Archdiocesan Shrine of Nuestra Señora De Guia - Ermita Church

21/08/2026

08/08/2026

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR DEAREST RECTOR AND PARISH, Rev. Fr. ESTELITO VILLEGAS | August 9

08/08/2026

07/08/2026

Dominic was born to noble parents in Caleruega, in the Kingdom of Castile, present-day Spain. An early biographer tells that his mother, struggling to conceive, made a pilgrimage to a local monastery where Saint Dominic of Silos had been abbot. At that time, she dreamt that a dog emerged from her womb and, with a torch, set the world on fire. “Dominic” is translated as “The Lord’s Dog.”

Today’s saint came from a holy family, excelled at his studies, and was devoted to the poor. When Dominic was twenty-four, Bishop Diego de Acebo of Osma ordained him as an Augustinian canon of the cathedral, hoping that he would help reform the other canons. For nine years, Father Dominic lived a life of deep prayer and witness, eventually becoming prior.

In 1203, Father Dominic accompanied Bishop Diego on a diplomatic mission for the King of Castile during which they discovered two grave needs in the Church. First, many northern Europeans had not heard the Gospel message. Second, a heretical group in southern France, the Cathars, were leading many astray. The Cathars followed a form of the Albigensian Heresy, which taught that there were two gods: one good, associated with the New Testament and the spiritual world, and one evil, associated with the Old Testament and the material world. They believed that people must escape the material world’s evil, achieved by a rigorously ascetic lifestyle. When Bishop Diego and Father Dominic detoured to Rome to consult with the pope, he sent them back to southern France to convert the Cathars. Father Dominic understood that the best way to combat the heresy was to form an order that lived in extreme asceticism yet remained true to the faith.

Living in poverty as itinerant preachers, Father Dominic and Bishop Diego engaged in public debates and private dialogues with the Cathars to point out their errors through reason and persuasion. After Bishop Diego died, Father Dominic founded a convent in Prouille in 1206 dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene, believing that it was through prayer that souls would be saved. While providing a safe haven for women and nuns converted away from the Albigensian heresy, the convent educated girls in the true faith.

Miracles that God worked through Father Dominic resulted in conversion and new followers. In 1215, with the Bishop of Toulouse’s permission, Father Dominic founded an order of men dedicated to evangelization. They lived communally; prayed together; embraced poverty, obedience, and chastity; studied the faith; and went on preaching and evangelizing missions. The following year, Pope Honorius III gave formal consent to the Order of Preachers, also known as the Dominicans. In 1217, the pope gave Father Dominic the Church of Santa Sabina in Rome as the order’s second home and made Father Dominic the pope’s chief theological adviser. Still, Father Dominic slept on the floor, wore a hairshirt, and often walked barefoot when entering a new town.

In the years following until Dominic’s death in 1221, other houses were founded in Paris, Madrid, and Bologna. After his death, the order continued to expand. By the mid-1200s, hundreds of Dominican houses had sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world.

(Source: https://mycatholic.life/saints/saints-of-the-liturgical-year/8-august-saint-dominic-priest/)

06/08/2026

Daily Prayer August 07

06/08/2026

Like most of us, Saint Cajetan seemed headed for an “ordinary” life—first as a lawyer, then as a priest engaged in the work of the Roman Curia.

Saint Cajetan’s life took a characteristic turn when he joined the Oratory of Divine Love in Rome, a group devoted to piety and charity, shortly after his ordination at 36. When he was 42 he founded a hospital for incurables at Venice. At Vicenza, he joined a “disreputable” religious community that consisted only of men of the lowest stations of life—and was roundly censured by his friends, who thought his action was a reflection on his family. He sought out the sick and poor of the town and served them.

The greatest need of the time was the reformation of a Church that was “sick in head and members.” Cajetan and three friends decided that the best road to reformation lay in reviving the spirit and zeal of the clergy. Together they founded a congregation known as the Theatines—from Teate [Chieti] where their first superior-bishop had his see. One of the friends later became Pope Paul IV.

