A Better Year? We can make it happen!
The greeting of everyone on the First Day of 2007 is “Happy New Year.” May 2007 continue to be under the shadow of Christmas. According to one popular song: “The real meaning of Christmas is the giving of love everyday.” According to the Servant of God, Pope John Paul II “It is always Christmas in the hearts of Christians.” We can do it! We can make it happen!
The first day of every new year since 38 years ago is a World Day of Peace. Peace does not mean only the absence of hostility, hatred and war, in the climate of violence and counter-violence. Peace, as a moral imperative, “is brought about by justice, requiring respect for human dignity and human rights, the promotion of the common good by one and all, and the constant practice in solidarity.” (PCP-II 307). “Peace is the fruit of love which goes beyond what justice can provide” (Gaudium et Spes 78). Unless there is work of justice and love in our situation, our peace will be in a precarious state. It is difficult. But together we can do it!
“The new name for peace is development” (Populorum Progressio). The promotion of development demands collective intervention and responsibility of government, churches, peace keepers and the entire society. This is best proven not only in time of calamities brought about by typhoons, fires and tsunamis but also in the normal times. Development must be seen in terms of food on the table of the poor, secure employment for the millions here in the country, low cost medicine for the families of workers, scholarships for the poorest, decent homes for squatters and slum-dwellers. Each one must ask what he/she can do to promote peace and development. We can do it!
Will 2007 be a better year—seven being “biblically” a perfect number? Hopefully and prayerfully it will be if we do not insist on doing the things that have produced our problems. Jesus of Christmas will be telling us “The time of fulfillment/perfection has come … Repent (that is, change your mind and behavior), and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1/15). “Clothe yourself with new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness” (Eph 4/23).
High hopes! Great hopes! It will be a better year when more and more of the marginalized and exploited are offered opportunities to work for and acquire their permanent shelter, genuine health benefits, liberating education, dignified employment and above all sufficient food. It will be for them a New Year.
+ ANGEL N. LAGDAMEO
Archbishop of Jaro &
CBCP President
December 29, 2006
Friday, December 29, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Christmas Message
With this season’s celebrations we are more than recalling the Birth of Our Savior, Jesus Christ, but we are looking forward to his glorious return as King of the Universe and Judge of the living and the dead. More than anything else Advent-Christmas is a call to repentance from sin, reform of conduct, and renewal of life.
May God bless all our leaders in government and military, in the Churches and many other groups and all the people they serve and are entrusted with. Under the guidance of Jesus the Savior, may leaders and followers pursue the way of moral integrity, political sincerity, honesty and transparency in relationship. May friendship and unity be restored where hostility and division reigned. May everyone correct his/her mistakes or sins with sincere humility and sense of humor. May everyone outdo each other in generosity and understanding.
“No one is so poor as to have nothing to give or so rich as to have nothing to receive” (PCP II 98).
+ ANGEL N. LAGDAMEO
Archbishop of Jaro &
CBCP President
December 21, 2006
May God bless all our leaders in government and military, in the Churches and many other groups and all the people they serve and are entrusted with. Under the guidance of Jesus the Savior, may leaders and followers pursue the way of moral integrity, political sincerity, honesty and transparency in relationship. May friendship and unity be restored where hostility and division reigned. May everyone correct his/her mistakes or sins with sincere humility and sense of humor. May everyone outdo each other in generosity and understanding.
“No one is so poor as to have nothing to give or so rich as to have nothing to receive” (PCP II 98).
+ ANGEL N. LAGDAMEO
Archbishop of Jaro &
CBCP President
December 21, 2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
A NATION AT PRAYER
For the past few days and for the rest of the coming Novena of Masses before Christmas such as what we will do this afternoon it will be a Nation at Prayer with hundreds of thousands of people flocking to our Churches and barangay chapels praying for themselves and for the country.
Some people were trying to persuade the CBCP to call off this afternoon’s Prayer Rally, because, as they said, the plan for Con-Ass has been withdrawn. What more do we want? But because of what is happening around us and the crises we are in, we have all the more reasons to WATCH AND PRAY. How good God is to our country, even before we could utter a word, God has already answered our prayer. And so we THANK GOD for the signs of positive developments.
Did I hear it from an official of Catholic Education Association of the Philippines (CEAP) that more than a political CHA-CHA, we need first and foremost an educative, a moral CHA-CHA. That means, if our Charter Change is not preceded, accompanied and productive of Character Change, then it would be useless exercise.
In this thanksgiving Prayer Rally, we must avoid any feeling of triumphalism, even of anger, hatred, bitterness, because we know we cannot achieve anything in this world of religion, politics, business and social life, without the blessing of God. We therefore pray with humility and magnanimity of heart.
Because of so many prayers received by our country, in her history crises become Kairos, moments of grace and liberation, this prayer rally is needed. We do not want to be like the nine lepers in the Gospel who after they received what they were praying for forgot to return to thank Jesus, unlike the Samaritan.
We need more importantly and more urgently this educative and moral CHAracter CHAnge. Call it repentance from sin, call it reform of morals, call it renewal of values. All of it… and our nation will rise up with hope, right vision, and confidence
Archbishop Angel N. Lagdameo
Welcome Talk
Rally at the Luneta
December 17, 2006
Some people were trying to persuade the CBCP to call off this afternoon’s Prayer Rally, because, as they said, the plan for Con-Ass has been withdrawn. What more do we want? But because of what is happening around us and the crises we are in, we have all the more reasons to WATCH AND PRAY. How good God is to our country, even before we could utter a word, God has already answered our prayer. And so we THANK GOD for the signs of positive developments.
Did I hear it from an official of Catholic Education Association of the Philippines (CEAP) that more than a political CHA-CHA, we need first and foremost an educative, a moral CHA-CHA. That means, if our Charter Change is not preceded, accompanied and productive of Character Change, then it would be useless exercise.
In this thanksgiving Prayer Rally, we must avoid any feeling of triumphalism, even of anger, hatred, bitterness, because we know we cannot achieve anything in this world of religion, politics, business and social life, without the blessing of God. We therefore pray with humility and magnanimity of heart.
Because of so many prayers received by our country, in her history crises become Kairos, moments of grace and liberation, this prayer rally is needed. We do not want to be like the nine lepers in the Gospel who after they received what they were praying for forgot to return to thank Jesus, unlike the Samaritan.
We need more importantly and more urgently this educative and moral CHAracter CHAnge. Call it repentance from sin, call it reform of morals, call it renewal of values. All of it… and our nation will rise up with hope, right vision, and confidence
Archbishop Angel N. Lagdameo
Welcome Talk
Rally at the Luneta
December 17, 2006
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