Are you there?

December 22, 2021.

My fortieth Christmas is creeping up and I feel like I’m headed for an inevitable midlife crisis. Fortunately, a guy in my position, consumed day and night by his job, doesn’t have the time to go screw up his personal life by buying a Ferrari or by cheating on his wife with unrelenting physical pleasure from new-age virtual technology to incapacitate the user for a week after kind-of-coitus, or KOC.

I look at my wife and I can see the circles around her eyes from all the preparations building up to Christmas day – from carefully planning the Noche Buena menu to the last-minute panic shopping and decorations. Both my kids cannot be contained from the anticipation of opening their gifts – they bug you every second if they can just take a peek. As I sat there watching them with saddened eyes, I reminisced when this all started.

It was eighteen years ago, a week before Christmas to be exact. I just passed training for my very first job. I couldn’t remember anymore who made the call. My father just passed away. It was more of a shock than anything else. I cannot remember if I even cried. Maybe it’s just that it hasn’t sunk in yet. I just stared at blank space. At that time, my mother is battling cancer and undergoing chemo (she died 6 months later). So I was like, “What’s happening?” You know what I mean? How could I celebrate when all these tragedies were all of a sudden have decided to just converge on one occasion; this one occasion that I have always been looking forward to; this one occasion when I can see my family as a whole?

So from then on, Christmas was not for me to celebrate. I am that jaded. I leave the celebrating to those that are truly happy; to those who have someone to celebrate it with; to those who can still spend the holidays with their loved ones - opening gifts, singing carols, laughing and having meals on Christmas Eve. Someday I wish I can find my own. Someday I hope and pray to God to lift this veil of suffering from me. Someday…And until then this will be my silent protest.

My little daughter was tugging at my shirt sleeve and looking at me with her doe eyes. Her brother is watching her mom make the shopping list while he sits on her lap. I snapped out of my reverie and ruffled my daughter’s hair to which she responded with an exasperated look.
From then on, I decided I no longer need to wait for another Christmas. I am already there. This is my happy ending.




I commented:

“Your posts always make me cry. Maybe because it touches what I feel, too. Or just maybe, we haven't really talked about this after pop and mom died. We both have caged ourselves. Afraid to disclose any emotions. We have always expressed ourselves in the safe zone -- our prose.”



The above prose was written by my brother. Posted in his site. I have always admired how he arranges his words to a meaningful, sentimental whole. The more I admire him now for being so strong. What he has written is not fiction. My father died of heart attack – slept and never woke up – in December 12, 2003, barely few days before Christmas and a few days after our mother underwent her fourth chemotherapy session. And yes, six months before she succumb to cancer. More painful to say, our mother died in June 12, 2004, a day before my brother’s birthday. Two major occasions where he has to celebrate – we have to celebrate, yet, two major deaths – that of our parents’ precede the events.

“Hats off, dear brother! I admire your strength.”

My brother now lives with a few flatmates in Makati. No family yet. No love-life I guess. I just pray to God that soon… indeed he would find that wife he is referring to in his prose and will have kids to bring him back to that feeling of looking forward to celebrating Christmas and his birthday. “I love you bro! Merry Christmas!”

Doubting God's Existence

A man went to trim his hair and beard. As always happens, he and the barber chatted about this and that, until - commenting on a newspaper article about street kids - the barber stated:

“As you can see, this tragedy shows that God doesn’t exist.”

“How?”

“Don’t you read the papers? So many people suffer, abandoned children, there’s so much crime. If God existed, there wouldn’t be so much suffering.”

The customer thought for a moment, but his haircut was nearly finished, and he decided not to prolong the conversation. They returned to gentler topics, the job was done, the customer paid and left.

However, the first thing he saw was a tramp, with several days of beard, and long tangled hair.

Immediately, he returned to the barber’s shop and said to the man who had served him:

“You know something? Barbers don’t exist.”

“What do you mean, don’t exist? I’m here, and I’m a barber.”

“They don’t exist!” insisted the man, “because if they did, there wouldn’t be people with such longs beards and such tangled hair as I’ve just witnessed up on the corner.”

“I can guarantee that barbers do exist. But that man has never come in here.”

“Exactly! So, in answer to your question, God exists, too. It just so happens that people don’t go to Him. If they did, they would be more giving, and there wouldn’t be so much misery in the world.”



“I wanna just go to sleep and never wake up. If God is everywhere like my preschool teacher has always told us, I hope He hears me... Ahh! If He did listen to me, but I think He doesn’t.”

“Can I just stare blankly on just anything and nobody would notice?”

“I hope they would just hit me so hard that I will pass out and never gain consciousness.”

“They don’t care. Mom wouldn’t even know I’m dead. I think God wouldn’t do too.”

