A New Year Wish for You

May you get a clean bill of health from your dentist, your cardiologist, your gastro-entomologist, your urologist, your parasitologist, your podiatrist, your psychiatrist, your plumber and the I.R.S.

May your hair, your teeth, your face-lift, your abs and your stocks not fall; and may your blood pressure, your triglycerides, your cholesterol, your white blood count and your mortgage interest not rise.

May New Year's Eve find you seated around the table, together with your beloved family and cherished friends. May you find the food better, the environment quieter, the cost much cheaper, and the pleasure much more fulfilling than anything else you might ordinarily do that night.

May what you see in the mirror delight you, and what others see in you delight them. May someone love you enough to forgive your faults, be blind to your blemishes, and tell the world about your virtues.

May the telemarketers wait to make their sales calls until you finish dinner. May the commercials on TV not be louder than the program you have been watching, and may your check book and your budget balance - and include generous amounts for charity.

May you remember to say "I love you" at least once a day to your spouse, your child, your parent, your siblings; but not to your secretary, your nurse, your masseuse, your hairdresser or your tennis instructor.

And may we live in a world at peace and with the awareness of God's love in every sunset, every flower's unfolding petals, every baby's smile, every lover's kiss, and every wonderful, astonishing, miraculous beat of our heart.

My Bucket List

As this year will come to a close, I browsed some files (journal, notes etc) and looking back this was a big roller coaster ride. However, I feel that there are so many things that I want to do, so many places I wanted to visit, things I wish I could have and there so things I wanted to do with other people. To start, let me write about my own bucket list.

PLACES I WANT TO VISIT

Philippines:

1. Batanes - the beautiful island in the north. Preferrably summer... im starting to save money for this trip. I wish I could have my new camera with me and hmmm... special someone?!
2. Bohol - visit the whole island, have pictures of the old churches, small boobs hills (chocolate hills), Panglao Island, Loboc river (tama ba?) and of course to see some of my kind... the tarsier.
3. Malapascua Cebu - scooba diving lang. Take underwater pictures.
4. Caramoan - mala "survivor philippines" type of stay. :D
5. Climb Mt. Apo and Mt. Pulag - madaling trek lang naman yun...
6. Underwater River and Honda Bay Palawan - beach plusstalactites and stalagmites here I come.
7. Camiguin - (visit again) hahaha summer memories....
8. Amanpulo - sana makasabay ko si Julia Roberts doon... hahaha! and I wish I could have lots of money :D

The World:

9. Vietnam Bay - maganda kasi eh
10. Paris, France - love, love , love... plus food :P
11. Scotland, UK - i wanna learn the accent
12. Amsterdam - where the jutes and you know are legal. hahahaha!
13. Caribbean Cruise - hay beaches... i love beaches :P
14. New Zealand - sisigaw lang ng "for frodooooo....."
15. Italy - to have a feel what Dan Brown said in his book, plus visit Florence and Venice.
16. United Kingdom - wala lang... baka maka hanap ng english woman
17. Egypt - makakita ng mummies
18. Holy Land (of course!)

THINGS I WANT TO HAVE:

1. Canon DSLR Camera with EF camera lens, complete with accessories
2. Macbook Pro (sige na... pangarap lang naman eh)
3. Iphone (pwede naman credit card di ba?)
4. Ipod Touch 16 gig
5. A Sports Car

THINGS I WANNA DO:

1. Bungee jumping sa subic
2. Hiking sa Mt. Pinatubo crater
3. Sumakay ng eroplano (as in never pa....)
4. White water rafting sa Cagayan de Oro
5. Write/finish my children's book (need an inspiration)
6. Learn magic tricks (sideline lang ito tol!)
7. Manood ng WWE live
8. Kumanta sa Conspiracy (for someone lang ito ha)
9. Drive F1 racing car

THINGS I WANNA DO FOR OTHER PEOPLE:

1. Take my family to a one week vacation at the beach.
2.. Pumunta sa Disneyland kasama si Binga, Karen at Paul. For Binga to enjoy her childhood, to make Paul ride those exciting rides, for Karen to have a life after AIM.
3. Try to look for my brother in law, then sasampolan ko lang.
4. Write / compose a song for that person :P(secret na lang muna ito ha)
5. Have a childrens party with clowns, balloons, toys, cake and ice cream with Kythe kids.

