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Philippines

World Youth Day 1995, Manila: A Call To Conversion

By Issa Isaac

Two weeks before the World Youth Day in Manila, I was asked by Fr Armand Robleza of Don Bosco to be one of the emcees of the Youth Vigil with the Pope. I thought it was just another hosting assignment. I was not aware of the WYD and knew nothing about it.

I grew up in a Catholic family but never really took my faith to heart. I did not know who Pope John Paul II really was. I did not see Sunday Mass as an obligation. I never had any Religion, Theology, Christian Living or catechism classes. I was more of an agnostic than a Catholic.

Farewell Papa a tribute to my Father

Mr. Teodoro Torres Gonzales
(August 2, 1913 – February 16, 1993)

By: Sr. Rosalinda Gonzales

What Will my Father Think?
When I enter the Medical Missionaries of Mary (MMM) in 1983, my father thought that I came to Ireland in order to do further Medical training. I requested my younger sister Angeline to encourage Papa to attend Charismatic Prayer Meetings so that he will be open to the Holy Spirit when the time comes for him to know that what I was really doing was Religious training.

Disciples of Mother Teresa

By: Fr. Bobby P. Sagra, MSP

A personal experience of working with the Missionaries of Charity Sisters of Kerema, gulf Province, Papua New Guinea.

It had been more than a year now, since I arrived here in Kerema, taking the position of a Parish Priest. The Sisters Superior of the Missionaries of Charity Sisters told me upon my arrival that one of my responsibilities is to take care of the spiritual needs of their small community of six sisters. This means acting as their Father Confessor on a bi- weekly basis, and also giving them spiritual talks on the various aspects of their religious life. With cheerfulness I assumed the position, not only on the spiritual needs of the people and the sisters, but also of the challenging pastoral work of visiting the villages around Kerema.

Sacraments are a door into the mystery of God

By: Teresita Bernad, MSSC

Sr. Teresita Bernad is a Filipino Columban Sister from Ozamis, Mindanao. She tells us here two little stories about the dignity of every single human being and their longing to step into Mystery of god. For Irma and Luisa Sacraments are the door into this mystery.

The Dragon’s Tail
The City of Iquique, where I am stationed, is in the northernmost part of Chile, in the province of Tarapaca. The northern part of Chile is a desert. Iquique is situated between the vast Pacific Ocean on one on one side of the desert hills on the other. One of the hills, the Cerro Dragon, is so named because it is shaped like a dragon with its tail reaching down to the edge of the city. One would imagine the desert to be the most boring sight to see, but I have traveled across the desert several times with the Sisters on our way to the pueblos, and the scenery is spectacular. The mountains are of varying height and shape with different shades of brown; others are greenish, blue or red, depending upon the mineral deposit.

The little Sorceress

By: Sr. Ma. Loreta G. Jamelarin, ICM

I am an I.C.M. sister from Iloilo. I arrived in Cameroon in 1980. For the moment, I am in the same community as Sr. Emma de Guzman. People here in Cameroon give me different titles because of my present work. Up in the North, they gave me the title: “Doctor of the plants”; in other places, “Sister herbalist”; here “la petite sorciere”-the little Sorceress. Why all these titles? Just because I try to teach Medicinal Plants, making the people aware of the benefits they can derived from them when they are deprived of health care because of the crisis situation the country is experiencing now.

No scar Needed

Early one morning, Sister called: “Come and see if you can do something to help the baby of Emillience”. I looked at the baby with a swollen face due to an abscess, “Have you been to the dispensary?” I asked the mother but. “Yes, but they told me to let it ripen first and then they will make an incision.” Imagining the sleepless nights the baby and the mother had endured, and my repugnance at seeing a big scar on the face of such a cute baby, I did some mental gymnastics to find out appropriate plants to give in order to hasten the cure of abscesses without opening them.. I took a cabbage leaf, some gumamela buds, and gulasiman plants, crushed them all together to make a paste, and applied it to the abscess. I gave more materials to the mother, encouraged her to continue faithfully the treatment at home using a hot compress. Within a week’s time, the abscess naturally healed without incision or any expense.

Greetings from Benin

By: Fr. Romy Cagatin, SVD

Different but The same

I have been in Benin for a little more than a year. After having been formed in our in our beloved country, the Philippines, for the past 28 years, being here “undresses” or “de-construct”, they say, all our own cultural paradigms. In the beginning I was a bit naïve to believe that there is not much difference between me and our African sisters and brothers. The longer I am here the more I realize that we differ to a great extent in many things. It is wrong to say though, that we are completely different from each other. People keep me calling me before (Whiteman). It hurts me, honestly speaking.

African-ness
Recently, a young man was ordained priest, in spite of the fact that his mother practices traditional religion, while his father is a Muslim. Never heard in the Philippines? Or does that African way is not our way (Mt. 16:23). Entering into their culture whilst preserving my “Filipino-ness” and their “African-ness” is not at all an easy process.

War and Peace

By:  Fr. Thomas Gier, SOLT

A young Pilipino Missionary Group Starts from Scratch in Papua New Guinea.
Twenty years ago the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity arrived in the Philippines. It has grown and prospered and has many seminarians and priest who are now going on mission out from the Philippines. Fr. Thomas Patrick Gier has led a group of Filipino priest to start from scratch a new mission in Papua New Guinea. With Fr. Tom is Fr. Gene Barbacena and Fr. Ferdie Samar. Also With them two Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity seminarians: Alvin Cayetano and Rey Grava. Here Fr. Tom tells one of their adventures.

Goodbye Dolly

The shadow of AIDS Darkens over the Philippines

The whole nation was saddened last year when Dolzura Cortez died of AIDS. She had told her sad story to the world in order to help others. The nation followed her loosing battle with the fatal virus.

Some recent reports tell us that more than twelve million individual people are infected by AIDS and that the figure will rise dramatically. Thee Philippines Bishop recently spoke out on the causes and the Church response

Mother Teresa: missionary of love

By: Father Denis Egan

She is called the most beloved woman in the world. She seeks out the poor in whatever corner of the world they are gathered, to bring them love and sense of dignity. Honoured by nations, she looks astonishingly frail at the side of Prelates and Prime Ministers yet at 77 she still cleans the toilets and bathes the maggot-infested wounds of the dying and destitute. In Calcutta alone her Sisters of Charity have rescued some 50,000 of the poorest of the poor from its streets. In an aged that is absorbed in the pursuit of material wealth she stands as a sign of contradiction, and challenges the values of our secular worlds by her reverence for the Poor. The following account of her recent visit to the Philippines is based on a report by Fr. Denis Egan.

Arrives in Olongapo
As she stepped from Bishops Aniceto’s car in Olongapo, in the sweltering heat of the Philippines, her frail figure was immediately surrounded by an excited crowed. They were eager to shake her hand, but she was not at ease with the film star treatment. She took her rosary beads in the elongated fingers that were so accustomed to dressing wounds, and concentrated on her prayers.

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