The Archdiocese of Manila is the oldest diocese in the Philippines, created in 1579 as a diocese and elevated as a metropolitan archdiocese in 1595. Also, Manila was established as a suffragan diocese of Mexico in 1579 by Pope Gregory XIII. Hence many of the Mexican devotions were brought here to the Philippines. According to…
Category: Importance of Prayer
Looks
Matthew 3:1-6 We have a saying, “Do not judge the book by its cover.” Why? Typically, people judge people by their looks. In one of the more known Gospel stories regarding visual judgment, Jesus talks about people who got shocked by the appearance of John the Baptist. He was wearing camel’s hair and eating wild…
Crisis and God
Last March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic started in the Philippines. We did not know what Covid was. We did not know how to treat it. We tried everything to avoid it. It was very hard because we said goodbye to so many people. Many people experienced financial difficulties and up to now, many people are…
One and Only
We live in a throw-away generation. Just look at how we treat material things: If a new one comes along, discard the old one. If you lose something, just replace it with a new one. When something is of no value, then just throw it away. The sad reality is that this is also how…
Spiritual Warfare
Ed. Note: This was a mass that Fr. Mon celebrated during one of his trips to Israel, at the famed Monastery of Stella Maris on Mount Carmel in Haifa In the world that we live in there is the seen and there is the unseen. This is professed by our faith. In the unseen, there…
The Good Shepherd
It was said that Jesus was an excellent preacher because of three things: In the Gospel, Jesus often gave the imagery of God as a Good Shepherd. Certainly, people of that time had experiences of shepherds who were good and shepherds who were not so good. Further, they knew of the qualities of the sheep,…
Come Follow Me
Editor’s Note: This was a homily from last October 4, the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi. As the life of St. Francis has lessons we can all learn from, we are including this here today. In the music industry, there is what is called “Fandom”. They are passionate and devoted fans who are…
Time to Hold On and Time to Let Go
A study found that the main source of true happiness is none other than relationships. As we know though, there is no relationship that is perfect and there is no relationship that has not been tested. The typical questions when it comes to strained relationships: Yes, we commit mistakes, we have our own bad side,…
Sickness and Evil
One of the hardest of human experiences is being sick. When dealing with sickness, let us remember that we are body and soul. Both are interrelated… that is, when the body is sick, the soul is affected and when the soul is deep into sin, the body is affected. In the Gospel, we often hear…
3 Ways 2 Your 1 God 