The Ilocos Times

THE readings of Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter (Act 4,32-37 / Jn 3,7-15) somehow reminds us of two things: we need to live Christian poverty which demands all from us, and for that to take place, we need to be “born again,” so that the spirit of Christ would truly animate us and not just our human spirit. Christian poverty is no joke. As depicted in the first reading, the believers of Christ sold or turned over everything, created a common fund which was distributed to everyone according to their needs. This is a big challenge for us, considering that we always tend to get attached to the things of this world in a way that undermines true love that channels the very love of God for all of us. Let us remember that in our relation with God, there is no middle ground. It is either we are with him completely or not at all. We have to overcome that strong tendency to think that we can be partly with God and partly with our own selves, even if we can say that we are giving God 9

IF we are truly with Christ, there is no doubt that despite our unavoidable differences and conflicts, we can still manage to achieve a certain unity. Christ gives us the way, the power and the grace to achieve this unity. Thus, the expression, “cor unum et anima una,” (one heart and one soul) as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. (cfr. 4,32) It characterized the lives of the early Christians who fervently followed the teachings and example of Christ. Let’s hope that we too can manage to achieve that ideal. To live unity amid plurality and diversity in our lives is a constant quest for us. How do we achieve unity, a desired ideal, amid an obvious plurality we can observe even in each one of us individually, not to mention the ever-widening variety of things among ourselves and between ourselves and the rest of creation? It’s undeniable that deep within us is a natural longing for unity in whatever level and aspect of our life, whether personal, familial, social, political, or

HAPPY EASTER TO ALL!       Yes, we have every reason to be most happy as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Let’s hope that when we greet each other, ‘Happy Easter,’ we would really mean it and know what is behind that greeting. Let’s exhume that happy greeting from the tomb of our usual formalisms and clichés. Let’s get real! Finally, we have reached that point where Christ culminated his redemptive mission with his resurrection that simply means that he has conquered sin and death and has reopened the gates of heaven for us. He bore all our sins and conquered them with his resurrection. He offered his very own self as the ransom. We can now be true children of God if we also do our part. All our sins and all the negative things in our life can be considered a “happy fault” as the Easter praise, the “Exultet,” puts it, because they have caused God to show the ultimate expression of love, a love that we ourselves should also cultivate in ourselves. But we sh

By Noralyn O. Dudt It was almost in the middle of the day. Jesus and the twelve (his disciples)  were plodding  through the noonday heat not too far away from Jerusalem, in a place called Samaria. They were all hungry and thirsty.  They were Jews in a place they were not fond of, and to be precise, a place and a people they loathe. Why were they even there? Why didn't they bypass  this "despicable" place like all the other Jews in that period  would do? Why didn't they cross the Jordan River rather than travel through Samaria? Samaria, located on a hill northwest of Nablus in the West Bank territory came  under the Israeli administration in 1967. It is bounded by Galilee on the north and by Judea on the south; on the west is the Mediterranean Sea and on the east, the River Jordan. It was at  the crossroads and served as the  political center of the region. Excavations in 1908-1910; 1931-33; 1935 revealed that the site had been occupied occasionally during the l

By Noralyn O. Dudt THE WHOLE  WORLD is in HIS HANDS HE's got the whole world in His hands (4×) He's got the wind and rain in His hands (4×) He's got the tiny little baby in His hands  (4×) He's got you brother and me in His hands  (4x) He's got you sister and me in His hands. (4×) He's got the whole world in His hands. (4×) While those lines may look too simple and  "unimpressive" to some, they do come alive when sung—the tune so lively that singers—faces beaming and eyes gleaming—can’t help but clap their hands and dance. This  beloved Christian hymn that arose from traditional African-American spiritual first published in 1927 became an international pop hit in 1957-58 in a recording by English singer Laurie London. The variations in both text and tune praise the dominion of God over all things, comforting our anxieties from things that are out of our control. It is especially popular with families and Sunday School classes to teach

By Noralyn O. Dudt GRACE, the Gift undeserved. ETERNAL Salvation is God's idea—desired by God for all humanity—free to anyone  who is willing to  accept and receive it. As the Holy Week approaches, we are again reminded of that noble act  that Jesus the Christ did for humanity on the cross. An excruciating death where blood was shed and life was taken. The death that  bridged the chasm between us and our Creator. The death that was God's way of  extending his hand to ours, to lift us back up so we can go back to the "garden"—the “garden" where the first man and the first woman had chats with God the Father in the "cool of the day," until they were told to leave because they disobeyed. They left,  but God never "left" them. God was relentless in his love and He meticulously devised a way to get them, and us back. It's called redemption in its finest. God's grace—his gift that we do not deserve, and free for all. It was this Grac

By Noralyn O. Dudt "WE HAVE no king but Caesar " came the rallying cry from the agitated crowd at the praetorium, outside the palace of the Roman governor. Pilate brought Jesus out with the crown of thorns already on his head, blood streaming down his face. He asked the Jews, "what do you want me to do with your king?" It had  been a long  grueling ordeal for Jesus. Just the night before, he was arrested at the Garden of Gethsemane where he was in deep and earnest  prayer.  "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done." He was so anguished that  he was sweating drops of blood. Sweating drops of blood is rare but very real. It is known as "hematidrosis," a  medical condition that causes one's sweat to contain blood. The sweat glands are surrounded by tiny blood vessels that can constrict and then dilate to the point of rupture, causing blood to effuse into the sweat glands. The cause of hematidrosi

