God called you in Christ to be united to his Son. This dignity derives from God’s unmerited choice of you to belong to God’s holy people. The first and most important truth about you Filipino Catholic laity is not poverty but the greatness of your dignity. Like the sun that dies every evening, it will rise again from the dead–Horacio de la Costa, SJ. As long as there remains in these islands one mother to sing Nena’s lullaby, one priest to stand at the altar and offer God to God, this nation may be conquered, trampled upon, enslaved but it cannot perish. Poor as we are, this pauper among the nations of the earth hides two jewels in her rags. The typhoon left us dazed and lost groping in the dark for answers and explanation.

The devastation that typhoon Yolanda brought upon our brothers and sisters in Samar and Leyte has created surges of pain and anguish all over our land and even beyond our shores. If we were given an opportunity to describe the situation of the Catholic laity in the Philippines, it would be the paradox of poverty and abundance. It is a struggle to live and, often, to live with precious little dignity”. Pope Francis says “The joy of living frequently fades, lack of respect for others and violence are on the rise, and inequality is increasingly evident. The Year 2014 will be the YEAR OF THE LAITY. For the year 2013, we celebrated the Year of Faith provided by then Pope Benedict XVI.

In preparation for the celebration of this providential event of the first arrival of Christianity in our shores, the Church in the Philippines has planned nine years of intensive evangelization, with a theme for every year. It was on this occasion that the queen, newly given the baptismal name of Juana was gifted by Magellan with a statue of the Santo Niño, which was later found in 1565 by soldiers of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, and is now preserved in the Basilica of the Santo Niño in Cebu. The king and his queen were subsequently baptized together with their followers. For in 1521, Ferdinand Magellan arrived in the Philippines, and in Cebu, he, a lay person, catechized King Humabon of Cebu, his wife and their people.

You already know surely that this coming 2021 we shall be celebrating the 500th year of the arrival of Christianity in the Philippines. Pastoral Exhortation of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines for the 2014 Year of the Laity

Brave church philippine