Open Space...

One can’t deny that every time exposures are said to be conducted, different feelings are coming out. Minds are focusing on how the exposure or the immersion will come out as what it is expected. Perhaps this would be the reason why some students in ICTC would claim that immersion is a challenging experience. No doubt, it’s true. The clashing of feelings is undeniable. I consider my immersion with the community in barangay Saysain in Bagac, Bataan as successful one. Three of my classmates, including myself, went there. I cannot deny the many meetings, tedious schedules, and the squeezing of every idea we shared just to come up with what is best for the people. This however, has proven me how a group can come up with the best decisions that we can work out. We worked as a team and the credit becomes a sweet welcoming of each individual’s personhood. All our efforts as a group have become a living witness of how we consider each person’s capacity and ability to merge as one. The openness...

Conducting ethnographic study does not only happen in any non-government or government organization specializing in investigating social structure of a certain place but also to any institution that wishes to study a certain place. Inter-Congregational Theological Center (ICTC) is one of it. With what we have done in the area, the school has put a certain degree of pastoral flavor on the study. It is pastoral because for me, the study does not end only in conclusions or recommendations written at the end-part of the paper, rather, the study has just begun through opening up experiences from both the people and the one studying it. It does not end on what we can do as researcher but on how we open up talk and dialogue. For I believe, it is the church’s responsibilities to have the community known and understood. The study becomes a medium of both experiences of the researcher and the people learning from each other. There is relationship building up where the concerns, plights and dream...

Standing still on the seashore, sand was on the ground, Gazing heavenward, purple sky is watching my eyes; Waves are singing, songs of lonely lullabies, I knew it then, sun is setting down… Light and darkness are catching their breath, Yet, is on its way back home; Cool breeze touches my skin, gentle as it goes on and on, For the golden sunrays found a place to rest… Do stars and moon would bring joy to me, Whose happiness wanders under the glistening Sun? Can they paint the face of the woman I love? That would bring beauty to a dark color hovers the sky… But when and when this long waiting would end? The long night of so much pain I suffer; Years have to be counted for that new morning ahead, Offers tomorrow that is not of the past… But still nature has taken its own course, Of sun and moon traveling here and there; The dawn has not resembling though, I will stay awake ‘till I reach so… No worries would I become, For I know it brings beauty on my palm; Though yesterday wasn’t that of ...

My Personal Spirituality The term spirituality is very broad and ancient. Even before the word spirituality came about, it was already expressed and seen in the very lives of the people. For this I would say that my own definition or description cannot embrace the totality of what spirituality is, for it can never be. However, I would say that my experience of spirituality is never far from what the ancient people have experienced. Spirituality for me is experienced. This experience has something to do with my whole being. This is brought out from the consciousness gain from my relationship with people and creation that was geared towards the realization of a deeper reality that there is Someone higher than me that sustains my life and the whole of creation. It is on how you became whole and one with the creation of God, the people and the environment and even the cosmos. In our tradition as Christians, Jesus became the mediator between the God and the humanity. Jesus is the bond that ...

NEW GENERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE CARMELITE ORDER On 13 and 14 September 2007, the members of the General Chapter, gathered in Sassone (Rome), elected a new general government of the Carmelite Order for the coming six years. Those elected are: Prior General: Fr. Fernando Millán, O.Carm. (Baet) Vice Prior General: Fr. Christian Körner, O.Carm. (GerS) Procurator General: Fr. Josef Jancar, O.Carm. (BM) Bursar General: Fr. Kevin Alban, O.Carm. (Brit) General Councillor for Europe: Fr. John Keating, O.Carm. (Hib) General Councillor for the Americas: Fr. Raul Maravi, O.Carm. (PCM-Per) General Councillor for Africa: Fr. Désiré Unen Alimange, O.Carm. (Ita-Congo) General Councillor for Asia, Australia, Oceania: Fr. Albertus Herwanta, O.Carm. (Indo) The new Prior General, Fr. Fernando Millàn, was born in Madrid, Spain, on 19 August 1962. At the age of nineteen years he joined the Carmelite Order in the Betica Province. After his year of noviciate, he made his simple profession on 3 October 1982. On...