Simbang Gabi, Mass of the Night, got its start in the Philippines back 400 years ago. At the nine-day novena, which my parish observes at 5 a.m., we get a few hundred Filipinos and
Category: Memoir
Simbang Gabi Day 2: Working with What He Has
It’s no easy task to read out loud, much less make an interesting homily out of, the genealogy of Jesus. Yet Father Randy Gonzales managed to do both at today’s pre-dawn
Simbang Gabi Day 1: Emptying Ourselves
“God can’t fill what is already full,” Father Jack O’Hara reminded us this morning at the first of nine 5 a.m. Simbang Gabi Masses at my parish. That’s Father Jack for you. A soft-spoken priest who was our vicar for many years until a
“Nothing Is Ever Lost”
I thought it was lost, my autographed copy of Kathleen Norris’s The Middle of the World, a collection of her poetry I bought in December 1982 at a reading. But I found it last week as