National Laity Week Launching

“Journeying Together and Reflecting Together on the Journey that has been made… Communion, Participation, and Mission”

7:00 – 8:15 am Registration Breakfast/snacks

8:15 -8:55 am RCAM Historical Film Viewing Philippine National Anthem

RCAM Panalangin ng Laiko

Welcome Remarks MR. TEODORO G SANTIAGO
RCAM-CLM Interim President

Presentation of Delegates BRO. XAVY PADILLA
P.R.O.
Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas (LAIKO)

The “Buling-Buling” Dance STO. NIÑO PARISH, PANDACAN

9:00-10:30 Eucharistic Celebration HIS EMINENCE JOSE F. CARDINAL ADVINCULA, D.D.
Archbishop of Manila

PROGRAM

10:30-12:00 Introduction of Guest Speaker MR. RAYMOND DANIEL CRUZ, JR
National President
Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas (LAIKO)

Guest Speaker DR. EDWIN ODULIO Senior Consultant
John J. Caroll Institute on Church and Social Issues (ICSI)

12:00 -1:00 Lunch Break

1:00 – 1:45 Open Forum & Synthesis John J. Caroll Institute on Church and Social Issues and
LAIKO

1:45 – 2:00 Laity Response MS. MARY GRACE MERILLES
Vicariate Youth Coordinator
Vicariate of Espiritu Santo

Acknowledgements REV. FR. RUFINO SESCON, JR
Commissioner
RCAM Commission on Lay Formation

Missioning and HIS EXCELLENCY BISHOP ENRIQUE MACARAEG, D.D.
Closing Prayer Chairman,
Episcopal Commission on the Laity
Bishop of the Diocese of Tarlac
Final Hymn SANLIBONG BUHAY
NOEL CABANGON with
BUKAS-PALAD MUSIC MINISTRY
Based on the Prayer of San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila

HOME SWEET HOME
STAY SAFE AND GOD BLESS!

An Ecumenical Gathering on Our Commitment to Peace: Honoring Our Ecumenical Heroes and Partners

02 September 2022

Dear Fellow Peace Advocates,

Greetings of peace!

As we commemorate September as peace month and this year as the 50th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law, the Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform (PEPP) and the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) will be holding a liturgical gathering entitled “Our Commitment to Peace: Honoring our Ecumenical Heroes and Martyrs” on 21 September 2022, 1:00pm to 3:30pm at the Church of the Risen Lord, UP Campus, Diliman, Quezon City. After the activity, everyone is highly encouraged to join in solidarity with the multisectoral activity along the University Avenue at 4:00pm-7:00pm.

This activity aims to serve as a platform to celebrate the International Day of Peace by highlighting the People’s Right to Peace and to shun a return to Martial Law or similar schemes through various activities; and, call for the resumption of the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations.

With this, we cordially invite you to join us in this important work as part of our advocacy and ministry to celebrate and advocate for peace based on justice for the Filipino people. For inquiries and concerns, please reach out to the secretariat at 0927 630 3392 or email at peaceplatform2007@gmail.com. Attached with this invitation letter is the concept paper for your perusal. Thank you very much.

Always in pursuit of a just and lasting peace,

Statements of Support from Religious Discernment Group

Statements of Support
Religious Discernment Group Gathering
03 September 2022

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

Proverbs 31:8-9

May we speak for those who speak for us

As we are called to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves (Proverbs 31: 8-9), we are also called to speak for the human rights defenders who stand up for the rights of the voiceless and who seek truth and justice.

The Religious Discernment Group (RDG) is one in prayer and solidarity with the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP), Karapatan, and Gabriela in demanding the dismissal of the charges of perjury filed against these organizations and their officers by former National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr., at the Quezon City Municipal Trial Court Branch 139 in July 2, 2019.

The perjury charges were filed against the officers of the three organizations when they sought protection from the Supreme Court through the writs of amparo and habeas data. Filed a few weeks after the Court of Appeals denied the petitions for amparo and habeas data, the complaint against Karapatan and Gabriela was initially dismissed by Senior Assistant Prosecutor Nilo Penaflor on November 8, 2019. However, on February 24, 2020, City Prosecutor Vimar Barcellano reversed the resolution.

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Commentary: 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

THE GOD WHO SEEKS

Ex 32:7-11.13-14; Ps 51:3-4.12-13.17.19; 1 Tim 1:12-17; Lk 15:1-32

“Or what woman having ten coins . . .” (Lk 15:8

Some years ago in São Paulo, Brazil, a minister who worked with street children related how she was introducing them to Bible stories and helping them to reflect on them.  One day she told them the story of the Prodigal Son. She stopped at the point where the younger son decided to return home and she asked if he would be able to go back home. One young-ster finally spoke up. “It depends,” he said. “On what?” she asked. “On whether there is a mother in the house. If so, then she will work on the father and get him to finally accept the son back.” This boy had rightly intuited the cultural dy-namics of Jesus’ day, which perhaps matched those of his own family.

