Do you see God’s gifts to us? In nature, so bountiful? Birds. Butterflies. Bees. Flowers. Are you attuned to GRACE? Do you hear a fake voice in print or from the internet? What about a pastor’s homily? Can you detect as your heart is uplifted, your soul at rest that your heart is richer in joy and love after? Pope Francis’ homily points to wealth that makes us stop at the door of Jesus, and unfree to walk in and go through, as those who are imprisoned by wealth. We don’t have to fall into poverty, he said, but defined 4 mindsets that keep us distanced from the Lord:
Apathy – the fatigue, tiredness that rob us of the freedom of forging ahead; recall the man who sat by the pool for 38 years waiting?
Rigidity – reflected in hardness of hearts and in interpreting the law; some pastors adopt an attitude of discouraging Sat. worship at weddings, as it does not fulfill the precepts for Sunday mass, when it is more important to move forward following Jesus, than just strictly following the law.
Clericalistic attitude – unless done in a precise style of the church, you cannot go enter the doors of Jesus. It makes you in opposition to Jesus, you can’t do it. This is an illness in church’s style.
Worldly practice – how much worldliness in church practices failing to understand the GRACE, the presence of Jesus?
We are stopped from being the sheep of Jesus, by forms of worldly life, and we lack the liberty to follow Jesus’s voice. Sometimes freedom leads to us slipping, but before we move to freedom, we must be go beyond the door and become the sheep of His flock, attuned to Jesus’s voice.
A brief walk revealed light and beauty of flowers in neighbour’s lawnsMy beautiful masks, custom made by my warm hearted, handsome, sweet, kind, and favorite couturier Oliver Tolentino. He just made them and will ship shortly. He has donated 1,000 masks to frontline workers. Such a beautiful heart and generous!!Me with mask, out for a walk
In a world where everyone wears a mask, it’s a privilege to see a soul.
Hernan Hormillosa
homemade bread, homemade salads plus prepared fish, turon, eggplant salad from Titas of Manila and hubby baked sourdough from scratch
(Cover) Hammock says to me: Rest in me, just like the Lord.”
The enemy of darkness prefers darkness, falsehood and gossip; the Lord loves sunlight, truth and sincere transparency. God’s voice never promises cheap joy. It invites us to go beyond our ego, to find that true good, peace. – Pope Francis offered mass intentions for >100 pastors who gave their lives to the faithful, and have died in Italy; and to >154 doctors who have died on the job.
There are other voices not to be followed: those of strangers, thieves and brigands who want to harm the sheep. These voices resonate within us. There’s God’s voice which speaks kindly to the conscience and there’s the tempting voice that leads to evil. These are 2 languages: God’s inspiration distinct from the insinuation of the evil one; 2 opposite ways of knocking on the doors of our hearts. God proposes, does not impose Himself. Voice of the enemy distracts us from the present and wants us to focus on fears of the future or sadness about the past.
Pope Francis, Source: Vatican News
Fr. John Cordero of Holy Family Artesia shared a metaphor, “I am the gate, I am the password,” to illustrate the Lord is the ultimate source of goodness, with our capacities to discern, to judge what is right, “what feels right in our hearts, with switches on in our heads, with ears if our hearts attuned to the voice of God, we sift out the voices of complainers and instead, focus on life is a value and care for the life of a breathing human being. Lord wants life, and wants it abundantly. Does the message conform to/ congruent (swak na swak) to the message, love one another? We have the ability to discern. That password, the access, is the teaching and example of the great sheperd, Jesus Christ.”
Open our hearts that He might fill us with joy, peace, light and grace.
Sr. Bernadette from the Vatican prayed
by Noel Casaje – Reflections in Solitude in Torres del Paine NP, ChileHope Obama poster in 2008Sunday drive to WestwoodSlim Man CD, a gift from Tateng and Dinah Katindig Murano glass tray handcrafted in Venice, Camino Shell from Spain, Carved Wooden Heart from Israel, Heart shaped Sculpture of Mama Mary and Jesus from Portugal and handmade candles from Body and Soul Acupuncture, the only candle that is friendly to me, an asthmatic – my sacred spaceUbe pancakes I made using Ninong’s Pastries and CafePancake Mix, a very good product developed during the #CoronaViruspandemic. I salute the creativity of this product developer!Rose-flavored ice cream, a treat from hubby, who stood in line at Saffron and Rose
My sources of inspiration are multiple. It starts with masses at the Holy Family Catholic Church, Artesia and Pope Francis’ inspired homilies, which lay out the two paths in life, one of righteousness and another straying from it. I love how he posits it in a highly respectful manner, with a deep reverence and appreciation for the goodness of God, and the goodness of man, His creation, His hard work. In that reverence, he speaks of what separates man from his dignity, how he offends himself as he unjustly treat others.
