This famous Christmas story is one that makes one see that man in the midst of catastrophe can plumb the bottom of his being and find in its depths an innate goodness.  It is that goodness that makes him set aside untold hatred and inconceivable hurt.  It is a true story. The famed World War I [...]

Time was when babies who died before receiving the sacrament of baptism were consigned to limbo, that state of oblivion where souls remain and couldn’t enter heaven.  They weren’t condemned to the eternal suffering of hell but they couldn’t enjoy God’s “beatific vision” either. There were two kinds of limbo, the limbus infantium or limbo of [...]

Christians of different denominations hold this as a statement of faith.  The Credo, or Creed, is essentially a set of religious beliefs.  Christians, from the Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, most Protestant Churches, to the Jacobites of Syria, pray the Credo, which is Latin for “I believe,” the prayer’s first words. Roman Catholics traditionally call [...]

A hundred and nine Christmases ago, eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote to the editor of New York’s Sun newspaper asking if there really is a Santa Claus.  She said that her friends had told her there isn’t while her father had said that there is if it’s in the Sun newspaper. The reply was an editorial that [...]

There’s always the challenge of adjustment in going to places with different cultures.  Blending in may not be expected, or even possible.  The challenge, then, lies in adjusting to local culture without sacrificing one’s own. It is Ramadan in the Muslim world.  One feels its import in an Islamic nation (Ummah.)  Ramadan is the name of [...]

A high place that lifts the souls of mere mortals on the wings of hope rests on resurrection.  Traditionally, resurrection is taken to mean as that state of physical return from the dead.  So there will always be an Easter after Good Friday, or where goes the meaning of hope? The concept of a god who [...]

In their early childhood their family held the tradition of spending Christmas with their mother’s family.  There was always Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. One early Christmas morning the eldest of those first four grandchildren talked breathlessly about how Santa Claus came the night before.  She saw a great light through the window and heard the [...]

They came from the east, thus from the Orient, and followed the star to bring them to the Christ child.  They had gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.  This more or less sums up what we know best of the Three Kings ever since we became aware of Christmases and New Years and saw enough [...]

Angels in Art Expectedly, it is the language of art that gave shape to the intangible nature of angels.  Artists through the centuries have endowed them with form based on their imaginings and their understanding of the scriptures.  In our part of the world, deeply influenced by Western culture, the form of angels as we know [...]

Coming to a part of a certain novena that offers prayers to the “nine choirs of angels” compelled me to embark on an academic search on the nature of angels.  Besides, there was this number nine that refers to choirs, two beautiful words that become even more magical because they happen to describe angels. I must [...]