Welcome 2020 with a heart full of joy and hope!
 
For many of us, writing a New Year's resolution has become a tradition. For some, the resolutions are taken as a challenge to better themselves but for others they are just another set of promises that are meant to be broken. Whether we write a New Year's resolution or not, 2020 must be welcomed with enthusiasm to deepen our faith. Year 2019 has seen the conclusion of the Year of Prayer, Penance and Reparation for our Diocese. It should have inspired us to usher love and healing through a new lively faith this 2020. The challenges of the past year have strengthened us, bonded our families, enriched marriages, created friendships and fortified our Christian communities in Christ - St Mark, St Mary and Holy Trinity.
 
Let us turn to the Blessed Mother of God, Mary most holy for protection this New Year. She has embraced us in the past year with the tenderness only she can give as the Mother of the Church. This year, let us continue to consecrate ourselves to her together with our family and community.
 
I greet you all a Blessed New Year and may the good work the Lord has begun in us carry through to completion with fruitful harvest of faith, hope and love.
 
God bless you all and your family this season of great joy!
 

The Third Sunday of Advent continues to prepare us for the coming of the Lord Jesus among us. This Sunday is called “Gaudete Sunday” derived from the ancient antiphon used, giving a call to rejoice.The readings of today tell us of the necessity to wait for the Lord and prepare our hearts to receive him. At the same time they invite us to discover who the messiah is and how we can identify him. So, the whole context of our celebration today is full of joy. The readings and texts tells us to rejoice in the Lord always because the Lord is near.
 
Indeed, God is coming to save you, to save us, says the prophet Isaiah. This a note of anticipation, of excitement, and just a little foreboding too. This is a word of eager expectation, a realization that something extra-ordinary - literally extra-ordinary - is amongst us.
 
At the height of our celebration of the birth of Christ is our eager and patient waiting at the salvation that is to come. Rejoice in the Lord, always, rejoice!!! For the Lord is near, our salvation is here!!!

Today St. Paul reminds us that our God is a God of endurance and encouragement. Not endurance alone, but endurance and encouragement. 

This Second Sunday of Advent, God is challenging us to strengthen our endurance. There are instances where in we try to approach God, but some human stands in the way. We must humbly endure, letting all pride die within us, and ask again for God's grace. When we see the world around us enjoying its pleasures, we need endurance. This can easily be understood by anyone who has ever been on a diet while a friend is not. What we need is endurance when we are with them.

But our God is not a God of endurance alone. Our religion is not simply a trial of endurance. Never do we encounter a new opportunity to humbly endure without also receiving great encouragement. God's encouragement is not like human encouragement. It is not simply a few words of well-wishing, spoken to break an uncomfortable silence. The encouragement of God is God himself. When we need encouraging, God comes to us.

Truly this is what Advent is about, the encouragement of God. When the whole world seemed like it could not possibly endure anymore, God came to us, and what encouragement this was! The past calamities we see happening in the world, and most recently in the Philippines, is a test of endurance, but we Christians believe that God is with us every step of the way. There will not come in our life anything to endure which God has not endured. God is with us.

Happy Church New Year!

The Advent season this calendar year begins today, December 01, 2019. The day is called the First Sunday of Advent or Advent Sunday and is the first day of the liturgical year in the Western Christian churches. The theme of readings and teachings during Advent is often to prepare for the Second Coming while commemorating the First Coming of Christ at Christmas. With the view of directing our thoughts to the first coming of Jesus Christ as savior and to his second coming as judge, special readings are prescribed for each of the four Sundays in Advent.

Because it is Advent and Advent is a time of preparation, it brings with it its own themes: darkness and light, sin and repentance, death and eternal life. We obviously want to be ready for the end of time, we want to live lives which will be looked upon favorably should that end of time come, and so, we live in the knowledge that there will be an end of time – a time when the Son of Man will be coming, not to frighten us to live "good lives" but to be joyful that there is, indeed, eternal life in God's kingdom after our pilgrimage here on earth. The main reason that the readings of today have been chosen by the Church is expressed in the lines “Keep awake, therefore…” and “Now” is “the moment for you to wake from sleep."  

Let us rejoice then, and not panic over the readings today as so many have. We are the people of the light, we are the people who put on Jesus, and we are the people that he will come for, whenever that may be.  Let this sustain us, let this strengthen us, let this be the way we live our week this week and the rest of the year.