April , 2011 EASTER & MEDJUGORJE

Happy and joyous Easter is celebrated today. Easter commemorates the triumphant Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It represents new life and new beginnings, the ultimate realization of hope during the 40-day period of Lent. Once again, we are reminded to focus our attention and energies to hope which is the mark of every Christian.

Amidst the ringing of church bells, lovely potted white lilies adorning main altars and the hugs and kisses of family, relations and friends today, my memory trails back to my visit to Medjugore in 1997. Why? Because I associate an unforgettable experience there with Easter.

Having read and heard so much about the apparition of our Blessed Mother in Medjugore, Gloria Reyes (may she rest in peace), a former co-teacher and I went on a pilgrimage there. At that time, 1997, a war was waging in Yugoslavia among the different states that comprised the country. Croatia was a principal protagonist in the dispute. The strong-willed woman that I was and still am, I went on with the trip with someone whose temperament matched mine. I guess the similarity of our attitude towards life made our friendshhip last for so long. True to newspaper reports, we could hear distant war sounds of boom-boom-boom from all sorts of weapons even as we landed in the airport. I was unnerved. I felt secure in the thought that our Lord and Blessed Mother will always take care of us.

Medjugorje is a village surrounded by mountains and hills. A huge white cross stands majestic on top of a mountain. I learned that the Cross was placed there through the painstaking work fo villagers way back in the 1930's. They did not know then that what they did would play an important role in the relatively recent apparitions of the Blessed Virgin to some youth.

APRIL 23.2011 - OLIVE LEAVES - GETHSEMANE

It is the wee hours of Holy Saturday, 4:23 AM. The activities and TV shows about Good Friday kept me tossing in bed. Sleep stayed away. Among other things, Cielo and I watched the classic film, "The Passion of the Christ" produced by Mel Gibson. Though I had seen it a few times before, I was still so moved by the exceptionally dramatic portrayal of Jesus' last hours. Slowly, the Holy Land sites pertinent to the Passion and Death of Christ unfolded in my mind. I was there! Thank God for the privilege of having walked on the very ground where Jesus walked, seen the scenery which displayed before His eyes on a day-to-day basis and touched some objects whereupon His hands had lain! Praise the Lord!

I remembered having walked the Bethpage route which Jesus took when He entered Jerusalem. Under the noonday sun, our group followed the way in silence minus the joyous cries of "Hossana, Hossana! Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord!" Without palm branches, too. I prayed and felt sad remembering that the same crowd that hailed Jesus then was the same one who condemmed Him to be crucified. How fickle-minded can man be? How shallow can man's conviction be? How strong can the force of evil be on man's readiness to compromise? I shook my head in sadness....and in disgust.

The Church of All Nations could be seen as the tour bus climbed up Mount Olives. It was built on the place where Jesus communed with His Father during His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. The significance of the suffering of Christ is so poignantly made more alive and felt by the darkness that pervaded inside the church. The pale stained-glass windows permitted only a slight glow of the bright sun outside. I believed it was done on purpose. The main altar table was supported by a central structure shaped like a cup since the agony of Jesus is known to be the "Cup of Suffering" for the redemption of mankind. This truth is part of our Christian heritage. Right before the altar lay a large section of rocks bordered by a low (about 10 inches tall) of iron fence of thorns. This was the place where Jesus prayed and sweat blood. The flow of tears by many pilgrims was natural. I spent sometime in the Adoration Chapel which was located on the left side of the church parallel to the main altar. Some thousnd-year-old olive trees could be seen in the courtyard but were protected by flat iron sheets so that it was impossible for any pilgrim to even reach out to pick a leaf.

