DCH Yanong Muloy Abp Valles

“To love what You command”

(An excerpt of the Most Reverend Romulo G. Valles D.D. in his Homily during the Installation of Rev. Fr. Roy Mejias as Parish Priest of St. Joseph the Worker Parish, Sasa, August 24, 2025.)

God is the source. He moves us. He challenges us. He gives us grace to be united, to be one in a single purpose. “Grant you people”, grant us tonight people of this parish, “to love what you command”. And here it is, what do we mean by to unite, as to be united in a single purpose? And then the prayer says, “grant us, your people to love what you command”. It is a strange combination because ‘kung command, atong huna-huna naa napud ning sugo. Command pa lang gani murag naa na tay pagkarebelde daan ba. Sugo pa lang ni bug-at sa buot.’

But to love what you command, there is a saying on work, ‘Lunes na pud ugma trabaho napud’. But it is said “when you love your work you don’t work anymore”. Work stops being work when you love your work. So here, “grant your people to love what you command”. If we love what He commands, then it is not a command anymore. “Grant your people to love what you command and to desire what you promise.”

In this prayer, my dear friends, with your parish priest and his companion priest, Fr. Matt, the whole mission is for us to be united in one mind. And what is that being in one mind and one heart? The coming days with Fr. Roy we grow to love what He commands and to desire above all what the Lord has promised us “that amidst the uncertainties of this world, ‘dili gyud ta maglalis ana kay human aning misa naay maghuna-huna ninyo wala pa baya ko kabayad sa tuition sa akong anak, nagsakit akong bana, nag-away mi sa akong asawa, kauban nako sa trabaho dili kaayo mi mag-uyon, bisag one level uncertainties, mga anxieties, mga problema, mga atubangunon sa kinabuhi’, “that amidst the uncertainties of this world, our hearts may be fixed on that place where true gladness is found”.

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