My friend Litong started today’s Simbang Gabi Mass with a look back. At the parish’s first Simbang Gabi Mass twenty-one years ago, he said, some women were pregnant. Today, those babies are in college, married, and in some cases like today, lectoring. I smiled; one of the day’s sponsors’ children weren’t even ten when I… Continue reading Simbang Gabi 2017: Of Generations… and Mercy
Month: December 2017
Remember to Breathe
An occasional series based on stuff that hangs in my room… or my heart. It was a game of sorts when I was a child. I liked to see how long I could hold my breath. I don’t think I ever got past 45 seconds or so but I loved the feeling of relief when… Continue reading Remember to Breathe
Simbang Gabi 2017: Visitations
It’s a moving scene that Luke describes in today’s Gospel reading: Mary goes to the hill country to see her relative Elizabeth, who has conceived in old age. The women greet each other… and so do their sons, both still in the womb. Call it, Father Paul Berghout said in his homily, a tale of… Continue reading Simbang Gabi 2017: Visitations
Simbang Gabi 2017: Hump Day
It’s fitting that this year, Simbang Gabi’s fifth day of the novena, fell on Wednesday. Hump days can be hard–intellectually, we know we’re past the beginning of the novena and the week, but we’re still too far away from the end to be excited. So we all came in, most of us a little later… Continue reading Simbang Gabi 2017: Hump Day