Holy Week 2008 in Manila

Holy Week 2008 was a great time for me. I stayed in Manila and participated in the activities at Don Bosco during the Holy Week celebrations. Manila is a quiet place during Holy Week emptied as it is by people going to their respective provinces or to go to the beach. So it's a good place to stay in to keep silent and to meditate. Though this year my roommates stayed on in Manila so it wasn't as quiet as I would have wanted, it was okay as they left for Laguna Thursday afternoon.

Holy Tuesday, I was already on vacation leave. I wanted to finish my outline for the ebook I'm doing for an American client. Praise God, I was able to finish it that day and submitted it though my deadline was still on that Wednesday, March 19. I was actually a bit weak that Tuesday because I went on a juice fast starting Monday and I guess the effect of fasting started to come in that Tuesday. I slept and wrote and then slept again as I felt weak. But Wednesday, I had no problems with hunger. Dina, Nova and I spent the day at Caleruega in Batangas, a beautiful place that I really love. We stayed there and had silence and quiet to meditate, pray and talk a little. I was happy as it gave me time to look at where I am spiritually and as a whole in my life. When I tried to see if I am any better spiritually, I acknowledged that I had a lot of healing to do in the area of forgiveness (even now). I wasn't sure if I have grown any better spiritually but the words from "My Utmost for His Highest" reassured me. I don't have the copy now but it said something about the walk of faith not being of being always feeling high with the Lord but of walking and not getting tired. I understood it as walking with the Lord does not mean that you always feel you are any better for walking with Him but you just walk on without that reassurance of heaven, of being a good person. Because when we really come down to it, we really aren't any good anyways. I was also blessed with an insight into my writing career or call. I read the verse for that day for the Mass which came from Isaiah and it said something like, "The Lord has given me a well-trained tongue so that I may speak words that will rouse the many." I changed the "tongue" to "hand" referring to my writing and understood my writing as something to do with giving people life, giving people hope or encouragement, that through my writing I will be able to enable people to want to go on, or be given more verve in life.

Thursday afternoon, I attended the 6pm activities at Don Bosco then Ate Alice and I went to Manila Cathedral in Intramuros for Visita Iglesia. If we thought the Makati churches had many visitors to its churches last year, we got the shock of our life when we went to Intramuros—it looked like Divisoria. There were so many people coming in and out, and even across the street and going to San Agustin, the neighboring cathedral and the oldest church in the country. But we were able to do our Way of the Cross. We even got to kiss the cross that had a relic from the true cross. Then we went to San Agustin and I was surprised at what I saw. There are tombstones or markers at the foot of the side altars. I found it really eerie after I noticed that I was actually walking on squarish lapidas of long dead people. There is even one chapel to the left of the church that's the burial site of the Ayalas. On our way there, Ate and I prayed the Rosary and then when we went home we prayed the Chaplet of Mercy. That was the first time I got introduced to the chaplet and I liked it especially bec we listened to a recording and it had readings from Sr. Faustina's diary which I found helpful and edifying. We arrived around midnight.

Friday I watched the 12 noon of Jesus' Last Seven Words. Rissa was there (my editor-in-chief) and her talk was really good. Something to do with Mother Mary and she related it to her mother having alzheimer, how those who still have mothers be patient with them, how those who don't have mothers (or whose mothers have rejected them) turn to Mary as their own mother. I cried a little there as I don't have a mother anymore. Then I attended the 3pm services at Don Bosco. We had a longish procession afterwards. Then I watched the Kerygma Lenten Special on ABC 5. It was really, really good. The show focused on the theme of that Friday being a time of darkness (Jesus being dead), how we accompany Him and how some people (the people featured in the show) encountered Jesus during their darkness. There was an ex-gay, a former male prostitute, a woman who hacked her husband and was imprisoned for 10 years, and another who lost his leg in a freak golf accident and lost along with it, his wife and his children. I agreed with Ate Chelle that Sunday when I saw her and congratulated her again (she's the administrator for Kerygma TV) that it deserves a CMMA Award. Papa Domy texted me after and thanked me for asking me to watch the show as he said it blessed him.

I worked on that Saturday on the ebook. Sunday, I served as lector for three Masses at the Feast. I initially wanted to attend the Salubong at Don Bosco but I was called to serve Friday to be a reader for the three Masses at the Feast so I agreed as my little offering for Jojo's birthday that Saturday and for Zon, Jojo's son who had his birthday that Easter Sunday. It turned out, I even did all the readings for the 3rd Mass as the other reader didn't show up. That made me happy. When you read and listen again and again to Scripture, the words become clearer in the mind and in the heart. It is true that there is some cloud or veil when I initially read parts of Scripture. I guess because I am a sinner and unwilling to face to the truth. It takes courage to read the Scripture. At the third reading, the words sink deeper and gives more meaning.

The Holy Week was a great time for me. I found it a time of refreshing and renewal in the Lord. I feel that I have a new lease now in my spiritual life—a desire to be better in my walk with the Lord and in my relationship with others. God is good!!!