News
Family Focus of Triduum for
Solemnity of the Assumption
 The
Commission on Family Life of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference
of the Philippines will mark the Solemnity of the Assumption
of the Blessed Virgin Mary with a Triduum.
In a letter Archbishop Paciano Aniceto, head of the Family
Life Commission, announced that the theme of the Triduum is
“One in Prayer to Save and Strengthen the Filipino Family.”
Archbishop Aniceto proposed the following reflection guide:
- August 13: Ecce! -Here I am, Lord!
- August 14: Fiat ! -Be it done to me according to Thy
Word…
- August 15: Magnificat -All praise and glory be Yours,
Almighty Father!
Archbishop Aniceto said the triduum is timely because “both
faith and family are exposed to grave threats in the form
of the anti-family legislation i.e. HB6123 and HB4110.”
He expressed the hope that “these moments of prayer
and reflection sanctify us and help our families to be ‘strong
with the strength of God’!”
He also called attention to the CBCP Pastoral Priorities
and suggested that the triduum be the opportunity for the
faithful to reflect on them and “renew our commitment
to living and working according to these pastoral guidelines.”
The three of the nine pastoral priorities that Archbishop
Orlando Quevedo had put forward to the chairpersons of the
different Episcopal commissions following the National Pastoral
Consultation on Church Renewal and in consensus with the Family
Life Commission are:
- The Family as the Focal Point of Evangelization
- Building and Strengthening Participatory Communities that
Make up the Parish as a Community of Communities, and
- Integral faith Formation.
Following are the reflection guides proposed by the commission:
“ONE IN PRAYER TO SAVE
AND STRENGTHEN THE FILIPINO FAMILY”
TRIDUUM on the Solemnity of the ASSUMPTION
And reflection on the CBCP Pastoral Priorities
Our Lady of Solitude and Contemplation, teach us to reach
out to the Father in the spirit of prayer and service in our
families and our communities and to all humankind through
Holy Mother Church.
Teach us to pray from our depths where you are, Trinity Indwelling!
In pure faith, pure hope, and pure love, dearest Mother, help
us to become more and more like you in humility and obedience
to God’s Divine Plan through the faithful daily living
of the teachings of our Holy Mother Church.
HELP US TO MAKE YOUR THREE-FOLD CONSECRATION EACH DAY:
DATE : Reflection
- Aug. 13 : Ecce! -Here I am Lord!
- Aug. 14 : Fiat! -Be it done to me according to Thy Word…
- Aug. 15 : Magnificat! -All praise and glory be Yours,
Almighty Father!
O Mother, Queen Beauty of Carmel, in whom the Old Testament
prophet, our Holy Father St. Elijah, saw the prefigurement
of Jesus’ incarnation in your womb, lead us dear Mother
to ponder and love the mysteries of your Son’s incarnation,
life, death and resurrection.
May our Filipino families and the Filipino nation celebrate
the Paschal Mystery in God’s peace, strength and joy
that we may be ready to receive God’s gift of intimacy
and union and thus become GOD NEWS for the THIRD MILLENNIUM.
Help us to be more deeply interiorized, to see all persons,
things and events in the light of faith. May we thus be witness
to the liberating power of the Cross in our homes, in our
workplace, and in every barrio, municipality and city in the
Philippines as we consecrate the Filipino people, our leaders
and legislators, to the Triune God. Blessed Virgin Mary intercede
for us and bring us to the holy mountain who is Christ Jesus,
Our Lord.
May we always be El Pueblo Amante de MARIA! Amen.
Day One: ECCE – HERE
I AM LORD
THE INTERIOR LIFE
How do we render ourselves more receptive to the graces
Mama Mary wants to pour on ourselves, on our families and
on our country? How do we cooperate with the action of the
Holy Spirit in our lives and experience the beauty of GOD’S
DIVINE PLAN for us as individuals and collectively as a family
and as a nation? Let us make an examination of conscience
and ask Mary to enlighten us on this important pilgrimage.