I espressed my earnest desire to have olive leaves right from the Garden of Gethsemane to Benji Shavit, our guide who actually owned the travel agency in Jerusalem. He said that he knew the "caretaker" and would talk to him about the matter. He added that maybe a small reward would facilitate the request. Without hesitation, I handed a sizeable reward. Within minutes, a smiling bearded middle-aged man came out with Benji. After the usual introductions, he took me across the street from the All Nations Church area and opened a wide huge iron gate with chains larger than the size of my wrists. Lo and behold! Before me lay a large tract of land covered with olive trees whose gnarled roots sprawled above ground. My heart was pounding with excitement! He called a teen-aged boy before we entered. As we walked along the grove, he explained in very good English that most of the trees were more than a thousand years old. He asked the boy to climb up. I watched him break some tiny branches and twigs profuse with olive leaves. I was almost mesmerized with the thought that I was inside the Garden of Gethsemane and that I was witnessing the gathering of olive leaves right from the aged gigantic olive trees! My heart was panting in prayer, "Thank you, God. You are so good to me!"

I shared the olive leaves with the other pilgrims, my family, relations and friends. Do you know something? The olive leaves I have kept since 1994, my first visit to the Garden of Gethsemane are still GREEN up to this date - May 23, 2011. In my succeeding visits to Israel in 1995 and 1999, I was able to get olive leaves through the help of the caretaker. Praise the Lord! But during my first visit to the Holy Land in 1977, I was not able to go to the Garden of Gethsemane. Neither was I able to go to Gethsemane in 2005 when I joined a pilgrimage because of a happening which I will relate in a separate blog.

APRIL 21, 2011 - HOLY THURSDAY

Today is Holy Thursday, the start of the Tridium of Lent. Through the wonderful medium of the Eternal Word Television Network, the Catholic TV founded by Mother Angelica, I was able to attend via satellite the Holy Mass of the Lord's Supper officiated by Pope Benedict XVI at St. Peter's Square in Rome. It was wonderful! For more than two hours, I felt myself at the place again witnessing a most important ceremony which involved the enactment of Jesus' washing the apostles' feet.

The Catholic Church commemorates on Holy Thursday Jesus' Last Supper and the institution of the Holy Eucharist through the sharing of His Body and Blood. Also, He gave the apostles, in fact the whole mankind, a new commandment, "To love one another as I have loved you." Jesus, Lord and Master, washing the apostles' feet was a manifestation of the version of His love.

The celebration of Holy Week has been an important part of my life since childhood. As far as I can remember, I have kept the observance of the Tridium of Lent yearly through the years even to the extent of purposely being off from work during those days. But one unforgettable year stands out, 1997, when I was on a pilgrimage with my "balae," Lily and Bing to Caracas, Venezuela. We even had to fly from Caracas to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico on Good Friday. While we attended Mass, I missed the usual activities, Stations of the Cross, Visita Iglesia (visiting of churches)and Seven Last Words Service. This unprecedented experience caused me so much guilty feelings that took a long time to wear off.

Today's Readings dealt on Jesus' instructions regarding the place where they would eat the Passover meal. In Church history, we call it, "The Upper Room." Every pilgrimage to the Holy Land always include a visit to the Upper Room because of its tremendous significance to Christianity.

I recall that during my first visit to the Holy Land in 1977, my time constraints prevented my friends, Ruth and Israel Beit-Halachmi, from taking me to the Upper Room. They were my seatmates in an Air France flight to Geneva, Switzerland in 1977. It was remarkable that they were professed Jews but were so knowledgeable about Jesus and the places associated with Him. In fact, though they resided in Tel-Aviv, they visited Bethlehem three times during Christmas because the Catholics, Greek and Armenian churches celebrate the feastday at different dates based on their own calendar. They took me to their classy boutique of hand-painted glazed glass souvenirs and other artifacts right in Jerusalem. It was the outlet for the goods they themselves manufactured. Was I surprised! Through correspondence, phone calls and my visits to Israel (five times todate) our friendship has withstood time.