A father in a patriarchal culture whose son had so disgraced him, would have rent his garments and declared that son no longer one of his own. We find a very different sort of father in the gospel: more like a mother who watches and waits and runs to meet the wayward son when he finally appears on the horizon. Such an image ruptures any patriarchal images of God and keeps us from literalizing the metaphor “Father.”

Today’s gospel presses further in offering a fuller set of images of the Divine. God can also be likened to a shepherd (who could be either male of female) who diligently searches for a lost sheep. Jesus’ first hearers would have understood the great lengths to which that shepherd went, searching hith-er and yon for the lost one, and the great amount of energy it would take to hoist the heavy animal onto his shoulders and lug it back to the sheepfold. It is startling that instead of complaining he is filled with joy! A footnote to the story: some people worry about the ninety-nine left in the desert while the shepherd is off searching for the lost one. Jesus’ original audience would have known that a flock that size would have had more than one shepherd and the ninety-nine are not left untended. All are precious and are in the divine care.

Most often overlooked by homilists and biblical interpreters is the little parable in the middle of the trilogy. It mirrors the very same dynamics as the other two, this time proposing the image of a woman who searches intently for a lost coin. Just as a sheep and a son are so valuable that they must be sought out when lost and celebrated when found, so a drach-ma, that will feed the family for a day.  It is not a trivial bit of pocket change, nor is there any carelessness on the part of the woman. The point is that just as the shepherd goes to ex-traordinary lengths to find the lost sheep, so the woman uses precious lamp oil and searches unceasingly under stubborn cobblestones in the floor, until she finds where the errant coin has lodged. Shepherd, woman, and father are all equally good images for God, who expends great effort to procure the re-turn of the lost and who hosts an exuberant celebration in their honor.

The trilogy of parables in today’s gospel invites us to seek and retrieve the lost and overlooked female images of God. This enables a fuller experience of the divine, aids us in see-ing women as images of God, and keep us from idolatry, against which the first reading warns. Jesus himself invites us to stretch our imaginations, as he takes on the persona of Woman Wisdom in the opening verses of the gospel, where he is criticized for the company he keeps at table. Like Wom-an Wisdom (Prov 9:1-6), he has welcomed a scraggly array of all types to dine with him!  We can stay outside and grum-ble, or we can enter into the party and allow ourselves to be surprised by the host.

Barbara Reid, OP
Vice President and Academic Dean, CTU
© Catholic Theological Union, Chicago

“The 2nd National Priests’ Encounter affirms a renewed Cursillo Movement: a help in the renewal of the local church.”

“The 2nd National Priests’ Encounter affirms a renewed Cursillo Movement: a help in the renewal of the local church.”

RATIONALE

The Cursillos in Christianity Movement has been in its existence for 59 years in the Philippines which for times was phenomenal among movements and organization in the Church.

The Cursillistas adopts the lay, apostolate concept but sad to say no common understanding in different Arch/Dioceses.

Through the years, the experience of the Cursillo in the different Arch/Dioceses had led to different practices and such led to missing the purpose and essence of the movement.

MAIN OBJECTIVE

Re-introduction of the Cursillo Movement.

In response to the current situation in the Cursillo Movement in the Philippines, the Philippine National Cursillo Secretariat (PNCS) organized an encounter for priest, the Cursillos de Cristiandad 2nd National Priests’ Encounter, attended by 3 Bishops and 53 priests held at St. Francis Seraph Convent, Talisay City, Cebu on June 6-10, 2022, the clergy represented 25 Arch/Dioceses in the country.

His Excellency Jose S. Palma, D.D., Archbishop of Cebu celebrated the Opening Mass and Auxiliary Bishop-Emeritus of Cebu, Emilio L. Bataclan, former Spiritual Director of Cursillo in Cebu attended sessions during the Encounter.

The Archbishop of Durango, Mexico, Most Rev. Faustino Armendariz Jimenez was one of the speakers in the encounter. He is the Spiritual Advisor of the World Organization of the Cursillo Movement, the Organismo Mundial de Cursillos de Cristiandad (OMCC) in 4 years now. Another speaker was Juan Adolfo Moguel Ortiz, President of OMCC and Juan Ruiz, former President of OMCC and USA National Hispanic Coordinator.

From left, PNCS VP Jose “Pepe” Hilario, OMCC Pres. Juan Adolfo Ortiz, OMCC Spiritual Advisor Abp. Faustino Armendariz Jimenez, APG Pres. Margaret Morris, Former OMCC Pres. Juan Ruiz, APG VP Peter McMahon, PNCS Pres. Conrado “Boy” Dizon and PNCS Spiritual Advisor Msgr. Roberto Espenilla.

The topics in the encounter focused on the History, Charism, Purpose, Method and Structure of the Cursillo Movement. Margaret J. Morris, President of one of the international groups of Cursillo Movement, the Asia Pacific Group (APG) presented the scope and updates of the Movement and the Philippine Cursillo’s involvement. Margaret was joined in gracing and observing the encounter along with Peter McMahon, Vice-President of the APG; both from Australia.

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