The title Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, honors the interior life
of our Blessed Mother - a life that can only be appreciated
by meditating on how Our Lady lived her life of union with
the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.
Mt. Carmel, often mentioned in the Bible, is one of the
most beautiful mountain ranges in Palestine. It was on Mt.
Carmel that God showed Himself as the Living and True God
when Elijah, the prophet of the Lord (900 BC) called on God
to bring down fire to consume the slaughtered bulls offered
in sacrifice separately by the pagan prophets of Baal and
by Elijah (1 Kings 18:20-39).
It was also on Mt. Carmel that God allowed the symbolic
appearance of a cloud to rise from the sea to signify to Elijah
that the drought (symbolically mankind’s thirst for
the Living God through the centuries) was about to end with
the coming of the rain (symbolizing Jesus, the living Water)
as announced by the cloud (symbolizing Mary the source of
life who is Jesus), (Kings 18:41 – 46).
Elijah, oftentimes mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments
and whom Jesus was once mistaken to be before His identity
was revealed, was finally seen talking with Jesus and Moses
on Mt. Tabor at the Transfiguration. The followers of Elijah
through the centuries have been known for their charism of
contemplation and unceasing prayer in silence, solitude and
penance. They are called the Brothers of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.
Let us ask for the grace to be like Mary as she was on the
first Holy Saturday with the death of Jesus on the Cross.
Let us ask for the grace of a faith like Mary’s –
pure, unwavering faith that burned like a candle, in her full
confidence in the Father’s promise made to Jesus that
He would resurrect on the third day.
How do you live
and radiate that kind of pure faith especially when all seems
hopeless and there is much confusion and despair?
Let us ask for the grace of total, loving surrender to God’s
adorable Will and allow ourselves to be caught up in the mystery
of God’s Plan for us in total confidence in His Merciful
Love, even when we do not understand His ways.
Have you meditated
on Mary’s constant emptiness so that God could fill
Her and enable her to live the life of the Spirit of both
the Father and the Son?
Do you want to GROW DEEPER as a devotee
of Our Blessed Virgin Mary?
If you want to devote yourself to Our Lord Jesus through
the Blessed Virgin Mary, then you will want to imitate the
inner life of Mary and labor to develop a rich and profound
interior life nourished in prayer, silence and solitude, and
a joyous love of the Cross.
How did Mary pray
to the Father?
How did she live
her life of union with the Father in the Son and thru the
Holy Spirit?
If you want to be devotee of our Lady then you will want
to reflect on how Mary experienced the Mystery of Jesus both
as Son of God and her own son.
How did Mary
try to understand and imitate the life of union Jesus had
with the Father in the Spirit, the inner life of Jesus?
In her practical
life as a mother, how did she relate in love and faith to
Jesus, knowing He was both human and divine?
If you want to be a devotee of the Virgin, you will want
to belike Mary, constantly pondering God’s Word in her
heart, allowing the Father through the Holy Spirit to make
of her soul Jesus’ heaven on earth.
What is to
ponder God’s words in one’s heart, if it is not
contemplative prayer?
How does one keep
one’s heart, mind and whole being deeply quieted in
God’s presence so that the Word of God becomes rooted
in one’s soul and becomes spirit and life?
Day Two: FIAT – Be it
done to me according to thy WORD!
Reflection on the apostolic letter “Rosarium Virginis
Mariae” (The Rosary of the Virgin Mary) has rekindled
interest in Our Lady’s role in the life of Christ and
in salvation history.
From the Holy Father Pope John Paul II
"I look to all of you, brothers and sisters of every
state of life, to you, Christian families, to you, the sick
and the elderly, and to you, young people: confidently take
up the Rosary once again. Rediscover the Rosary in the light
of the Scripture, in harmony with the Liturgy, and in the
context of your daily lives.
"…far from offering an escape from the problems
of the world, the Rosary obliges us to see then with responsible
and generous eyes, and obtains for us the strength to face
them with the certainty of God’s help and the firm intention
of bearing witness in every situation to “love, which
binds everything together imperfect harmony” (Col. 3:14).
