He is Risen!

Happy Easter Everyone!!!



After 40 days of preparation, we are now celebrating and at the same time entering the season of easter.
This season, we remember Christ's Resurrection.


This past weeks we are in the mood of sadness because we remembered the passion and death of our lord.
His great sacrifice,
His passion,
His agony,
His death...

This are the things that we focused during lent.
Jesus' immeasurable love for us.
He loves us so much, that He sacrifice even His own life on each and everyone of us, even though we are not deserving of such sacrifices.

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The Victory

The whole world now celebrating the MOST important celebration of the year.
The church have lots of feast celebrated every year, but this occasion is the feast above all the feast.
The center of our faith, It is more important even than Christmas.

Jesus' Triumphant victory over death,..
manifested that He is the Lord..

The fulfillment of the scriptures,..

From the darkness of death here comes our light.. The light that we will see in Jesus.


In all the masses of the church, the easter vigil is the longest and most dramatic.

Why dramatic??

The mass starts not inside the church, but outside.
Outside there will be a bonfire.



The fire will be blessed, and from that fire the "paschal candle" will be lightened.

The paschal candles symbolizes Jesus as our light that defeats that darkness.

From outside the candle will be brought inside the church, the priest holding the candle will stop 3 times and will say, "Christ our Light" or "Light of Christ" and the people will response "thanks be to God".

all of this happening while all the light of the church turned off, the only light you will see is the fire from the paschal candle. from that fire the people will light their own candle.

How beautiful it is to see that slowly the fire of the candle passed to each people to light their own candle.
Its like the light of Jesus will light up the whole church.

At the altar, the priest will sing the 'Exultet' or the easter proclamation.

After this the liturgy of the word begins, the candle of the people needs to be blown while the light still off and the darkness covering the whole church...

7 readings and 7 responsorial psalm....

after all this reading the Gloria is sung for the first time since the beginning of lent, at the same time the light of the whole church will now turned on. Symbolizing that Jesus conquers and reign victorious over darkness and death...

And the celebration will go on, we also renew our baptismal vows during this mass....
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That is how dramatic it is..

Some will ask why??

Why we need to do this?

If someone will ask me that question, i might probably answer him. Why not??


We are celebrating our salvation, The victory of our champion, Jesus.
This is the center of our faith, that Jesus is alive, risen from the death.

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The story of Jesus in this world does not end in passion and death.
Remember He is risen.

There is a famous saying," In every good Friday there is an easter Sunday".

In everything that you've been through, all the problems, trials and things that you might face.
do not forget there is a resurrection.

Jesus is our light,
Jesus is our life,

We must reflect the light coming from Jesus, so that this world will not always see darkness but light,
The light that guides us,
the light that defeats the darkness of evil.

So with all the trials, problems, anxiety, believe that the story does not end there,
Have faith that like Jesus our Lord, we will have our own resurrection in our life,
and like Jesus, our story will also end up VICTORIOUS!!

May your life be truly blessed,

Ash

Unconquerable Love

Lent is the time when the church changes its color into purple.

Its is also the time when flowers are not permitted to be in the altar, the church also does not allow us to use loud instruments and does not allows us to sing the alleluia and the gloria.

In spite of all of these that the church removes all the symbols of happiness, the church still calls this season as the season of Joy. The joyful season of Lent.

When we said Lent, that is a german term which means spring time.

A new hope, a dawn of a great future.The coming of something that is beautiful and wonderful.

Cuaresma is comes from the word cuadragesima and cuarenta which means forty days, and in the bible when we said forty it is a time of purification.

During the time of noah, the rain falls on forty days and forty nights, as if to kill every creature in order for a new beginning to come.

It is a days of purification and reparation.

Days of destroying the old so that something new may be built.

Lent starts during ash Wednesday, but if you notice before, the formula that the church use was "Remember man that you are dust and to dust you shall return".

It emphasized that we are just a dust, it emphasized that we are sinful and unworthy in front of God.

