A POPULAR consideration that many people nowadays make when they try to understand someone who has a different view from theirs is to try to figure out “where that person is coming from.” I hear that expression very often these days. It’s a laudable gesture...
ONCE again we need to reiterate this basic truth. We can never be truthful unless we refer things to God. In fact, what would really assure us that we would be fully in the truth despite truth’s many levels, aspects, angles, etc., is when we...
The famous Dominican theologian, Fr. Schillebeeckx, O.P., used to say that while meditation on the mysteries is the essence of the Holy Rosary prayer, the recitation of many Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glory bes serves as a background music to the meditator. At first I...
YES, we need to pray without ceasing, as St. Paul told us in his First Letter to the Thessalonians. (5,16) To keep our spiritual life alive, to make it survive all trials in life, let alone, to make it work effectively and grow healthily, we...
WE have to learn to lose any fear of the cross. That instinct of ours to be afraid and to flee from the cross has to be reversed, and made into an instinct of love for the cross. This may take time and effort, this may...
THAT’S right. No spirituality has the exclusive right to Christianity. No spirituality can claim to be the only way to holiness. No matter how effective and appropriate to some people, no spirituality can claim a universal coverage of all the faithful in the Church. But, yes,...
WE cannot deny that no matter how much we try to keep ourselves clean, not only physically but also morally and spiritually, we cannot avoid the dirt that there is always in the world. Some of this dirt today can appear to be so nice that...
Today is World Mission Sunday. This is otherwise known as Sunday for Cultures. We encourage all members of the Church to take part in the mission of the Church to spread the Good News in whatever way they can. Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Myanmar said,...
Excerpts of the Homily of Most Rev. Romulo Valles, D.D., Archbishop of Davao, during the fiesta of Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Fatima Street, Davao City on October 13, 2019. In our Gospel today, a line says "Rise and go. Your faith has made you...
Last week's Shalom we reminded ourselves that the most important thing in praying the rosary is meditating on the lives of Jesus and His Mother Mary. The episodes or aspects of their life are called mysteries. Meditating on these mysteries is essential in this form of...