUV) for each site listed. With a threat of being de-listed from the roll of World Heritage sites I have no choice but to go and suffer the week-long 10 hour a day gruelling task of discussions and workshops. In the end though relationships were forged, contacts with the experts on conservation were strengthened with whole week of playful fun as an added perk. Well, I have been given a standing promise of an excursion to the Tubattaha Reef (though I could not yet imagine myself donning a scuba gear and diving through myriads of corals, fishes, whales and sharks), we were promised a free pass to the Palawan Underground Ri...

Probably you have been taught before and therefore you have known by now why a priest when he prays raises his hands like this. Yes this is a gesture for prayer, - that is why a priest introduces it by saying, let us pray. But the question is, what kind of prayer? The raising of both hands in prayer is called the orans position, orans. The priest uses this gesture when he prays not for himself but when he prays in behalf of the other. When a priest prays for himself he simply closes his hands and prays for himself. But when he prays for others, when he prays for the community, when he prays in behalf of the people he raises both his hands in the orans position. Remember this outstretched hand is the same position Jesus took when he died on the cross, a gesture that he was doing this painful sacrifice not for himself but for the sake of and in behalf of the other. This gesture of a priest in prayer, which comes from the position and gesture of Moses in our first reading today p...

This Sunday is world Mission Sunday. Whenever this Sunday comes we think of those little brown envelopes distributed to us during the mass and those little boys and girls from catholic schools going around with their mission boxes asking for your contribution. Well, that can be one of the activities for Mission Sunday. Our monetary contribution after all is needed for the missionary activities of the Church worldwide. Every year we send the amount you contributed to the Pontifical Missions in Rome to fund these activities whether in faraway Africa, in a lonely outpost among the Pacific Islands or even in the hinterlands of Mindanao. These monies are spent for these activities so that Christ’s expressed command to bring the gospel to the whole world may be fulfilled.

Last week I went to the World Heritage City of Vigan to attend a workshop organized by UNESCO for site managers of the world heritage sites found in the Philippines - the Tubataha Reef, the Ifugao Rice Terraces, the Underground River of Palawan, the city of Vigan itself, the baroque churches which included the churches of Paoay, Sta Maria, San Agustin in Intramuros and the Miag-ao church which I represented. They held it in Vigan because they wanted to showcase what Vigan did to preserve the old spanish buildings of the city. If you are an antique enthusiast, Vigan is your city. However, of the many old things that can be seen in Vigan one particular thing caught my fancy. It is called the ex voto. The ex voto are those tiny objects not more than an inch in height, which are placed on shrines and images of saints. These little objects can be anything - the shape of an arm, a leg, an eye, a liver, a kidney, a child, tiny cute houses, a horse - anything. It was a practice then w...

The rosary is the most basic or should I say the most simple of prayers. It came to be when the lay people mostly uneducated could no longer pray as the monks did with the psalms in Latin. And so this prayer made do as a substitute. The recitation of the Our Father served as an antiphon while the Hail Marys served as the psalms. In a complete rosary then there were 150 Hail Marys as there are 150 psalms. And with the meditation of the mysteries of the Lord they fulfilled the very purpose why a Christian has to pray at various times of the day - as St. Hippolytus said: Semper Christum in memoria habere – that we may always be mindful of Christ - who he is, and what he had done for us. The Hail Mary’s, the Our Father’s, the Glory Be’s serve as a setting, the background music, so to say, for remembering what Christ has done for you and me in the joyful mysteries where he became man for our salvation; in the luminous mysteries where he labored in his public ministry to bring man bac...

There was once a missionary in the Pacific Islands who was trying to find a better translation for the word hope in the local dialect. Day and night he thought for a better word that would capture its essence and give it a local color, but all words escaped him until one day his friend died. On the day of burial of his friend, while everybody was weeping, a young boy came over to the missionary and asked him, “Father, why are you not crying? Your best friend died, why are not weeping like the rest?” And the missionary facing the boy said, “I believe that I shall see my friend once more in heaven. There is therefore no need to cry.” The boy nodded as if he understood. And after the ensuing silence that followed, the young boy spoke once more saying, “now it is clear to me what they have been saying about you Christians. You are a people who look beyond the horizon.” That day, the missionary came to know the proper translation for the word hope for these Pacific Islanders. ...

We named him Lorenzo. They found him at around 7:30 in the morning of September 28, feast of St. Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila at the women’s restroom crying, wrapped in a course black cloth and placed in a Louis Vuitton light brown dust bag which was laid neatly on the restroom floor near the toilet bowl. At first nobody would like to pick him up thinking that it would be another gory sight like the first two experiences we had before (both babies were found dead). But he was moving . . . alive and definitely strong in his movements. They brought him to the convent with a parade of people - the curious, the moved, the surprised, the sorry and undeniably all of them rowdy. Finally, with too many people wanting to see him including the media, we managed to sneak him out of the convent and brought him to the hospital. As of this writing an infection in the intestines and the lungs are being managed with antibiotics by his paediatrician. Otherwise he is as they say a “well-baby” - healthy...

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Lorenzo Ruiz, the first saint, the first martyr of the Philippine church to be officially recognized by the universal church. When we speak of martyrdom we cannot help but meditate also on the silence of God, the silence of God in the midst of the sufferings of his children, more specifically the silence of God in the midst of the sufferings of those who chose to remain loyal to him. Many times most of us would think that martyrs received their torments and death with a defiant face and a strong will. Many stories of the saints would depict them as brave and strong and unyielding in the face of pain. However come to think of it how can it be called a martyrdom if there was no fear, if there was no anguish, if there was no struggle to comprehend the love of God in the midst of suffering. That is why I propose that we meditate on the silence of God in the struggle of his martyrs. Where is God in the midst of my suffering? Where is God in the...

In our day and age it is difficult to explain the role of angels. Although there is a proliferation of angel figurines they are bought not so much out of devotion and belief but by their cuteness like any other figurines we buy from stores. But as it is people nowadays seem to take angels for granted. But the fact remains that our creed teaches us that angels do exist as well as devils. The bible says a lot about them. They minister to God day and night singing holy, holy, holy – a song we sing in every mass while joining our voices to theirs. They are the messengers of God, sent to fulfill and implant the will of God – from the time of creation when an angel was sent to guard the tree of life, to the angels sent to Abraham and Sarah, to the angel Michael guarding the chosen people, to the angel Raphael sent to heal Tobit, to the angel Gabriel announcing the good news to Mary.

The sin of the rich man was not that he did wrong things, but that he did nothing. The sin of the rich man which merited him the fires of hell was not that he did wrong things, but that he did nothing. The rich man did nothing wrong to Lazarus. He did not drive him away. He did not remove him from his house. He did not kick him or even speak to him as to insult him. He did not even object when Lazarus was picking up bits and pieces of bread that fell from his table. The rich man did not lay a finger on Lazarus. But that is precisely the problem - he did nothing for Lazarus.

Fr. Caloy has left us! No, this is not an obituary, this is just a change of assignment or more specifically a change of residence. Fr. Carlo Noquez is our Archdiocesan Chancellor. In the past he should have been called “The Lord Chancellor”, though his height may not have made him that “lordly” in bearing, yet his voice very well compensates, so they say. A chancellor is a fulltime job and he is required to report in the office of the chancellor at the Archbishop’s Residence everyday except on weekends. And so to facilitate such he took up residence in the Rectory of the Jaro Cathedral. Now he has transferred to Molo.