Pretty long list right? Hahahaha... I have a lot of time pa naman. And the next year is a perfect way to start things right. :D

The Work Of Christmas Begins

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with the flocks,
then the work of Christmas begins:

to find the lost,
to heal those broken in spirit,
to feed the hungry,
to release the oppressed,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among all peoples,
to make a little music with the heart…

And to radiate the Light of Christ,
every day, in every way, in all that we do and in all that we say.
Then the work of Christmas begins.

-- Howard Thurman, adapted

A Christmas Eve Serenade

(posted on Philippine Daily Inquirer December 3, 2008, official entry for "Paskong Pinoy 2008 - My Christmas Story" http://blogs.inquirer.net/paskongpinoy/2008/12/03/christmas-eve-serenade/

REMEMBERING Christmas past can easily bring smile to our lips and also, weirdly enough, tears to our eyes. As we celebrate this season, memories flood our minds and hearts as we go back to the times when family members gather around the table for Noche Buena on Christmas Eve while exchanging favorite memories of previous Christmases, both the sweet and bitter memories.

Let me share with you my favorite Christmas memory:

It was in 2002. I was twenty two years old and it was my first year as a seminarian at the Sacred Heart Novitiate in Novaliches. It was to be my first Christmas away from my family.

We were to be cloistered in the seminary for two years with no mobile phones, no strolling in the malls, and living with an allowance of only P150 a month. We were allowed to go home on Christmas day itself on the condition that we have to be back in the novitiate by 5:30 p.m. on the same day for the Christmas community Mass and dinner. Christmas Eve had to be spent in Sapang Palay, Bulacan among the poor people we worked with every Sunday for the whole two years.

For me, what was heartfelt and most typically “Christmas” about Christmas was the Christmas Eve—midnight Mass with my family, our Noche Buena highlighted by my mom’s special baked macaroni, my tita’s special refrigerator cake and my sister’s roasted chicken. How could I ever forget the opening of Christmas presents right after Noche Buena, the Christmas games we held for my nephews and nieces, the hanging of Christmas socks where Santa Claus can put toys and money. I was to miss all these for the first time in my life. It was almost as though the Christmas had gone out of my Christmas.

I had, however, resigned myself to this situation; my youthful Jesuit fervor that time helped me to accept this change as part of the price of following and serving God.

We had gone early to bed than the usual during Christmas Season at around 9:00 p.m. (We slept early because we rose early, at 2:45pm for the Simbang Gabi Masses at Sapang Palay.) At around 1am of December 24th, four hours after I had drifted into sleep, I was awakened by the sound of soft, distant music. It was a sound of the guitar playing softly, and an all male-choir singing “Silent Night” gently from a distance. My inquisitiveness was aroused and I asked myself where that music was coming from. I dragged myself out of the bed, and carefully opened my cubicle door so as not to disturb my other brothers who were sleeping at that time. But they were also awakened by the soft music playing and the mysterious voices that were singing Christmas carols. We were rubbing our eyes and in a half-stunned and half confused state while listening to the music from afar. I don’t remember if we say anything to each other when we got out of our cubicles, what I remember was we were all amazed to hear the voices of an all-male choir slowly coming closer and our darkened dormitory door gradually being lit up by the flickering candles that my second-year brothers held in their hands. We saw the smiling faces of our second-year brothers and our novice-masters in the midst of darkness as they continue to serenade us with Christmas carols.

I will never forget the beauty and the oddity of that moment. The feeling was quite strange and amusing. For a few moments, we, the first year men (we were nine at that time), just stood outside our cubicles, feeling the chill of the season. Too surprised to speak, overwhelmed by the moment , we just allowed ourselves to feel the joy and warmth of the announcement of Christ’s birth. Soon we began softly singing with them. Then our second year brothers led us to a solemn procession going to entrance parlor of our novitiate. The entrance gate was so memorable for us, it was the place where we began our new life as a Jesuit, and said goodbye to the world to continue a new mission in our lives. That moment the entrance parlor was full of Christmas lights and candles. Our second-year brothers took out the prayer mats and pillows from one of our chapels and turned the entrance parlor into an impromptu mini-chapel.

