By Sister Mary Moylan SSC
Sister Mary Moylan, who worked before in the London Filipino Chaplaincy, writes about the Euro-Santacruzan, when Filipinos living in Europe walked in procession from Hyde Park to BatterseaPark, London, England, in 1997. Each year the festival is celebrated in a different European city.
A UN Truth Commission investigating in 1992 the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador, El Salvador, concluded:
On Monday, 24 March 1980, the Archbishop of San Salvador, Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdamez, was celebrating Mass in the Chapel of the Hospital de la Divina Providencia when he was killed by a professional assassin who fired a single .22 or .223 caliber bullet from a red, four-door Volkswagen vehicle. The bullet hit its mark, causing the Archbishop's death from severe bleeding.
Archbishop Romero
By Sr Grace Dorothy Lim MM
It was almost noon and I had to go back to our convent in Kalihi. I tried to remember the streets and retrace my path. When I was near the bus stop on Fort Mall Street I felt faint. I went to lean on the post of a store and prayed, ‘Lord, please help me. I don’t know anybody here.’ I closed my eyes.
In a while a gentleman, rather elderly, stopped in front of me and asked, ‘Are you a nun?’ ‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Are you a Filipina?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I responded.
He looked at his watch and asked, ‘It’s noon time Have you eaten lunch?’
‘Not yet. I was going home.’
‘No wonder you’re faint. Can I take you to lunch?’
I was grateful for his company. He was kind, well dressed and well-mannered.
By Angeles G. Hiñola
Father Terence Bennett, now in charge of the Columban house in Himamaylan, Negros Occidental, retired from parish work in February 2004. His successor, Father Rolly Albert A. Escubido, is a diocesan priest.
The Columbans first came to the Philippines in 1929. By the early1950s they were spread out in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. Their gigantic task was to engage in a massive evangelization program for the Filipino people.
By Catherine Doherty
The good news of Christ's resurrection is astounding! It fills the heart with joy! Easter is where God's love triumphs. Christ really died for you and me, and he really rose for you and me, so that we shall rise with him.
My parents were both from Cebu. They evacuated to Negros Oriental during the Japanese occupation, then moved back to Dumanjug, Cebu, in the early 1950s. My birthplace is Alibabay, Kanla-on, Negros Oriental, but I grew up in Dumanjug.
By Father Raymund J Festin SVD
Fr Festin, from Odiongan, Romblon, learns some important lessons on being a missionary. We thankThe Word, www.theword.ie , published monthly by the Divine Word Missionaries in Ireland, for this article.
Angola is a hauntingly beautiful country lying along a stretch of Africa’s Atlantic shoreline. It is blessed with the choicest gifts of nature: fertile land, an ocean with a plentiful supply of fish, the air is sweet, tropical fruits abound and diamonds and oil flow like milk and honey. In the remote rural areas, time passes at a serene and soft rhythm, unperturbed by the din of war.
Sadly, Angola, formerly so idyllic, became for more than thirty years the scene of ruin and despair. After a long running struggle with the Portuguese, independence was finally won in 1975. Then, Angola’s liberation forces turned their arms against each other. The fledgling nation was ripped apart by a civil war that wrought untold suffering on her people. The many fertile fields, where the people sowed and gathered their harvest, became battlegrounds of terror and wastelands filled with landmines.
By Dr Niels Peter Schmidt
Recently, my wife, Babes C. Aguirre, and I, returned to Manila after one and a half years in China. Babes taught English as a second language in Guiyang Teachers’ College. She went as a member of AITECE.
Dr Schmidt at work, assisted by his wife, Babes
By Father Ernesto Amigleo CICM
Fr Ernie with a Buddhist monk at a National Seminar on Inter-Religious Dialogue
Cologne, Germany
August 15-21, 2005
‘We have come to worship him.’ (Mt 2:2)
World Youth Day is an international gathering of young Catholics from all over the world (young people from 177 countries come to WYD). For five days, in one city, you have the chance to meet Catholic young people in a festival of prayer, hope and hopefully fun!
If you want to find out more about your faith or maybe you want to meet with other young people to celebrate your faith, then World Youth Day is for you.
St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and of Nigeria. His Feast Day is 17 March, Ireland’s National Holiday.We thank The Word of Life, www.wau.org , for this article. Hallie Riedel is a Contributing Writer for that magazine, published in the USA but also available in a Philippine edition. She is married and has three children.
We sometimes get very reflective responses to articles in Misyon and have already used one as an article. From time to time we’ll publish more. ‘In a year’ has come around for Christine Laungayan, the first to feature in ‘Your Turn,’ and she graduates this March. We wish her and all readers who are graduating God’s special blessings.
Dear Ms Arlene Villahermosa,
I’m Christine Laungayan, a junior in St. Scholastica’s College, Manila. You’re probably wondering why a 15-year-old kid has sent you an email. Well, here goes. My religion teacher asked us to comment via email on any article of our choice in the March-April Misyon. Truthfully, I never really wanted to do this assignment. However, because it’s a requirement I’m writing.
I was flipping through the pages of the March-April 2004 issue when I saw your article, Something Beautiful Happened. For some reason, I stopped and read it. No offense, I’m not like those other people who say ‘after reading your article, I felt totally new . . .’ or ‘I felt like God spoke to me’ or ‘it changed my life.’ I’m not going to say those things because I haven’t felt them. However, it got me thinking.
I just like to share my frustrations in life. In a year, I’ll be graduating from high school and will be entering a whole new life. It scares me big-time. I’m still confused about what course I’ll take in college. I’m thinking, what if my decision will be wrong? What if that wrong decision will greatly affect my life? In a negative way? Or, what if I push through with my decision and after ten years or so, I begin to feel that I’m not doing the right thing?
Before Mass at Christ the King Grotto in Quezon City, Fr Joks Galolo SVD introduced me to one of the guest priests who said, as I thought, ‘I am a Siberian missionary.’ I was happy that at last we had a priest from Siberia. Later, he clarified, ‘I’m Fr Eugene Fuccini, a Xaverian missionary, from Northern Italy.’
By Mark Agustin Barcebal
Near Sta Ana Church in Davao I saw a father holding his daughter’s hand, both happily walking towards the church. Suddenly, the girl stumbled and her father asked, ‘Ba’t ka bumitaw?’ The girl answered, ‘Nahulog kasi ang laruan ko.’ The man picked up his little daughter and they went inside the church.
