Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem

As some of you may know, one of my personal hobbies is designing liturgical books — especially Orders of Holy Mass and other texts for liturgical use. In the past, I relied on Microsoft Word to edit and compile these works. Recently, however, I have begun transitioning to LaTeX, a powerful typesetting system commonly used for theses, academic articles, and books. One of its greatest strengths is the ability to extend functionality through packages. To my delight, I discovered a LaTeX package specifically designed for liturgical use within the Church. It is called “liturg”, and can be easily added using this command: \usepackage{liturg} Until now, I have completed two projects using LaTeX: an Order of Holy Mass in Latin (Novus Ordo), and the Pre-1955 Good Friday Mass of the Presanctified. I have also set up a dedicated GitHub repository and a simple  dedicated website to host both the compiled PDFs and the TeX source files, so this will be my “Liturgical Database”.

Our faith is found in this Eastertide season, which is the embodiment of Incarnation, death and resurrection of God’s Divine Son for man’s sake. Do we believe that this is the greatest proof of love for us that even the almighty God could give? Yes, He has given it as we just celebrated the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday. The Jesus we meet nowadays is the aliveness of the Risen Lord. All the Gospel accounts emphasize the “aliveness”, the aliveness of the Risen Lord. Now, what do I mean by aliveness? He walks; He eats; He touches; He talks; He shows affection; He responds to the situations according to the reality of the current situation; He talks about what people are doing and uses that present moment to move into the life of their heart. Because of the aliveness of the Risen Lord and as a necessary consequence from the act of divine love, I am sure that we are guaranteed our resurrection from this uncertain and challenging times. Today, in this Eastertide se...

As I reflect upon Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, three things in particular bring me encouragement: First is the image of the People of God as sheep calls to mind our frailty and vulnerability. Though we may think ourselves strong, we are, in truth, weak and dependent. In these days, we are reminded all the more how easily health, wealth, and even our loved ones may be taken from us. Yet we are invited to place our trust in the constant and unfailing love of God. Then in the Sacred Scripture, Our Lord is revealed both as the Good Shepherd and as the Gate of the sheepfold. In the time of the New Testament, sheep belonging to various shepherds were often gathered together within one fold. This image teaches us that the People of God are not separated from the world, but live within it. As members of His flock, we are called to care for one another, mindful that all share the same frailty. Christ Himself stands as the guardian of the flock, watching over all, and loving each soul withou...

The confessional is truly a sacred space. It is a doorway into the inner sanctuary of the human soul and the heart’s point of entry for Divine Light. No one should be left to carry the burden of sin alone. The weight of our sinful choices and actions can press heavily upon our hearts and lives, wounding us interiorly and distancing us from God and from one another. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is the place where the wounded come to be healed. It is there that they acknowledge their wounds and receive healing and peace through the forgiveness of the God of infinite love. During His earthly ministry, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, exercised this divine authority to forgive sins: “Your sins are forgiven” On the evening of Easter, He entrusted this same power to His Apostles when He appeared among them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained”. In this moment, Christ instituted the Sacrament of Reco...

Life isn’t about keeping score. It’s not about how many people call you and it’s not about who you’ve dated, are dating or haven’t dated at all. It isn’t about who you’ve kissed, what sport you play, or which guy or girl likes you. It’s not about your shoes or your hair or the color of your skin or where you live or go to school. In fact, it’s not about grades, money, clothes or colleges that accept you or not. Life isn’t about if you have lots of friends, or if you are alone, and it’s not about how accepted or not accepted you are. Life just isn’t about that. But life is about who you love and who you hurt. It’s about how you feel about yourself. It’s about trust, happiness and compassion. It’s about sticking up for your friends and replacing inner hate with love. Life is about avoiding jealousy, overcoming ignorance and building confidence. It’s about what you say and what you mean. It’s about seeing people for who they are and not what they have. Most of all, it is about choosing to...

Welcome to Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week! For me, this year’s Holy Week will be especially different and meaningful, as it is my first time spending Holy Week here in Walsingham. Today, we welcomed a group of Filipino Catholic faithful who came here to Walsingham on pilgrimage. This is also the first major pilgrimage of the year. We are also expecting the Pilgrim Cross group to arrive this coming Friday. They will be staying with us during the Easter Triduum — Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. It is often said that, as we follow Jesus through Holy Week, we are faced with a choice. We can choose to be bystanders -- part of the crowd, keeping a safe distance. We can shout “Hosanna!” enthusiastically on Palm Sunday, and then, just a few days later, cry out even more loudly, “Crucify Him!” Or we can choose to be followers -- like Our Lady and Saint John, standing faithfully at the foot of the Cross; like Veronica, who wiped the face of Jesus with her veil; or even...

I had a discussion with my friends few months ago about how to evangilizing someone to let them know about the Catholic faith, many of them had their own ideas, but I want to share my idea which is a very good example about evangilizing people. I remembered when I was in secondary school while I’m having my lunchbreak, I usually pray the rosary in the playground, then one day one of my classmate saw me praying the rosary, then he come over to me and asking what I’m doing, I told him that I’m praying the rosary, because my classmate is a non-Catholic, he was very interest about the rosary, so I briefly explained to him, after that, he decided to pray the rosary together with me then eventually, he was baptized as Catholic few years ago. Deo Gratias! Jesus told us to spread the Gospel into the world, we should also know how to evangilize to the people, many people think they didn’t know more about the Gospel, it dosen’t matter, if you know how to pray, especially the rosary, try to pray ...