I often wonder how much do we think of other folks daily? Like putting on a face mask?
It’s not about your life. You don’t have the right to risk someone else’s life. And you don’t have the right, frankly, to take a health care staff and people who are literally putting their lives on the line, and be cavalier or reckless with them.
For the month of April, Vatican News reported, that in the United States, one person died every 44 seconds.
In a span of 103 days, while the world had 3,502,126 cases and 247, 306 deaths in 187 out of 195 countries/regions.
The United States, once looked up to, disdained and respected by the world is now pitied, according to a foreign news outlet, as of yesterday’s John Hopkins’ dashboard, has 1, 157, 687 cases and 67, 674 deaths, deaths which exceeded nearly 60, 000 who lost their lives in Vietnam from 1964 to 1975.
34% of COVID-19 deaths in the US are African Americans, while fatality rates are:
US has 20 deaths per 100,000 UK has 42 deaths per 100,000 France has 36.97 per 100,000 Italy has 47.51/100,000 Spain has 53.72/100,000 Belgium has 67.98/100,000 Portugal has 9.95 /100,000
South Korea with 250 deaths out of 10, 793 cases has 0.57/100,000
While with increasing deaths in several countries, the good news is described by Mary McNamara of the LA Times, a rewilding of our environment, an interview with Allan Weisman, author of “A World Without Us,” and a resonating “clear skies and the cacophony of birdsong.”
As hope resonates in our hearts and minds, flowers rise through the cracks in the pavement, the fragrant colorful blooms of spring abound and at 3am this morning, a bright waxing gibbous moon. I had to double back – was that the sun, or was that the moon, quite serene and perhaps, a new #CoronaVirus free dawn is coming?
“Crisis is like going through fire. It is the moment to make a choice. This #coronavirus pandemic is a time of social crisis. How should we then react?
There is a saying in my culture, the Pope said, when you mount your horse and you are about to cross a river, you don’t change horses. You shoulder on and you cross the river. Be steadfast in your convictions. Those 72 + disciples who left Jesus because they don’t want to suffer – they changed horses. In moments of crisis, faithfulness, fidelity and to be closer to God and not distance ourselves from what was chosen before, are what we can do.
May God send the Holy Spirit so as not for us to resist, but to be faithful to God, to be hopeful to live in peace, afterwards. May God grant us the strength, in these crisis moments to persevere without selling out our faith,” Pope Francis’s homily today.
My sacred zone, where I cry, smile and rejoicePlaya del Rey bioluminescence by Sean Saba. It is a phenomenon of fireflies and fishes emitting light and creating a blue shimmering surface on the ocean watersStory of COVID-19 patient who recovered under the care of intensivists doctors and nursing staff at Washington Hospital in Fremont.Mango Sticky Rice icecream from Wanderlust Creamery a gift from hubby, the first fruit from our strawberry treeHubby prepared salad from our backyard lettuce.Dinner from Sugarfish
If you put bananas and money in front of monkeys, monkeys will choose bananas because monkeys do not know that money can buy a lot of bananas.
Jack Ma of Alibaba, biggest multinational tech conglomerate
“If you put money and health in front of people, some will choose money, not knowing that health can bring more money and happiness. Same with Jesus’s teachings on the bread of life, with disciples abandoning, while the 12 apostles stayed firm that Jesus is their life and hope. The apostles chose The Bread of Life.”
Fr. Joachim
What are hopeful news? – NY’s new infections are going down a bit -15,000 folks have been tested for antibodies to determine infection rates, from 13.9% on April 22 to now, 12.3% -Subway Trains are disinfected every 24 hrs, which also gives an opportunity to work with the homeless who have made the subway trains, their homes.
Context: In 187 countries out of 195, there are 3, 426, 711 new cases with 243, 808 deaths in 3 months.
United States has the highest deaths of 66, 368 from 1, 132, 512 new cases.
NY has 312, 977 cases and (24, 198 deaths) CA has 53, 347 cases and (2, 180 deaths)
Folks, we are responsible for keeping that death rate to four figures, because we kept social distancing, stayed home and wore masks to protect the other person we meet, a sacrament of charity of caring for one another.