“If I kill myself, it’ll be useless. Because if my time isn’t up yet, I would live. And when I live and they would learn I tried to kill myself, the more they would get mad at me. So you see, it’s useless! And I’m freakin’ mad about this whole idea running through my mind over and over again.”



All these lines are from teenagers who are victims of circumstances. And I wouldn’t know if I should be glad they came up to me and heard all these rumblings or tell them to just give up. Thanks to Mr. Coelho whose site I seldom visit these days, but fortunately, I did today and read the above post.

Tomorrow, I’m looking forward to seeing these kids again. And hope to tell them this story on “Doubting God’s Existence”.

“Help me God that I’ll always remain faithful to You and inspire others to live their lives to the fullest, too. Make me Your instrument of WARMTH to those who needed to be touched. Make me Your EARS for those who would like to be listened to. Make me Your EYES for those who would like to see life’s beauty and wonder. Make me Your MOUTH for those who crave for justice. Make me Your HANDS for those who would like to be reached out. Make me Your FEET for those who like to walk on the road less traveled. And lastly, make me Your HEART for those who would like to be loved. Give me enough of these, Lord, and I shall follow Thy will. Amen.”

First Friday Mass Sermon: The Little Prince and The Fox

It was then that the fox appeared.

"Good morning" said the fox.

"Good morning" the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing.

"I am right here" the voice said, "under the apple tree."

"Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at."

"I am a fox," the fox said.

"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince, "I am so unhappy."

"I cannot play with you," the fox said, "I am not tamed."

"Ah please excuse me," said the little prince. But after some thought, he added: "What does that mean--'tame'?"

"You do not live here," said the fox.

"What is it you are looking for?"

"I am looking for men," said the little prince.

"What does that mean--tame?"

"Men," said the fox, "they have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?"

"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean--tame?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."

"To establish ties?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ."

"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower . . . I think she has tamed me . . . "

"It is possible," said the fox. "On earth one sees all sorts of things."

"Oh, but this is not on the earth!" said the little prince.

The fox seemed perplexed, and very curious. "On another planet?"

"Yes."

"Are there hunters on that planet?"

"No."

"Ah, that is interesting! Are there chickens?"

"No."

"Nothing is perfect," sighed the fox. But he came back to his idea. "My life is very monotonous," he said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . . "

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time. "Please--tame me!" he said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me . . . "

"What must I do, to tame you?” asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. First you will sit down at a little distance from me--like that--in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . . "
The next day the little prince came back.

"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If for example, you came at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is ready to greet you . . . One must observe the proper rites . . . "

"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.

"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour different from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . . "

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added: "Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made a friend, and now he is unique in all the world."
And the roses were very much embarrassed.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose."

And he went back to meet the fox. "Goodbye," he said. "Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose---" said the little prince so he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose . . . "

"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

First Talk: THE BIG BANG

In the NO BEGINNING -- was GOD.

God's breath hovered over a vastness of darkness, silence and peace. God's heartbeat pulsated in endless acres of emptiness -- an emptiness that was pregnant with life.

In a way that we cannot fully comprehend, that seamless space of peaceful silence was God.

And in God's breath and heartbeat -- was YOU.

In the NO BEGINNING.

Eons and eons ago -- in that time which cannot be measured, the promise of life was contracted into an infinitesimally small particle, so small that would not have seen it if you were there because in fact, it was space-less and it was time-less.

The promise of life was compressed energy, hot and dense.

As in everywhere else, God was also in that tiny particle of energy with a very special intent of love.

God was about to create the universe from within, by empowering it in a way that the universe would be able to participate with God in creating itself.

And so through immeasurable years, the energy moved on to greater and greater density transforming into a fireball.

About 14 billion years ago, at the exact, right moment, the fireball exploded mightily.

The energies flew apart, billowing out in all directions with incredible heat -- trillions of degree of heat.

The dispersal of the heat-energies created space, expanding that space more and more as the particles flashed forth further and further.

With this explosion, TIME BEGAN.

And Light came forth and shone everywhere, with no shadows, because there was nothing then.

This was the original energy of the universe.

People call it by different names: the Big Bang, the Flaring Forth, the Birth.

It was just the right moment.

Scientists say that if the explosion had taken place a fraction of a second earlier or later, the universe would never have come to be.

If the explosion had taken place a fraction of a second later, it could never have coalesced into concrete beings at a later stage; a fraction of a second earlier and it would have collapsed back on itself. It was by a slim, almost zero-margin of possibility that THE UNIVERSE CAME INTO BEING.

It was not by chance; it was divinely intended by God who was that energy within.

The mysterious "inness of God" here and in all the forms and beings that would emerge from it in the billions of years.

For a million years there was nothing but light and heat energy from the Big Bang in the vastness of space. It took all these million years for it to cool down. But the light remained in the galactic skies. Vestiges of that seemingly interminable heat energy remained for billions of years later in the form of fire.

Why did it take the universe so long to heat up and to cool down in the process of its becoming?