The family: parents
41. As a prayer for peace, the rosary is also, and always
has been, a prayer of and for the family. At one time this
prayer was particularly dear to Christian families, and it
certainly brought them closer together. It is important not
to lose this precious inheritance. We need to return to the
practice of family prayer and prayer for families, continuing
to use the Rosary.
I would therefore ask those who devote themselves to the
pastoral care of families to recommend heartily the recitation
of the Rosary.
“The family that prays together stays together.”
The Holy Rosary, by age-old tradition, has shown itself particularly
effective as a prayer, which brings the family together.
“…Individual family members, in turning their
eyes towards Jesus, also regain the ability to look one another
in the eye, to communicate, to show solidarity, to forgive
one another and to see their covenant of love renewed in the
Spirit of God.
“…Many of the problems facing contemporary families,
especially in economically developed societies, result from
their increasing difficulty in communicating. Families seldom
manage to come together, and the rare occasions when they
do are often taken up with watching television.
“To return to the recitation of the family Rosary means
filling daily life with different images, images of the mystery
of salvation: the image of the redeemer, the image of his
most Blessed Mother.
“…The family that recites the Rosary together
reproduces something of the atmosphere of the household of
Nazareth: its members place Jesus at the center, they share
his joys and sorrows, they place their needs and their needs
and their plans in his hands, they draw from him the hope
and the strength to go on.
…and children
"42. It is also beautiful and fruitful to entrust to
this prayer the growth and development of children. Does the
Rosary not follow the life of Christ, form his conception
to his death, and then to is Resurrection and his glory?
"…Parents are finding it ever more difficult to
follow the lives of their children as they grow to maturity.
In a society of advanced technology, of mass communications
and globalization, everything has become hurried, and the
cultural distance between generations is growing even greater.
“…The most diverse messages and the most unpredictable
experiences rapidly make their way into the lives of children
and adolescents, and parents can become quiet anxious about
the dangers their children face. At times parents suffer acute
disappointment at the failure of their children to resists
the seductions of the drug culture, the lure of an unbridled
hedonism, the temptation to violence, and the manifold expressions
of meaningless and despair.
“To pray the Rosary for children, and even more, with
children training them from their earliest years to experience
this daily “pause for prayer” with the family,
is admittedly no the solution to every problem, but it is
a spiritual aid which should not be underestimated.
“…It could be objected that the Rosary seems
hardly suited to the taste of children and young people of
today. But perhaps the objection is directed to an impoverished
method of praying it. Furthermore, without prejudice to the
Rosary’s basic structure, there is nothing to stop children
and young people from praying it – either within the
family or in groups – with appropriate symbolic and
practical aids t understanding appreciation. Why not try it?
With God’s help, a pastoral approach to youth, which
is positive , impassioned and creative – as shown by
the World Youth days! – is capable of achieving quite
remarkable results.
‘May this appeal of mine not go unheard!…O Blessed
Rosary of Mary, sweet chain which unites us to God, ,bond
of love which unites us to the angels, tower of salvation
against the assaults of Hell, safe ports in our universal
shipwreck, we will never abandon you. You will be our comfort
in the hour of death; yours our final kiss as life ebbs away.
And the last word form our lips will be your sweetest name,
O Queen of the Rosary of Pompei, O dearest Mother, O Refuge
of Sinners, O Sovereign Consoler of the Afflicted. May you
be everywhere blessed, today and always, on earth and in heaven.”
Pope John Paul II
From the Vatican, on the 16th day of October in the year 2002,
the beginning of the twenty-fifth year of my Pontifcate.
Day Three: MAGNIFICAT
All praise and glory be Yours, Almighty Father!
We truly believe that the triune God inspires and moves
us to build the Filipino family by strengthening the values
and principles that define this basic and important unit.
The very same wholesome values cultivated in the family build
a healing and wholesome society. How true it is that good
families make good citizens.
