On the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity The sign of the cross "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" is the prayer that we usually recite to begin and end all our prayers and our liturgies with like the Mass, the Rosary, grace at meals, even when we start our trips, etc. This is the formula of the rite by which we were baptized, which marks the beginning of our Christian life, and the sign by which the priest blesses our mortal remains at the e

- The Lamb of God - at John Paul II Center at the Shrine. Blood and water ooze and flow from His Heart. Last Sunday afternoon, 20 of us St. Columba parishioners and a few from other parishes boarded a bus for a 12-hour trip to EWTN, the U.S. Catholic radio-TV network with a world-wide reach, and to the beautiful Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, both built by their founder, Mother Angelica, an extraordinary woman of faith. We were going there as pilgrims. We intended our

It has been a very long time since I used to listen to "Tawag ng Tanghalan" (Call of the Stage) on the radio as a child. "Tawag" was an amateur singing contest on radio in the Philippines in the mid 1950s, long before the American Idol, the Voice, and similar singing contests came into being. The contest ran for 30 years and had a temporary hiatus until it was revived on TV a few years ago as a segment of "Showtime," a local TV station's noontime show. The old and new contest

There is a very entertaining weekly show on TFC (the Filipino Channel), called "I Can See Your Voice." The show features 6 supposed-to-be singers on stage standing and holding microphones in different frozen singing stances. Three of these are not really singers but are pretending to be so. They are the "sintunados," the out of tune ones. The rest are true singers. A well-known singer, with the help of some comedians and the audience, is supposed to see, through clues provide

Gist: The Ascension of Christ is not about His absence, but His continuing presence with us. The goal is for us to be with Him where He is. But we have a mission to proclaim the Gospel with the way we live. Today we celebrate the feast of the Ascension of our Lord, which occurred forty days after His resurrection. For forty days Jesus appeared to his apostles in His glorified Body, and gave them final information and instructions before leaving their company. In Jerusalem the

A mother’s love is unconditional, self-sacrificing and never gives up. It is our mothers who loved us first. They carried us in their wombs for nine months or so, experiencing physical, emotional and biological changes and discomfort. It is only a mother who actually knows the travails and pains of giving birth to child. It is only a mother who knows and feels, after all these pains, the love oozing from her heart when her newborn child, fresh from her womb, is put on her che

My daughter Leng does not eat lamb chops or any lamb dish. This is a decision she says she had made, and it was for a reason. She also says that she would not be surprised if her daughter Maggie followed her example later. We named Leng "Agnes" after Saint Agnes, a virgin and martyr for God in the early years of Christianity. When Maggie was born, she and Ryan decided to name her "Mary Agnes." Saint Agnes is frequently depicted with a lamb by her side. Agnes thus became as

One of the joys of boyhood, especially for those living in the countryside where there are lots of open space, is flying a kite. In my time, we made our own kites, starting from the most simple ones, like the "boca-boca", which was a sheet of paper we used in grade school folded at the sides to which we attached a spool of fine sewing thread.  We held the kite with its string and ran with it in the field. It did not fly if you did not run, nor did it fly higher than a few fee

I was riding with a couple of family members who wanted to go mall shopping one afternoon. Just a couple of minutes after leaving home, I looked at my pockets to pull out my cell phone to tinker with but I did not find it. I realized I had left it at home. But we decided not to turn back to get it. This gave me a feeling of missing something very important from my person. The trip to the mall was a good half-hour and I figured I would have nothing to do while waiting for them

Flowers of May The purple clematis around my Mama Mary's shrine are in full bloom. The red roses are now showing their buds while the white pansies are carrying on very well after adorning the shrine in winter. May is the month of flowers. In the Philippines it is Flores de Mayo season and devotees of Mary offer flowers to her in church and in their homes the whole month. The Philippines is a Marian country. For its love and devotion to Mary, it is called "Pueblo Amante de Ma