During my second visit to the Holy Land in 1994, Regina Tours had the Upper Room in the itinerary. After following the Bethpage route of Jesus and the visit to the Chapel of Dominus Flevit where Jesus wept, our group went to Mount Zion. The Upper Room was located in a building with several entryways. At one door was a man who handed each pilgrim a cap similar to the ones Jewish men used and asked for a dollar. It seemed a requirement before one entered the place of the supposed tomb of David. Dutifully, we paid our dues. Much to my chagrin, the room was so small and narrow just enough for a supposed coffin covered with silk purple cloth. We passed through the room following the length of the box with barely 12 inches away from touching it. A few brass items laid nearby, I wondered whether it was a room or really a tomb. But why was it being used as a passageway to the Upper Room? I knew that David was one of the revered and best loved among the kings of Israel and could not believe that he would be honored in such a manner by the Jewish nation even if the tomb was real or otherwise. I harbored misgivings about it knowing that some unscrupolous minds do operate in different countries and in various ways. It also bothered me that the supposed room of the Tomb of David was immediately situated right below the stairs leading to the Upper Room.

Being in the room where Jesus Christ had His last meal and where He instituted the Holy Eucharist enveloped me with goose flesh. The unbelievable reality that I was there coupled with the tremendous significance of the happenings in the place caused a douwnnpour of tears of sadness and joy altogether. I looked around slowly wanting to take note of every detail on the walls, columns, ceiling and floor. I noted the niche on one wall which could have been the place for the Koran when ithe room became a mosque for sometime. I ran my fingers on the three columns which fomed like a divider in the room , even tried to put my arms around one. I tried to figure out where the low supper table would have been located and where Jesus must have reclined. Didn't they used to recline while partaking meals? My mental image of the apostles seated at table tried to pinpoint Judas' place. He must have sat somewhere near the Master since Jesus handed him a morsel of bread. I remembered that the Jewish custom of individuals dipping food together in the same dish meant a friendship sealed. But Jesus' act of offering Judas a dipped morsel meant that He was giving the traitor another chance to come back into His fold- to soften Judas' hardened heart. That was the extent of the love of Jesus which was later mannifested again in His washing of the spoatles' feet. Then I remembered that our Blessed Mother, apostles and seventy-two other disciples were in the same room during Penticost when the Holy Spirit came to empower them. Where was Mary sitting? I wondered. I clasped my arms close to my heart and mystically felt the heat through my whole being. Praise the Lord!

Then I saw a door on one side of the room, open at that time of our visit. Immediately, I walked towards it and found that it faced a street. I recalled that after the visit of the Holy Spirit, Peter went out of the room and boldly evangelized to the people in the street. I took several deep breaths since the whole scenery attested to what is clearly described in the Book of Acts. It was really the Upper Room because one has to ascend stairs to reach it but was also a room on a street level on one side. I thanked the Lord for the revelation. It was great to be in the Upper Room !!!

MARY SAYS, "HAVE A SEAT "

I remember my first visit to Europe in 1973 to attend a United Nations Commision on Shipping Meeting hosted by UNCTAD in Geneva, Switzerland. Like everyone else who is about to see another part of the world, I was excited and to add to the excitement was the almost unbelievable honor of sitting in a world forum on behalf of my country of birth. But the surge of extreme joy and anticipation was the thought of visiting the Grotto of Lourdes, France, where our Blessed Mother appeared to St. Bernadette. It was a dream I have had through all the years since I first heard the story from my own mother's lips as a child. My mother had a special devotion to our Blessed Lady. both from her readings and oral tradition, she knew many stories about Mary, the Mother of Jesus. She told us about Nuestra Senora dela Porteria ( Our Lady of the Gate) the patron saint of her church in Daraga, Albay of the Bicol Region in the Philippines. She related interesting things about, Our Lady of the Abandoned, the patron saint of Sta. Ana, Manila where I was born and our place of residence for a long time. Having known that the venerated image came from Spain, I was eager to get a replica during my four visits there but to no avail. I think Mother Mary wants me to see Spain again!

Immediately after the conference, I was off from Geneva to Paris and on to the airport in Pau of Southern France. It was a rainy afternoon when I took a shuttle bus to Lourdes with only an Irish gentleman as co-passenger. In the flurry of preparations for the meeting, I failed to consider booking a hotel in Lourdes. Friends have assured me that it would not be a problem since there would hardly be any visitor at Lourdes by late November.