The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 27,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Christ the Lord, the Savior of the world, lying in the manger, is the light and life that the Father wants to give us so that God’s own divine life might flow through us and his divine light shine within us. He is the face of the Father’s mercy (MV 1). He frees us from guilt and gives us life that will not end so that we might live with him in the splendor of his Father forever.
May the celebration of His birth, the wonder of His love, and the presence of Emmanuel, God with us, overcome every manifestation of our indifference and transform it into manifestations of our passionate love for Christ and His people.
May Christ’s love touch our hearts this Christmas. May it help us to appreciate the value of every human person – young or old, healthy or sick, born or unborn. May Christ’s love inspire us to create a society where all are treated fairly, where no one goes hungry or in need and where everybody is honored with the dignity due to the children of God.
Wishing you a Blessed Christmas and Grace filled New Year 2016!
What is the Year of mercy?
“Jesus Christ is the face of the father’s mercy.”
With these words, Pope Francis announced a Holy Year of Mercy beginning on Dec. 8,2015 – the feast of the Immaculate Conception – and ending on the feast Christ the King on Nov. 20, 2016.
Mercy lies at the very heart of the Christian message. Pope Francis envisions a year in which we will become more merciful in own own lives and share God’s mercy with others. In this Year of mercy, we are called to bring consolation to the poor, liberty to those bound by new forms of slavery in our society, spiritual sight to those who have lost touch with God, and human dignity to those most in need.
Tanauan is one of the oldest towns in the Province of Leyte, Philippines dating back to the year 1710. It is a second class municipality composed of fifty-four (54) barangays. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 50,119 people. The town has been baptized the title of “Cradle of the Intellectuals” or “Bungto Han Kamag-araman” since the Spanish colonial period. Tanauan is approximately eighteen (18) kilometers south of Tacloban City which is the Capital of the Eastern Visayas Region. It is bounded on the north by the Municipality of Palo, on the south by the Municipality of Tolosa, on the west by the Municipalities of Dagami and Tabon-Tabon, and on the east by San Pedro Bay. The town was heavily damaged by Super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) in November 2013. (From Wikipedia)
Recently, the Priests of the Sacred Heart in the Philippines, who helped the victims of Typhoon Yolanda in Tanauwan, received a plaque of “Thank you” from the Local Government of the said town. The group of seminarians from Dehon House in Quezon City, under the guidance of Fr. Delio Ruiz, SCJ, spent their Christmas break extending their help to those who lost everything they had, including members of their families. Here the SCJ Philippine Region would like to thank all those, who through their generosity and open hearts made it possible.
St. Francis Xavier, (1506-1552). Born in the family castle of Xavier, near Pamplona in the Basque area of Spanish Navarre on Apr. 7, he was sent to the University of Paris in 1525, secured his licentiate in 1528, met Ignatius Loyola and became one of the seven who in 1534, at Montmartre founded the Society of Jesus. In 1536 he left Paris to join Ignatius in Venice, from whence they all intended to go as missionaries to Palestine (a trip which never materialized), was ordained there in 1537, went to Rome in 1538, and in 1540, when the pope formally recognized the Society, was ordered, with Fr. Simon Rodriguez, to the Far East as the first Jesuit missionaries. King John III kept Fr. Simon in Lisbon, but Francis, after a year’s voyage, six months of which were spent at Mozambique where he preached and gave aid to the sick eventually arrived in Goa, India in 1542 with Fr. Paul of Camerino an Italian, and Francis Mansihas, a Portuguese. There he began preaching to the natives and attempted to reform his fellow Europeans, living among the natives and adopting their customs on his travels. During the next decade he converted tens of thousands to Christianity. He visited the Paravas at the tip of India. near Cape Comorin, Tuticorin (1542), Malacca (1545), the Moluccas near New Guinea and Morotai near the Philippines (1546-47), and Japan (1549- 51). In 1551, India and the East were set up as a separate province and Ignatius made Francis its first provincial. In 1552 he set out for China, landed on the island of Sancian within sight of his goal, but died before he reached the mainland. Working against great difficulties, language problems ( contrary to legend, he had no proficiency in foreign tongues ), inadequate funds, and lack of cooperation, often actual resistance, from European officials, he left the mark of his missionary zeal and energy on areas which clung to Christianity for centuries. He was canonized in 1622 and proclaimed patron of all foreign missions by Pope Pius X.
SCJ Philippines Region 