31/12/2023
OF KITES & DOVES. I have posted pastoral journal entry #100 before the year 2023 ended. So this is my first entry for 2024 — #101.
We had our reshuffle in 2022 & were asked to report to our new pastoral assignments on July 1.
So January 1, today, is supposed to be my 1 year & 6 months in Joroan. But I arrived here on July 3, after the July 2 Parish Fiesta in honor of Nuestra Señora de Salvacion.
Writing & sharing my experiences as a pastor & rector have accompanied me these 1.5 years. I look forward to the remaining 3.5 years I would write & share, if God wills it. Se Deo vuole, as they say it in Italian.
I hope I can have more entries in Bikol or Filipino so I can reach more devotees, both parishioners & pilgrims.
Writing & sharing has become for a way of reflecting on community events & personal experiences. It sometimes has become prayer & poetry when the divine presence, without any warnings, manifested itself in the ordinary.
Sharing is transformed into proclamation & praise of God, like what the lowly shepherds in the field had done when they saw the Christ in the manger.
I hope that in some way, by reading you have touched the divine in the mundane, for the world despite its mess is still “charged by the grandeur of God.”
Whenever you read my pastoral journal entry, please bless me with a simple prayer. Ask God, through the intercession of Iná, to make fruitful the mission the Bishop has entrusted to me here in Joroan.
I will remain grateful, hopefully always humbled by your graciousness & kindness.
Have a happy, healthy & holy Year 2024!
Blessings from Joroan, the Home of Inâ, Nuestra Señora de Salvacion.
***
So now about kites & doves. (Will write on this before Day 1 ends).
| entry #101 | 01.01.24 | Monday