“The high number of cases in NY was traced to folks travelling from China, then Europe, then New York. By the time they realized the spread, 19 days later, New Yorkers started at home and are contributing to their current death rates of not spiking upwards,” Gov.Cuomo shared those facts in daily briefings he held, seen by 20,000 at its peak. His theme is facts, truth, no speculation, just facts from monitoring health statistics of hospitalizations, intubation, infection rates and more. He will make reopening decisions and will be done based on science, he kept stressing. #ScienceNotPolitics#factsnotemotions
Today is St. Joseph the Worker’s feast. Let’s expand our idea of work, said Fr. John Cordero of Holy Family Artesia, “Work is simply our participation in the creative work of God. If we only work for ourselves, our ego, how vain is that the beneficiaries of our work are just us? God worked 6 days and shared this creative power with mankind. Our work is part of the creative process of God–it is part of creating people with wisdom and grace. Your children become wise because of your examples as parents – their wisdom is the fruit and can be the fruit of the wisdom that you plant right now. We can all be creative agents of God’s creative process, a sense of connectedness between God’s creative process and our work here on earth.”
The word ‘work’ is used by the Bible to describe God’s activity, Pope Francis said. God’s hands over this means you need to work so you can continue to be with God. Work is what makes you similar to God.
I want to earn the bread that I bring home.
An unemployed man who went to Caritas in Rome
In history, we read about brutality, of how they took slaves home to America. Even now, they are not free, forced to work, it is unjust. It brings men to live with trampled dignities.
We read about a gentleman in Asia, beating his employee, paid hardly nothing. That takes away his dignity, but also dignity from all of us, his brothers and sisters. There are amongst us, dayworkers, made to work minimum wages for 8 to 14 hour days. Or domestics, without health benefits and pensions. Every injustice you do to a person tramples on their dignity, but also to you, the person who trampled on theirs, you have lowered your own dignity by your injustice.
To create, to recreate, to work God’s vision happens only if we respect the dignity of workers. There are good employers who manage their businesses justly, even if they themselves lose. A businessman in Italy asked for prayers, “Pray for me as I don’t want to lay off anyone because it is like firing myself. St. Joseph, pray for us that there be work for all, to have work with dignity, not for workers to be slaves, a just wage.”
#peoplebeforeprofit#trustbeforegains are the values of an ex-prisoner, unjustly imprisoned by a rich corporate owner who covered up his son’s unjust crimes of assault and accidental murder, a 16 episodes of a Koreanovela, created by Gwang Jin, aired in South Korea, from Jan. 31 to March 21, 2020.
This has kept my attention for some nights and kept me thinking of the workers in Tyson chicken processing plant, whose working conditions have resulted in 40% of them testing positive for #CoronaVirus. It has kept me thinking about the 50 nurses and frontliners in New York and 150 nurses and frontliners, all Filipinos, have died in London, and who bore the frontline burdens of Coronavirus. Statnews.com‘s Lee McFarling described that 150,000 of nurses in the US are Filipinos and nearly 20% of registered nurses in California are Filipinos.
The #45thUSPresident responded by ordering chicken processing workers back to work, without ensuring their health and safety. It is akin to government imposed servitude for working slaves. This is also the period where USDA has relaxed its enforcement of health and safety regulations, given the federal government’s weakening of oversight and regulations.
This is also the period, over the 23 days of pandemic from COVID-19 that 614 billionaires’ wealth expanded from $2.9 trillion to $3.2 trillion, according to BusinessInsider.com. This is an explosion growth, while 30 million workers have applied for unemployment benefits, and in California, 5.3% unemployment rate, with 3.1 million filing for unemployment claims.
Lord, is Your anger forever? Fill us with Your love, shine it on Your children. Help them to be fair and just.
My prayer for today, as I attended two masses:
Is it Your will, Lord that we reopen all churches, with more reverential beliefs in Your Powers? Grant us your grace to love more, each other. Allow us an in-person celebration of partaking in the Bread of Life, the Eucharist.
Thank you, Fr. John Cordero for your beautiful homily of interconnectivity with the Lord’s creative process – including what we do in parenting, in working for a living, in raising our children and intending that we are all interconnected to God and glory belongs to Him.
Blessed you, Pope Francis for making our world better than you found it, for letting us see that the indignities to laborers also degrades our collective dignities, which separate us from our innate goodness; that employers’ injustices to their workers trample not just their workers’ dignities, but also diminishes their own dignities, as well, as our dignities as men and women, created with goodness by Our God. Thank you for letting us see that employers’ indignities to their workers also trample on their consciences and separate their connections to the goodness of God’s creative hands. Thank you Pope Francis for your spiritual wisdom that is such a bright light.
