Sunday Ministries

Today is Sunday. I celebrated the mass at 8:00 in the morning, our first mass schedule on a given Sunday. One of our deacons assisted me at the mass. For whatever reason, our deacon preached the homily at the mass which made me upset. If not out of shame, I would have told our deacon afterwards not to preach again next time. Honestly, if I was his professor in homiletics in the seminary, I would have failed him right there and then for his poor homilies. But he is a deacon now. We can't inhibit him in preaching because that is one of his tasks as a deacon. Maybe we just have to bear with his boring and 'out of order" homilies. What else can we do?

At one thirty in the afternoon, I performed a baptism at our parish church. We normally have about eight to ten babies in almost every scheduled baptism at our parish church every month. But this time, I had only one baby to baptize, which I was happy. After the baptism, I immediately started preparing for our Filipino mass at 5 PM. The rain was pouring hard almost the whole afternoon. Because of it, I did not expect a lot of people who would come for the mass. Nonetheless, in spite of the rain, a significant number of our 'kababayns' still came for the mass. We had 'salo-salo (gathering) and light dinner at the basement of the church after the mass. I was done cleaning up and closing the church at approximately 8:30 PM. At the end of the day, I felt a little tired.

What is marriage for them?

Today I solemnized a wedding of a couple. This was an intermarriage between an American and Filipina-American Lady, two cultures joined into one. The wedding was very solemn. What is peculiar with Filipino weddings is our special tradition, the inclusion of the arrhae, the veil and the cord in the ceremony. Although we call this "filipino tradition" but in reality, this is a tradition we borrowed from the Spaniards. So it is not really 'Filipino tradition' as such. But it is a beautiful tradition with very significant meanings and symbols.

As a priest I have solemnized so many weddings already. And thank goodness, I haven't heard from any of the couples whom I performed their weddings got separated or got divorced yet. I don't know if this is a good sign in anyway. But I always tell couples that getting married entails a lot of responsibility and tasks. Both have to exert effort together to make their marriage work out. And of course, God should always the center of their lives and marriage.

Making and sorting out my album

Yesterday I had all my pictures from my pilgrimage last year printed out. It cost almost a hundred dollars to have more than 700 hundred pictures printed out at costco. The four albums which I also bought cost almost $40 dollars as well. There went my $150.00 dollars pocket money.

Since yesterday, I have been working on my album, trying to put all my pictures together, in an organized way. Today I continued putting things together. It took me almost the whole day today to finish the job. In spite of the long hours i put into this project, I feel happy because I finally got the chance to have all my pictures printed out, and put them all together (in an organized way)into my four albums. My SD card(with those pictures) has been sitting on my desk for almost a year now. So, finally, I had the chance to put things together as I longed wanted.

At 7PM today, I have a wedding rehearsal at Holy Family Parish, my former parish. So I am just getting ready to go.

Remembering some beautiful memories

Last night, when I opened my facebook account, I found some familiar names and faces wanting to connect with me that I haven't had contact in a long time. I was excited because I haven't heard from most of these people maybe about ten or twenty years ago already. I was flabbergasted, really. I was just awed by the power of the cyberworld, the internet, facebook---how it can connect people in an instant. I found some of my former students, confrers, relatives, and friends whom I've been wanting to see in a long time. Lo and behold, here they are in the facebook, maybe looking for me in the same way.

To be able to connect with old friends brought back some beautiful memories again. It just brought me back to the past, where I had beautiful and exciting memories. Now I am feeling homesick for the first time.

LIfe can become so boring

I've been in my office since 10:30 this morning trying to figure out what to do today. I tried cleaning up some of the mess and papers strewn into my table. After a while, I looked out into the window as if I was expecting someone to come although, in truth, nobody was coming. Then I stood up and walked around in my office as if I needed to think and reflect on something very seriously. When I got bored, I ran into the kitchen and got a cup of coffee just to calm my nerves. The truth is, I really didn't know what to do today. After my mass this morning, there was nothing else to do except to sit in my office and pretend that I was too busy. Life can become soooo boring - when you are not doing anything. I guess I needed to pray, at least, so I had to do something.