One of the men in the second year spoke to us and said, “we know your feeling; exactly a year ago we were in your places. We know how you miss your family, your friends especially this evening. But we wanted to assure you that we are with you, in your feeling of loneliness or fear, we will be here for you. And that I think is the message this Christmas day…”

After that, they played a familiar tune, it was my favorite Christmas song:

Paglamig ng hangin hatid ng Pasko
Nananariwa sa ‘king gunita
Ang mga nagdaan nating Pasko
Ang Noche Buena’t Simbang gabi

Narito na ang Pasko
At nangungulila’ng puso ko
Hanap-hanap, pinapangarap
Init ng pagsasalong tigib sa tuwa
Ng mag-anak na nagdiwang
Sa sabsaban n’ung unang Pasko

Sa pag-awit muli ng himig-Pasko
Nagliliyab sa paghahangad
Makapiling kayo sa gabi ng Pasko
Sa alaala’y magkasama tayo

The song was about a family celebrating Christmas together. I remember the moment when we were listening to that song, some of us were teary eyed, and some of us were crying. We were comforting one another. After that song, we wiped our tears and one of our second year brothers signaled the guitar player to play a familiar happy Christmas tune “Ang Pasko Ay Sumapit” and the mood started to change.

They took the bag that they hid behind the entrance door. Our second year brothers played the role of “Santa” and gave us presents for Christmas. It wasn’t big and expensive, some of them were things valuable to them, and some were “on sale” gifts from Sampol Market in Sapang Palay. After the gift giving we burst out laughing on their letters. And just when I thought the celebration had ended, our second year brothers rolled out carts filled with food– ham and cheese, bread, hot chocolate, bibingka, suman, puto-bumbong and bowls of fruit for our own Noche Buena.

It was only now, six years later, that I came to fully understand the magic and meaning of that Christmas Eve. This year, I will celebrate Christmas as an ordinary lay person. I left the seminary in April this year but the memory of that Christmas remains fresh in my memory. That night, we were taken back to Bethlehem in the time of Augustus as the Bible would say (Luke 2:8-12). We were like the shepherds that were guarding the flocks nearby. We were roused from our slumber when an angel of God appeared to us and the radiance of God’s glory surrounded us. They brought to us the good news that the Messiah, our Savior was born today. And the angels filled the heavenly hosts singing God’s glory.

What happened to us was perhaps the real meaning of Christmas– surprise, shock; astonishing, an unexplainable kindness and gladness. That night we received an unforgettable gift. A gift not as a reward for being good, but a gift that was totally unexpected and amazing because all of us knew we were not really worthy to receive it; but a gift purely given to the beloved because He loves us so much, such brimming kindness and generosity of the giver itself. And this is the Grace of Christmas. The Grace that our God has humbled Himself; set aside His power, His glory and became a baby so weak, small and fragile. He has done this for the single truth of our own existence, that we are loved. That every time we look at the baby lying in a manger, we can also see the reflection of ourselves: weak, small, humiliated and lonely. Because we are important to Him, He wanted to feel what we feel and understand us better.

God did not promise to take away all our problems, our trials, our pain, and our suffering in this world, but He promised to be with us in these times of problems, trials, pain and suffering. That is why He is called the “Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.”

Yes, Christmas is about God’s unexpected kindness, and His gift to us… His very self.

As we celebrate this Christmas, let us remember the real spirit of this season. It is the unexpected gift of God and single truth that He wanted to show us: that we are loved. And hopefully this love would rouse us from deep slumber and awaken our capacity for goodness, generosity, kindness, patience, and forgiveness. — Rai Mendoza

Ang Pinakamahabang Pasko: Ang Kwento ng Paskong Pilipino

JesCom Television Special (please watch! I am included here)






The Philippines holds the distinction of having the longest Christmas season in the world. For many Pinoys, Christmas holiday begins as soon as the first 'ber' month, September, sets in. Formally though, it begins on the first day of the Christmas Novena on December 16 and ends on the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6, thus making it a 21-day festivity. We inherited Christmas from the Spanish who first introduced it to us in the 16th century . From being a strictly religious ritual, Christmas has now become the most anticipated event of the year celebrated by Filipinos wherever in the world they may be. In honor of the world's longest (and best) Christmas celebration, Jesuit Communications presents Ang Pinakamahabang Pasko (The Longest Christmas). This special takes a more intimate look into the Filipinos' most beloved season, mapping out the origins of Christmas as it was handed down to us by the Spanish missionaries 500 years ago, as well as its evolution into the Christmas that we know and celebrate today. Shot entirely in HD (High Definition), this 45-minute documentary features full-scale re-enactments of Christmas celebrations of old, providing the audience with cutting edge cinematic viewing experience. Hosted by Atom Araullo and Nikki Gil, Ang Pinakamahabang Pasko will air on Christmas Day, December 25, 2008, 6 to 7PM on Studio 23.

Truth About Santa

Sorry to the little kids (or to the grown ups who still believe in this). Im playing the Scrooge now. Just a thought about Santa Claus and his Elves...

There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each.

Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house.

Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for these calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks.

This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second - 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15
miles per hour.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element.Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousands tons, not counting Santa. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more
than 300 pounds.

Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done with 8 or even 9 of them - Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times
the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). 600,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere.

The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake.

The entire reindeer team would be vaporised within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.

Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.

Struggling With An Absent God

It was a rainy monday evening, I met my friend, a well respected and admired man in his thirties, inside a chapel. Those close to him knew he was going through a much troubled period. It was a time of such change and turmoil in his life that the good man did not know where to turn. He felt he had lost his bearings, that the things which he believed were secure expressions of God’s will were falling away, and so many of the familiar landmarks of the horizon of his faith had vanished. And yet he was expected to be leading more than a hundred of people into the future, into what he saw only as a dark, trackless future.

Somewhere in the middle of his prayer I heard his voice took on an unaccustomed intensity. “Bro... each morning my prayer has become only this: ‘God, where are you? Are you here? And if you are, on whose side are you? I ask you, and you do not answer me. I no longer know where to turn.’ (His voice broke, for a second.) All I say is: God, where are you?’ over and over again.” – A hush: I had never experienced a silence as charged and responding as the one that filled the chapel that evening. The memory moves me still. Some months later, this man succumbed to depression and ended his life.

Sometime or other in our lives, with many of us at least, we have gone through some comparable experience of anguish, the experience of the absence of God. A moment of failure, when our best-laid plans collapse like a house of cards around us. The death of a loved one, when all at once there is a void in the center of our life, and everything has lost meaning for us. Or, moments after we have been told we have a terminal illness, and only a few months of life left to us. We are tempted to question God. We reach out to him, to hear an answer. We seek the sound of his word or the touch of his hand, the reassurance that he is there and things will go well with us. But we cannot find him. It seems he is not there.

Why does this God who says in the sacred books that he loves us, why does he make himself difficult to find? Why does he hide himself from those who are seeking him, searching for his will, asking to be guided by even a word from his lips, – an answer, an explanation? Why does he make it so painfully difficult, even for his friends? St. Augustine wrote that our hearts are made for God, and cannot find rest until they rest in him. And yet, so difficult it is for men and women to find God, that often, they end up by spending years, sometimes long wandering years, turning away from him, running away from him, avoiding his scrutiny of their thoughts and deeds and lives. Or, if they keep searching, for years they feel their ways in the darkness, assailed by fears and terrors, seeking God amid seeming signs of his creation and presence, but God always out of sight and out of hearing. “Show us the Father,” Philip said to Jesus, “and it is enough.” (John 14:8)

The books of the antiquity of every people and culture, it has been said, are filled with the restless human search for an absent God, a search usually pursued from the crucible of pain. One thinks of the words from Aechylus which Robert Kennedy loved: “And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart… “Even the Bible enshrines the story of the just man Job, who from the midst of innocent suffering confronts God and wrestles with him in spirit, seeking answers – answers which God, even at the end, does not give him.

What comes to my mind is the picture of the stable, the crib, the mother and the Child – is really the answer God finally gives us. His answer is not an explanation; it is not a series of words spoken to our inquiring minds. We still do not comprehend the world, and we are not going to. It is, and remains for us, a mystery, a confused interplay of light and darkness. “God does not give us explanations; he gives us a Son. He gives up his Son for us.” (Austin Farrer) This Son has come to our world, to a little country town. He has come, and “because there was no room in the inn,” he is born in a stable. “Born of a woman, born under the law,” he came in the nature of man, in the form of a child. His mother: a village girl, about sixteen (it seems), from Nazareth. “…And this shall be a sign unto you: you shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger.” No, not an explanation. Not more words, but the Word, the Word-made-flesh, come to dwell with us, come to be one with us and to share our lives, all of our lives. Not an explanation, but a presence. Emmanuel, God who abides with us, who abides with us always, forevermore.

What does it mean, this event which is holy mystery? O, at this point one is tempted to draw out, at length, its meaning. Preachers at Christmas do this laudably, with eloquence and beauty. But it is a temptation to be resisted. At Christmas night, of all nights, it must be resisted.

Instead, we will do to Bethlehem with the shepherds to whom the tidings were first announced. With them we will enter the stable, and like them, fall on our knees. And in the stillness, we shall look; we shall behold:

But see the Virgin blest
Hath laid her babe to rest.

After all the long ages waiting God has come to us, in this child. The young mother – her name is Mary – lays him in the manger.

Come, let us adore him. That is all we need to do. Venite. Venite adoremus Dominum.