By Noralyn Onto Dudt "THEY HEARD  the sound of the Lord GOD walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord GOD among the trees of the garden. But the Lord GOD called the man and said to him, "Where are you?" He said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself." He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" The man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate." Then the Lord GOD said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said,  "The serpent tricked me, and I ate." The man and the woman whom we now know as Adam and Eve were actually hiding from the One who had created them and placed them in that garden, the One who had been visiting them in the time "of th

  Laoag City cemetery clean-up. Laoag City police station personnel and officials and BPATS of Brgys. 1, 2, 3, 58, 57 and 30B conduct a clean-up drive at the Laoag City north cemetery in preparation for the All Saints/Souls Days celebration. (Photo courtesy of PNP-Laoag) By Leilanie G. Adriano  (Staff Reporter) LAOAG CITY–Following the guidelines issued by the Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) on the observance of “undas”, a Filipino tradition of remembering the dead by going to the cemeteries and lighting up candles or offering prayers and flowers, Ilocos Norte Governor Matthew Joseph M. Manotoc retracted his earlier pronouncement, saying they will now close all public and private cemeteries in the province from Oct. 29 to Nov. 4, 2020. In his latest Executive Order No. 96-20 posted on the evening of Oct. 8, 2o20 in the official social media page of the provincial government of Ilocos Norte, the governor said visiting hours fo

Laoag Mayor Michael Marcos Keon welcomes the officers of the Ilocos Norte United Muslim Association (INUMA) led by Ismael Ali, president; Benhar Depundato, P.I.O. and Johary Guro, adviser. Joining them are several zonal leaders led by Maswara Alim, Halim Pandao Molve, Solaiman Batowa Maulana and Arafat Bacarat. During the meeting, they discussed the preparations for the upcoming Zonal Maswara Ijtima scheduled on February 23-24, 2020 with an estiamted 3,000 Muslim religious leaders and scholars from Luzon and other parts of the country attending. After the meeting, they visited the Laoag City Central Terminal and conducted an ocular inspection. (Doms dela Cruz)

By Leilanie G. Adriano Staff Reporter Laoag City —After closing its door for more than four years, the 209-year-old St. Anne Parish in Piddig, Ilocos Norte province is ready to open again for church services. Fr. Carlito Ranjo Jr., head of the Diocese of Laoag’s restoration committee shared his excitement as he posted in Facebook a fully-restored façade and interiors of the Baroque church. The newly-restored church is expected to be turned over on July 25, 2019. In September 2014, National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) engineering experts decommissioned the old church and declared the church “unfit for occupancy, with its wooden trusses heavily deteriorated and its foundation weakened”. “The St. Anne Church restoration is done. Just waiting for the turn over date,” said Fr. Ranjo which delighted netizens which watched the new look of the old Piddig church located on top of a hill of the town center. Recognized as one of the oldest churc

(File photo) By Leilanie G. Adriano Staff reporter Badoc, Ilocos Norte —Thousands of devotees, guests and visitors all over the Philippines and abroad witnessed on February 5, 2019 the solemn declaration of Saint John the Baptist Parish in Badoc, Ilocos Norte as a ‘Minor Basilica’. In the Philippines, the 200-year old Basilica Minore of Saint John the Baptist where the La Virgen Milagrosa de Badoc is currently enshrined, becomes the 14 th of its kind that was granted with privileges, obligations, and conditions as a minor Basilica. Barely nine months after the May 31, 2018 pontifical coronation of La Virgen Milagrosa de Badoc with the infant Jesus, thousands of pilgrims and devotees continue to visit the church believed to have been chosen as the sanctuary of the miraculous image of the Blessed Mother. In his homily, Orlando Cardinal Quevedo, OMI, Archbishop Emeritus of Cotabato said, “In his mysterious ways, God makes what it seems to be absurd as a chan

Naimbag a damag para kadagiti deboto ni Apo Santa Maria. Naaprobaranen ti panagbalin ti St. John the Baptist Church iti ili a Badoc a kas basilica minore. Inbunannag mismo daytoy ni Bishop Renato Mayugba iti nasapa a paset idi Disiembre. Narambakan iti maysa a misa iti panagyaman idi Dis. 27. Mainaig iti daytoy a pasamak, dakkel a suporta ti naggapo kadagiti umili nga idadaulwan ni Mayor Maximo Cajigal ken ti panangtarabay ni ABC President Virgilio Calajate tapnu magun-odda daytoy a gagem. Dakkel a tulong daytoy iti itantandudo ni Gobernadora Imee Marcos ken ti gobierno probinsial nga agbalin a kabbaro a destinasion iti ili para iti “faith tourism”. Iti baet daytoy, kinuna ni Municipal Tourism Officer Mr. Cesar Jade Raquel a kadagitoy pay laeng a gundaway ket namnamaendan a dayuen dagiti turista ti ilida a kas iti panagdudupudop dagiti deboto iti Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary idiay Manaoag, Pangasinan. Ni Mrs. Josephine Prieto Calajate, Ilocos Norte Pr

By Dominic B. dela Cruz Staff reporter Laoag City —Ilocanos paid their last respect to a former archbishop in the city after the remains of the late Archbishop Edmundo Abaya was brought to the St. William’s Cathedral on September 24, 26, 2018. Archbishop Abaya, who was the first Filipino Bishop appointed by the late Pope John Paul II, died at the age of 89 on September 20, 2018 at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan City. Archbishop Abaya was ordained as a priest in 1953. He became the third bishop of the Diocese of Laoag in 1978, where he served for two decades. He was later elevated as Archbishop of Nueva Segovia in 1999, becoming the first Ilocos Sur native to at the post. Archbishop Abaya also served as chairman of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ (CBCP) Commission on Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs from 1988 to 1989 and a member of the CBCP Permanent Council from 1990 to 1991. Archbishop Abaya served th