The women are all business inside a tailoring shop a stone’s throw from Ina ng Lupang Pangako church in Payatas, Quezon City. They work on fabrics and sewing machines to produce bags of all shapes and sizes—totes, “ecobags,” shoe bags, envelope bags, lunch bags, laundry bags. For six days of work a week, they take...
Category: Faith
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Amid tensions, Jerusalem celebrates the King of Peace
While the Crucified Christ and the Risen Lord are the most dominant images of Jesus during Holy Week and the Easter Season (which runs until May 28, Pentecost Sunday), another image is that of the King of Peace entering Jerusalem on a donkey’s colt. Christians remember it as the Palm Sunday to start Holy Week. The...
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It’s OK to lament, ‘My God, my God, why have you abandoned me!’
Minutes before he died on the cross, Jesus cried out in a loud voice: “Eli, Eli, la’ma sabach-tha’ni?”—“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me!” (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34). This lament, considered Jesus’ fourth last word before he died, is one of the Seven Last Words, compiled from the passion and death narratives of...
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Pope Francis: Learn from the Transfiguration of Jesus
In his message for Lent 2023, which was released on Feb. 17, Pope Francis urged the faithful to “listen to Jesus” as he recalled God the Father’s command to the disciples during the Transfiguration. In the story, which is proclaimed every Second Sunday of Lent (March 5 this year), Jesus is transfigured on a mountain...
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Press in denial: Recalling the 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI
Even before I arrived in Rome in 2005 to cover the funeral of Pope John Paul II, the Eternal City was rife with talk on who would succeed him. If one would make a trope of the Colosseum and revive its fortunes but only in the imagination, it could stand for a betting arena, with a mob...
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In Bethlehem, where Jesus was born: of unspeakable peace
(Last of two parts) In November 2019, I joined a pilgrimage organized by Sr. Nimfa Eborra, a Bible scholar and a licensed spiritual guide in Israel. With me also as pilgrims were my sister and her husband, my brother, and our niece. It was actually my fifth trip to the Holy Land. My first was...
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In Bethlehem, where Jesus was born: of universal significance
(First of two parts) It was in the morning of Nov. 26, 2016, when I first set foot in Bethlehem. I remember that the Church (also called Basilica) of the Nativity was quite full of pilgrims. I also remember hearing a soft babel of voices speaking in different languages. The Nativity Church is among the...
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Our Lady is our mother for always
Dec. 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, is a special nonworking holiday nationwide by virtue of Republic Act. No. 10966. The law calls Our Lady “the principal patroness of the Philippines,” but more than that, she is the “mother” of millions of Filipinos who look to her as the fount of love...
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Tagle as papal contender? Here are the pros and cons
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, the former archbishop of Manila, may be the strongest papal contender if Pope Francis resigns, like Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI did. But certain factors may affect his chances of getting elected in the next conclave. One factor is Tagle’s perceived closeness to Pope Francis, who appointed him in 2019 to head...