They managed to escape to Venice after their house in Rome was wrecked when Emperor Charles V’s troops sacked Rome in 1527. The Theatines were outstanding among the Catholic reform movements that took shape before the Protestant Reformation. Cajetan founded a monte de pieta—“mountain or fund of piety”—in Naples, one of many charitable, nonprofit credit organizations that lent money on the security of pawned objects.

The purpose was to help the poor and protect them against usurers. Saint Cajetan’s little organization ultimately became the Bank of Naples, with great changes in policy.

(Source: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-cajetan/)

05/08/2026

All three Synoptic Gospels tell the story of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-8; Mark 9:2-9; Luke 9:28-36). With remarkable agreement, all three place the event shortly after Peter’s confession of faith that Jesus is the Messiah and Jesus’ first prediction of his passion and death. Peter’s eagerness to erect tents or booths on the spot suggests it occurred during the week-long Jewish Feast of Booths in the fall.

According to Scripture scholars, in spite of the texts’ agreement it is difficult to reconstruct the disciples’ experience, because the Gospels draw heavily on Old Testament descriptions of the Sinai encounter with God, and prophetic visions of the Son of Man. Certainly Peter, James, and John had a glimpse of Jesus’ divinity strong enough to strike fear into their hearts. Such an experience defies description, so they drew on familiar religious language to describe it. And certainly Jesus warned them that his glory and his suffering were to be inextricably connected—a theme John highlights throughout his Gospel.

Tradition names Mount Tabor as the site of the revelation. A church first raised there in the fourth century was dedicated on August 6. A feast in honor of the Transfiguration was celebrated in the Eastern Church from about that time. Western observance began in some localities about the eighth century.

On July 22, 1456, Crusaders defeated the Turks at Belgrade. News of the victory reached Rome on August 6, and Pope Callistus III placed the feast on the Roman calendar the following year.

(Source: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/transfiguration-of-the-lord/)

04/08/2026

In 313, Roman Emperor Constantine the Great issued the Edict of Milan, making Christianity legal and ending state-led persecutions of Christians. Over the next forty years, many people in Rome and throughout the empire converted. The Catholic Church became more structured, and the Bishop of Rome was increasingly understood as the leader of the universal Church.

Legend has it that the Mother of God decided to do her part to help the Church in Rome find its way. In 352, a wealthy Roman aristocrat named John and his wife, who were childless and faithful Christians, offered their money to help expand the Church. After John prayed for direction, our Blessed Mother appeared to him in a dream on August 4, 352, informing him that she wanted a church built in Rome on the Esquiline Hill. She said that, despite it being summer, snow would fall on the spot the following day. When John arose on August 5, he went to tell Pope Liberius about his dream-vision. To John’s surprise, the pope had a similar dream the night before, so they decided to go to the Esquiline Hill. Upon their arrival, they found fresh snow in the form of a foundation for a church. The pope used the snow to outline the foundation and ordered the church to be built. John and his wife paid for the project, and the church was called Basilica Liberiana, after Pope Liberius.

In the century that followed, a controversy arose over the appropriate title of Jesus’ mother. Should she be called the “Christ-bearer” or the “God-bearer?” In other words, was she only the Mother of Christ, or the Mother of God? To resolve the controversy, Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II called for a church council to be held in Ephesus in 431. The argument that Mary was the Mother of God won the day. Pope Celestine I approved the council’s decision but died shortly afterward. Pope Sixtus III, elected to succeed him in 432, did much to implement the Council of Ephesus’ teachings. He had the Basilica Liberiana rebuilt and enlarged, and gave it a new name in honor of the Mother of God. The core of the current Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (Saint Mary Major) on the Esquiline Hill in Rome was built and dedicated by Pope Sixtus sometime before his death in 440.

