The “Three Kings,” or more properly the “wise men,” had a problem. Their study of the stars had told them that a great king had been born in Judea, and they had set out on a long and dangerous journey, following his star, to find him and do him honor.…
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In a book launched recently at the Ateneo de Manila University is a black-and-white photograph that brings me back to another time of my life. It is of veteran peace activist Edmundo Garcia, then a Jesuit scholastic and leader of a newly formed movement called “Lakasdiwa,” speaking before a huge…
Leave a CommentHeart-rending pictures and stories of the flood victims in Northern Mindanao become even more so amid the lights and laughter, good food and family gatherings of the Christmas season. In my case, they also bring back recollections of 30 years ago. I was having lunch in a Roman restaurant with…
Leave a Comment“What do I own and what owns me?” I kept repeating these words to myself as I walked around Quiapo one Saturday afternoon recently. I had arrived early for a Mass I was supposed to concelebrate at the Basilica of the Black Nazarene, with nearly an hour to spare. I…
Leave a Comment“Write about Manny Pacquiao,” Val said to me on the morning of the last Pacquiao-Marquez showdown. We were navigating streets emptied of avid adherents of the “Pambansang Kamao.” Val probably wished he too were parked in front of the TV set at home, instead of driving his wife Bang to…
Leave a CommentAfternoon light bathed the spacious interior of the Church of Our Lady of X. A new batch of Eucharistic ministers stood before the altar, quietly waiting to be blessed by the parish priest and the mostly middle-class congregation. As I gazed at them, stiff in crisp barongs, somnolent in the…
Leave a CommentIn the second week of Lent, as Catholics moved into their preparation for Easter, the Church asked us to reflect on the Lord’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus. We recall the story of the rich man dressed in the finest clothes, dining sumptuously every day, and the poor…
Leave a CommentDad was instinctively Catholic. He had scant catechism as a child. But while other boys played at being soldiers, he played at being a priest. He might have become one had he gone to a Catholic school. Instead he sent his children to Catholic schools, and improved his own Catholic…
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Early in the morning of Feb. 22, 1986, Bishop Francisco Claver, S.J. was called upon to put his money where his mouth was. Claver had been the main author of the bishops’ post-election statement which declared that in their considered judgment “the polls were unparalleled in the fraudulence of their…
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Good Pope John and his polychrome cat
Grace moments are a Catholic obligation. I recently fulfilled that obligation amply by having two within three days: one in a bookstore, one in bed. The first occurred as I shopped for a gift for a little girl. Browsing the children’s books by Filipinos, I endured pages and pages of…