But that has been change, the formula we are using now says, "Turn away from sins, and believe on the good news." which means truly we are dust, truly we are sinful, truly we are nothing but we are so much valued be God that He has given his likeness to all of us, and more than that, because of you His beloved Son offers His life.

Forty days wants to tell us, Hey, you are not just an ordinary, you are not cheap, you are now a child of God. You can now claim the Lord as your father and you are an heir of His kingdom.

What is the good news of lent?

.. The good news is that we still have hope..

During Holy week, the liturgy that was emphasized was the Palm Sunday, when actually the church calls it Passion Sunday, and I will tell you why. Truly we remembered how he was welcomed with palms into the city of Jerusalem but the church also wants to tell us that it is the day that we read the Passion of Jesus. The pain and the suffering that He embraced for us sinners. But I think what we should remember is this, that even as we remember the pains He had to go through, we should remember the love that pushed Him to embrace all of these.

Passion Sunday can be defined as two things:

Passion, suffering and pain of Jesus and

Passion as a tremendous love that pushed Him to claim the punishment that should be ours.

Thats why as we enter into the Holy week, It begins in telling us of what this God can do for us. We should be amazed by all these, that sense of thanksgiving, that sense of saying "Lord, we are nothing without You".

That is why when we said Holy week, it is the days most solemn to the church.

On Maundy Thursday, we celebrate two things the anniversary of the priests and the feast of the institution of the Holy Eucharist. Because on that day during the last supper which we commemorate in the mass, Jesus in a   manner that is not bloody, decided to offer Himself. When He took the bread and said It is my Body and when he took the cup and said It is my blood, that is an offering of Himself but not in a bloody manner, that he will be fulfilled the next day during good friday on the cross when his body will be broken and when His blood will be poured. We must see the connection between that Maundy Thursday and the Good Friday.

When Good Friday comes, We dont have a mass but we have what we called the Veneration of the Cross. Why? Because during the early times the cross symbolized defeat and too much punishment but Christ went through that not because of anything else but because He can accept anything for you and for me.

That is why on the day of Good Friday, we kiss the cross and not only we kiss the cross, on that day all catholics kneel and genuflect before the cross to say "Lord this is the symbol of your unconquerable love for us" it is also the symbol of the victory of love. The cross becomes not a symbol of defeat but a symbol of unconquerable Love.

and on the evening of Saturday, we will remember all of what He did that we think is defeat, in the day of black Saturday we will be told, He conquers not only darkness, He conquers not only sin, He conquers even death. 

May your life be truly blessed,

Ash

inspired by fr. Mar

When the Purple turns Red

After 5 weeks of preparation, now the Holy week comes again..


With the same message every year...

Holy Week begins with the sixth Sunday in Lent.  This Sunday observes the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem that was marked by the crowds who were in Jerusalem for Passover waving palm branches and proclaiming him as the messianic king. The Gospels tell us that Jesus rode into the city on a donkey, enacting the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9, and in so doing emphasized the humility that was to characterize the Kingdom he proclaimed. The irony of his acceptance as the new Davidic King (Mark 11:10) by the crowds who would only five days later cry for his execution should be a sobering reminder of the human tendency to want God on our own terms.

Traditionally, worshippers enact the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem by the waving of palm branches and singing songs of celebration. Sometimes this is accompanied by a processional into the church.  In many churches, children are an integral part of this service since they enjoy processions and activity as a part of worship. This provides a good opportunity to involve them in the worship life of the community of Faith. In many more liturgical churches, children are encouraged to craft palm leaves that were used for the Sunday processional into crosses to help make the connection between the celebration of Palm Sunday and the impending events of Holy Week.


From the usual color of lent which is purple..


The color of the church will now turn into RED.


Red symbolizes the blood of Jesus.


The blood that shed for us..
The blood that He offers for us..
The blood that saves us..
The blood that symbolize His unending love for us, His sacrifice for our salvation.


Let us make this week meaningful, and be thankful to the Lord, for all things He has done for us.




Tomorrow, as we remember the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.
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Let us pray for each other and let Jesus enters your heart triumphantly.


May Your life be truly Blessed,

Ash