Today, Santa Maria Maggiore is one of the four main basilicas in Rome, along with Saint Peter’s Basilica on Vatican Hill, Saint John Lateran Basilica (the official cathedral of the Diocese of Rome), and Saint Paul Outside the Walls. Each has a unique significance and history. Santa Maria Maggiore contains a triumphal arch and stunning nave mosaics, which date to the fifth century. The mosaics depict events from the Old Testament and the infancy of Christ, and are among the oldest and most important Christian mosaics in Rome. Under the main altar is the church’s most sacred relic, the wood of the manger in which the baby Jesus was laid. Another important relic is the Salus Populi Romani, an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to legend, this ancient icon was painted by Saint Luke, the Gospel writer. For centuries, as a reminder of the miraculous summer snowfall, white rose petals have been dropped on the faithful from the dome of the Basilica every August 5. For more than 1,600 years, almost every pope has offered Mass there, countless millions have prayed there, numerous saints have made a pilgrimage to that holy church, and our Blessed Mother has certainly received and answered many prayers within those walls.

(Source: https://mycatholic.life/saints/saints-of-the-liturgical-year/august-5-dedication-of-the-basilica-of-saint-mary-major/)

03/08/2026

John Mary Baptiste Vianney was the fourth of six children born to devout Catholic parents in Dardilly, a village near Lyon in eastern France. John was born three years before the start of the French Revolution, during which the Church came under ferocious attack. The Vianney family hid priests and attended clandestine Masses at nearby farms. The witness of the priests who risked their lives to offer the Sacraments inspired young John and later motivated him to become a priest. Given the chaos of the time, John spent most of his childhood helping on the family farm and tending to the flocks, rather than attending school. He was functionally illiterate through his teenage years.

In 1801, Napoleon and Pope Pius VII signed the Concordat, recognizing Catholicism as the faith of the majority of French citizens and permitting state-regulated worship. In 1806, the parish priest of Écully, Father Balley, opened a school for prospective seminarians. At age twenty, John began his formal education there, but it was interrupted when he was drafted into Napoleon’s army. Illness and circumstance kept him out of service; he eventually returned to Écully to continue his education.

After John completed his studies, Father Balley convinced the diocese’s Vicar General to let John into the diocesan seminary. John struggled, and the diocesan authorities questioned his suitability when he came up for ordination. When the bishop asked about John’s piety, he was told that John prayed the rosary like an angel. That was enough. John was ordained a priest on August 12, 1815 and served as an assistant priest in Écully, under Father Balley’s supervision, until Father Balley’s death.

In 1817, Father Vianney became chaplain at the church of Saint Sixtus, in Ars, a small farming community where he would remain for the next forty-one years. Ars was known for its enjoyment of dancing, drunkenness, and swearing. People who stopped by the church saw Father Vianney kneeling in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Eventually, they started to attend Mass. Father Vianney’s homilies were simple. Sin must be avoided; those who remain in sin will go to hell. Those who turn to God will be saved and welcomed into Heaven. He preached on God’s love, prayer, the sacraments, and living a life of charity and virtue.

Within the first three years of Father Vianney’s priestly ministry, Ars was being transformed. He spent hours in prayer every day, endured severe penances and fasting, and restored the church building. He made home visits to his parishioners and even to the surrounding villages, drawing many to the church. In 1823, the bishop raised Saint Sixtus Church to the level of a parish, appointing Father Vianney as pastor. The people of Ars were flocking to confession and Mass, praying, overcoming sin, and turning to God’s love. Additionally, thousands of people traveled to Ars every year to attend his Masses and confess their sins. On many days, Father Vianney spent up to sixteen hours in the confessional. A new and larger church was built, and a new railroad line was laid to get people to the small village. The devil, who harassed and intimidated Father Vianney, once said, “If there were only three like you in France, I would not be able to set foot there.”

(Source: https://mycatholic.life/saints/saints-of-the-liturgical-year/august-4-saint-jean-vianney-the-cur-of-ars-priest/)

01/08/2026

Daily Prayer August 02