A Better Catholic

Misa de Gallo is the name given in Spanish to the mass celebrated at midnight on Christmas Eve.    Here in the Philippines, the prayer is done early in the morning on Christmas Eve, and it is the last day of a nine-day ritual known as Simbang Gabi, and today is the start of the nine-day ritual.  Completing the nine days of Misa de Gallo is said to make a wish come true, and many Filipinos believe this centuries-old promise up to this day. It's time of Puto bumbong and bibingka to...

[image source:  soulcitygraphics] I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.Your walls are always in my presence.                              - Isaiah 49:16 How do you feel when you are an ordinary worker, and your boss knows you, or calls you by your name? Isn't it you are happy?   There are others who struggle to let their masters know them.  But with God, we don't need to strive hard to let God know us.  He definitely knows us all, by our name.  Our name, not in diploma, not in awards, not in plaques, but in God's Hand and on God's...

[image source: smiletemplates.com] Your word is a lamp for my feet,    a light on my path.                       - Psalm 119:105 The Holy Bible is the Word of God.  And this words show us the right path. Imagine yourself walking at darkness.  It is definitely difficult.  We need a light to guide us on our path, and so God gave us His words, to lead us to the right direction of our lives.  If we keep God's word is along the way, we will not easily be deceived.  We will see that this light reveals the path ahead of us. This concludes that understanding...

On Day 9 of the book Just Like Jesus by Max Lucado, he started the page by this scripture: "Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."  -  Joshua 1:8                                       New International Version (NIV) So how could we listen to God's heart? In this book I learned important tools on how I...

In the article "A 'Word' for You:  Looking for a Catholic Bible" by Maria Jose Franco published on the Catholic.net, She summarized what a Bible is and what this book will do to our lives.  She emphasized that the Bible is one of the oldest in history and continues to be a best seller decade after decade, not because the book is meant to narrate what happened 3000 years ago but it is a book that leads us to God.  And most importantly, this Holy Bible is written for us. Me, as a Catholic honestly lacks exposure to the Bible and it is only limited on what I hear during Sunday Mass.  And sometimes it is hard for me to understand...

We are celebrating today the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  The Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was celebrated at least by the sixth century, when St. Romanos the Melodist, an Eastern Christian who composed hymns used in the Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox liturgies, composed a hymn for the feast. The feast spread to Rome in the seventh century, but it was a couple more centuries before it was celebrated throughout the West. The traditional date of the feast, September 8, falls exactly nine months after the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. The story of the birth of the Blessed Virgin...

 [image credit:  apwin.org] "By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested  from all the work of creating that He had done."  Genesis 2:2-3 God celebrated all the good work he had done.  He blessed the seventh day and made it holy.  God made it a special day, different from all the rest.  Don't you think that it is what God wants us also to do?  That on the seventh day of every week, He wants us to rest and enjoy all that He has made. God made...