With collective prayers during these livestreamed masses from March to April 2020, I witnessed God’s healing mercies to 5 folks who recovered from Coronavirus: 1 senior nurse in London, 1 young doctor in the Philippines and 3 blind triplets, all college students, living in a group home. Thank you for having us see Your Grace!
(Cover Photo) A capture of a spot where I attend mass, livestreamed. The heart-shaped ceramic of Mama Mary and child is a work of art, from Portugal. The sleeping St. Joseph is a gift from a high school classmate, Beatriz De Castro. The book, Revelations of Divine Love, is by Julian of Norwich, a 14th century hermit, whose story was shared in a homily by Bishop Marc Trudeau. The photos on my wall were taken by Enrique de la Cruz, my husband, a steady anchor of baked goodness from breads he baked, to the crops he grows in our backyard, daily jokes and impromptu hugs plus teamwork in keeping our house clean and neat.
Photo shared by Roger Lagmay Oriel, thank you!Do you plant flowers of goodness in your heart, or seal it shut with a big rock?White roses that line my neighbor’s front walkway.
Photo of prayer from Bishop Joe Brennan, shared by Asuncion Ferrer.
Clearly, the biggest lesson that the pandemic has taught us is that we are all connected. What we do (or fail to do) has an effect on the entire community. The concept of shared space, shared resources and shared consequence has finally become painfully clear to everyone. From now on, any plan we must make must take everyone’s needs into account. One man’s sore throat could be another man’s death sentence.
Ramon R. Jimenez’s text to HAU President, Luis Calingo on April 20, 2020
Mr. Jimenez passed away on April 27, 2020. He was Tourism Cabinet Secretary who developed the tourism concept of “It’s More Fun in the Philippines,” illustrating ecotourism is a viable source of livelihood, while protecting the environment, 2011 to 2016 under Pres. Noynoy Aquino.
3, 157, 459 new cases with 219, 610 deaths, worldwide, according to John Hopkins University dashboard.
US has 1, 023, 304 with 58, 965 deaths in 90 days, while 58, 220 deaths during Vietnam War from 1964 to 1975.
Pope Francis equated truth as to concreteness, no gray areas. It is about aligning ourselves with Jesus, if we are in darkness, we can’t be in union with the Lord, who is light.
Gray area is a traitor – it is either one or the other. Lies are ambiguous, like the air that we breathe, which cannot be defined, he said.
He related a letter he received from a young child who reprimanded him about saying “Peace be with you,” when we can’t touch one another during this pandemic. There’s a simplicity and humility in telling the truth. It is not “wrapped up or packaged,” he said.
The devil wants us to stay in the gray area, Lord does not want us, liars. Lord can’t forgive us, if we are not concrete and truthful about our sins. May we have the grace to know well, who we are, before God,” he continued.
Sure, I am weary. But, it is not just me. I look at myself as untested carrier of #CoronaVirus who refused to irresponsibly transmit then, with complications, cause the untimely death of another.
Instead I harvest the good news.
Text I received from a friend thanking me for “heavenly delight,” Max’s and Lucy’s ensaymadas. Photo from Gov. Andrew Cuomo of America’s Self-Portrait during this pandemic.
Truth and facts only, said Gov. Cuomo, who thanked publicly the 95,000 nurses and doctors who flew to NY, across the nation to help.
He unveiled a wall art of thousands of masks, sent to him, one from a Kansas farmer whose wife has only one lung, and he had 5 N95 masks from decades ago. He kept 4 for his family and sent one for a healthworker to use. “American people are kind, principled, good neighbors, and have generosity of spirit and charity,” he said, “Self portrait of American people spells love.”
Our leaders must follow the example of our American people. It is not “we” vs. “them.” He took note that NY puts in $29 billion into the federal treasury, while Florida takes out $30 billion and Kentucky $37 billion a year. So, no politics needed during this pandemic. NY needs help – 299, 691 cases and 22, 912 deaths – the highest in US.
Castle Garden Center in Lower Bucks County, PA delivered flowers to Maureen Johnson’s mom. Hearing her say she promised her daughter would not go out, the small business owner got worried she may not have food. So, they delivered flowers, prepared hot meals, groceries and refused to be reimbursed.
Self portrait of American people spells love.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo
Cover Photo – prayer plant whose leaves point upward at night.
Candlelight dinner we made with our hands: salad, cranberry bread and stuffed bell peppers.Me and my young kids 30+ years agoYoung children fishing 30+ years ago; love the contrast in posesTandem biking with a biking club in San Luis Obispo, 30+ years ago