It was her way because it was God's way, God who was within the explosion, within the blocks of heat-energy everywhere, within the cooling down at last.

And you... you, in all this, was in the heartbeat of God.

This was the first of the four talks given to us during our Recollection -- an annual celebration of all personnel in our school -- a time to recollect the blessings and struggles in our lives; a time to recollect ourselves and our faith in God before we finally say our pledge of commitment and accept the commissioning of the Holy Spirit in our ecological thrust and educational advocacy.

It is indeed a perfect timing for us to re-learn our history, for it is only in re-discovering our forgotten origins that we become more grateful of who we are and what have we become.

It is also a perfect timing to seek God in the midst of all the environmental struggles we are going through, as people, as His co-creators -- we have in some ways followed another path -- the path of damnation, destroying the only world we could live in -- the world He has given us to take care and pro-create and co-create.

Let us not wait for our world to succumb itself to death... for when this world dies, we die with it, too.

So I invite you to journey with me in this great gift of BEING ALIVE.

Human Nature. God's Nature.

We ask.




We wish, not hope, that it'll be granted in a sec.




We blame Him and ask questions when our prayers are not granted or when problems come along our way.


We doubt His power.



But we fail to truly listen to what He is telling us through the bits of experiences day by day.



We only look at ourselves. We disregard His own feelings.



When in reality, He has received all the pain and suffering that was supposed to be ours. We failed to hear when He said:

"Are you alright? I might have missed a small piece."

Happy Heart's Day Everyone!

These are pictures of the crucifixion of Christ that a man sculptured out of metal near Amarillo , TX . The cross is a giant made of metal also. The man did this out of the kindness of his heart. Someone donated the land to him.

WHO IS HE?

In Chemistry:
He turned water to wine.

In Biology:

He was born without the normal conception;

In Physics:

He disapproved the law of gravity when He ascended into heaven;

In Economics:

He disapproved the law of diminishing return by feeding 5000 men with two fishes and five loaves of bread;

In Medicine:

He cured the sick and the blind without administering a single dose of drugs,

In History:

He is the beginning and the end;

In Government:

He said that He shall be called wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace;

In Religion:

He said no one comes to the Father but through Him;

So, WHO IS HE?

He is JESUS!
Join me and let's celebrate Him,

for in this LOVE month,

we remember that no one has ever showed us such great love but HIM;

He is worthy to be in the center of our hearts.

The Greatest Man in History

Jesus had no servants, yet they called Him Master.

Had no degree, yet they called Him Teacher.

Had no medicines, yet they called Him Healer.

He had no army, yet kings feared Him.

He won no military battles, yet He conquered the world.

He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him.

He was buried in a tomb, yet He lives today.

I feel honored to serve such a Leader who loves us!

A friend sent this to me through e-mail. Hope you like it too as much as it did some awakening to me. God bless everyone and Happy Heart's Day!!!

Today's Prayer

Please take a moment to relax your mind and humble your heart to focus on Christ. Allow God to be the only person in your mind while you read this prayer I have received from my sister-in-law through my yahoo mail. If we can take the time to read long jokes, stories, etc. We should give the same respect to this prayer.

Dear Lord, I thank you for this day.
I thank You for my being able to see and to hear this morning.
I'm blessed because You are a forgiving God and an understanding God.
You have done so much for me and You keep on blessing me.

Forgive me this day for everything I have done, said or thought that was not pleasing to you.
I ask now for Your forgiveness.

Please keep me safe from all danger and harm.
Help me to start this day with a new attitude and plenty of gratitude.

Let me make the best of each and every day to clear my mind so that I can hear from You.

Let me not whine and whimper over things I have no control over.
Let me continue to see sin through Your eyes and acknowledge it as evil.
And when I sin, let me repent, and confess with my mouth of my wrongdoing, and receive forgiveness.

And when this world closes in on me, let me remember Jesus' example -- to slip away and find a quiet place to pray.
It's the best response when I'm pushed beyond my limits.
I know that when I can't pray, You listen to my heart.

Continue to use me to do Your will.

Continue to bless me that I may be a blessing to others.
Keep me strong that I may help the weak.
Keep me uplifted that I may have words of encouragement for others.

I pray for those who are lost and can't find their way.
I pray for those who are misjudged and misunderstood.
I pray for those who don't know You intimately.
I pray for those who don't believe.
But I thank you that I believe.

I believe that You change people and You change things for good reasons.

I pray for all my sisters and brothers.
For each and every one of my family members and friends and their families.
I pray for peace, love and joy in their homes that they are out of debt and all their needs are met.

I pray that every eye that reads this knows there is no problem, circumstance, or situation greater than You.

Every battle is in Your hands for You to fight.
I pray that these words be received into the hearts of every eye that sees them and every mouth that confesses them willingly.

This is my prayer.

In Jesus' name. Amen.