"A Teaching Moment" Today I am putting my daughter Lianne's Facebook post on this blogsite. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6 Good job, Lianne! "Today is Good Friday. Today we commemorate the death of Jesus on the cross. Coincidentally, today is also Lani’s 8th Birthday! When we talked about her birthday being on the same day as Good Friday, Lani says: “Why is my birthday so unlucky?” As a Mom wanting

On Good Friday, the Church focuses on Christ's suffering on the cross, through which He saved the world. Through the centuries, the cross has always been the symbol of our Faith, a symbol that we reverence.  The cross is found at the top of Catholic churches and those of some other Christian denominations. The cross marks most Christian graves and is the form of some monuments to those who fought defending our country. For centuries Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox, hav

Today is Holy Thursday. At the Mass of the Lord's Supper, we are commemorating the institution of the Holy Eucharist, the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. At the Last Supper, Jesus took bread and said: "This is My Body." Then He took a cup of wine and said: "This is My Blood." "For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,k that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said

(A Little Reflection this Holy Week) Everyday, I see my violin in its case waiting to be picked up and played. But there are always some other pressing things to do. At this time of my life, I have decided to resume playing my violin, that I may enjoy making my own music to soothe my soul. I am past the time of taking more formal lessons from a violin teacher, so I just go back to my old violin books for the exercises and then play again my old pieces and learn new ones. I a

Last Sunday after lunch with my wife in a Chinese restaurant in Springfield, Virginia we were heading to the door when someone dining with a group stood up and said, "Oh here is a guy from Ateneo." I asked, "How did you know?" and he replied, "From your Ateneo jacket." There were three Ateneans at that table and good conversation ensued about the Ateneo, when we were there, whether in grade school, high school, college, or graduate school, and what degrees we earned there, wh

S'il vous plait, por favor, paki, per favore, bitte These words, all or most of which may be foreign-sounding to most of us, mean "please." They are the French, Spanish, Tagalog, Italian and German, respectively, of this English word. It looks like this word that is attached to or precedes requests or even commands is built in in these languages and most probably in other languages or dialects in the world as well. This is for a reason that is universal in nature. This word,

"Love means never having to say you're sorry" This is the catch phrase from a popular movie "Love Story" I saw in the 1970s. It was a very entertaining and heart-warming movie which by its very title appealed especially to young people in love or were looking for the love of their lives. I do not remember the context of that catch phrase anymore. But even then I did not agree with that statement at all. From childhood I was taught that if you love someone, you have to exert e

If we look at, read about, and listen to what is going on around us nowadays, we can see a world in chaos, of conflict. Although everybody sees and hears the same things, they have different perceptions and different opinions on how things are and should be. Which opinion is right and which is wrong? Or is there a right or wrong about anything at all? Which brings us to the question: Is adherence to the truth the guiding principle of people in society today? If not, why not?

This winter has been the most severe since we moved to the U.S. East Coast many years ago. The temperature always hovered between freezing and just a little over freezing. There were only a couple of times the temperature rose to over 50 degrees F for a day and they were short-lived. We could not wait till the advent of spring, when we do not have to wear thick jackets outside, and to be able to rake or blow the leaves and put mulch on the plant and flower beds and around the

I was trying to print a document on my printer when it jammed. Whatever I did -- pull out the paper, open the back to check what caused the jam --- it wouldn't work. It would be more costly to bring it to a repair shop than to throw it away and buy a new one. Even heavy appliances that are broken but are still repairable are more easily replaced than fixed with costly parts and expensive labor. We are now the throw-away society. We don't bother to fix broken things anymore. P