Msgr. Hernando Coronel reminds families of the CBCP Priorities
all of which reflect values imbibed at home:
The National Pastoral Consultation on Church Renewal (NPCCR),
which took place in exactly the same place as the Second Plenary
Council of the Philippines ten years after, chose to focus
the attention of the Church on key concerns and areas. Hence,
the vision of integral faith evangelization of PCP –
2 is repeated in the very first NPCCR pastoral priority of
integral faith formation.
In brief, the key themes of PCP – 2 are strengthened
in the NPCCR pastoral priorities.
Originally, there were only five pastoral priorities of the
NPCCR; later on, they became nine priorities.
The Family as the Focal Point of Evangelization is one of
the original five pastoral priorities. The other one is Empowerment
of the Laity Towards Social Transformation. In Due in Altum,
Put Out Into The Deep: Pastoral Priorities of the Church in
the Philippines, Archbishop Quevedo as of January 25 listed
five priorities. However, in Behold, I Make All things New:
Message of the National Pastoral Consultation on Church Renewal,
the delegates listed as of January 27 nine priorities.
The additional four priorities were: Integral Renewal of
the Clergy, Journeying with the Youth, Ecumenism and Inter-religious
Dialogue, Animation and Formation for Mission as gentes.
There is an intimate interrelation among the CBCP pastoral
priorities. Paramount always is evangelization. This is not
merely catechesis and the dissemination of the Catechism for
Filipino Catholics. Formation, Personal Deepening, Integration
are stages beyond rote memorization of the catechism.
Everything starts with the family. Hence, there is a radical
reorientation posed by NPCCR. Traditionally, there was the
school catechist. Now needed is family catechesis!
PCP – 2’s vision of a church of the poor needs
an empowered laity who will transform society. The poor are
not just bystanders in the church. NPCCR invites them to be
present and to participate in our parish and diocesan councils!
The renewal of the clergy is not only a matter of avoiding
scandal or negative publicity. The clergy are called to be
one with the poor in simplicity of lifestyle. These may be
hard demands but they are necessary so that the poor can identify
with the church.
Not only the poor but also the young must be high among
our priorities. Church outreach to them is vital. We may be
losing the young as indicated in recent youth studies and
surveys. In the present estimates, 70% of the people in the
country are poor and 40% are young. Where will the church
be in the near future? Simply we cannot continue with the
same methodologies of the previous millennium. Staging a world
event like the Fourth World Meeting of Families is only the
beginning. The narrow difficult path is inner conversion and
healing within the family.
Families are called to be integral communities, communities
of disciples. The dynamic church is always advocating the
BEC’s, the spirit that enlivened the early Christian
communities. These communities within the parish help the
church grow in preference for her needy members. Basic Ecclesial
Communities is still the way of the Philippine church to be
family and they help our families become truly a domestic
church.
Families supporting and encouraging one another form communities
of compassion. The Christian transformation of society would
start with these caring communities. A civilization of love
in the Philippines would always have a niche in these communities
where the values of Christ are continually asserted.
There is a lot to do. Some media continually harp on the
weaknesses on individual members of the church. We however
go on working for the Kingdom. The journey is a long, long
journey. Yet we cannot also ignore what these media and other
forces are attempting to do. It is always for the sake of
those whose faith level is minimal, whose faith is tenuous
that we are always outspoken for the truth, always affirming
what the church teaches.
We are in spiritual quest in a world with distorted values,
in a milieu promoting in an avant-garde way unknowingly or
consciously the culture of death. At times, we maybe in a
point of discouragement or maybe at the point of giving up
when all our best and good efforts have come to naught. It
is then when our faith is tested; it is when our faith is
renewed because it is ultimately God’s plan of action.
These pastoral priorities are general directions. They maybe
church plans but in them is the utmost concern to find the
lost sheep or prevent losing the poor and the young. The good
shepherd is the gentle, caring, compassionate person. We ask
for the always to keep this vision always as we implement
the provisions of these priorities. Let Christ, Lamb and Shepherd
be the model in our planning as we humbly seek the Trinity’s
loving design.
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