Pride at its pure form

Heard mass this morning at St. Paul the Apostle Church along Timog. We were seated along the driveway on mononblock chairs. Right in fromt of us was an old lady who stood out of the usual churchgoers because of her clothes and unclipped toenails. I decided to give the money i usually drop in the collection bag and give to her instead. I told myself my support goes to a more deserving recipient. I then asked my sister to hand it to her. When she did, the lady insisted on selling the vegetables she had with her. We insisted that we were simply giving the money to her as help but she said she was ashamed not to give us anything. My mother decided to get a few pieces of pipino instead of the saba bananas. The lady even said she had no change. My sis said she can keep all and she was very grateful. And i too were very grateful to the Lord for appearing to me, to us thru this lady.

Filipinos Still Caught in Their Primitive Religion/Church Ways

I heard mass today at the Sacred Heart Parish Church in Kamuning, Quezon City (this has been the site of my last two annual lenten confessions and, I must say, the Lord always found a way to show me the way.)

As always, the choir sang with such fervor and this saved the celebration for me - second to my personal contact with the Lord. But then again, there were the other distractions, or should I say, the distracted church-goers:

• people coming to church in their summer or house attire (flipflops a.k.a. sosyal-ized rubber slippers; backless tops for ladies; denim shorts for both men and women; sando shirts for the kids; walking shorts; etc.).... If only people would start realizing and appreciating the mass as something special and sacred to which they really should dress up for the same way they will eagerly dress up and prep themselves for a party or gig. Don't they know that the mass is also a CELEBRATION, a "DINNER" where they dine with the Lord?
• people texting and reading text messages during mass. People should realize that prioritizing their inbox over the Lord is total disrespect to the Lord and the host of the party. If only people can only imagine what might happen to them when they pray to God and it takes him some time to address man's prayers because God is still busy texting. On second thought, there is even no need to imagine this because people easily get angry at God when He "fails" to heed man's prayers.
• people walking out midway into the mass, treating the mass just like a movie. They think that if they come in late, they can simply hear mass all over and then wait until both ends meet and then stand up and leave - and two families actually did this this morning! Sad...... What if God also walks out on them during their times of need.......

It's embarrassing how we are branded as the only Christian nation in this part of the globe and we are not living up to our faith. How I wish we can imitate our brothers and sisters in the other parts of the globe like my aunts' church communities in San Diego, California and Jacksonville, Florida: People arrive on time for the mass, way ahead before the priest-celebrant starts his processional walk to the altar; how people dress to the nines in their Sunday's best; how people sincerely greet each other outside the church, during the Kiss of Peace (not just looking at our seat mates, murmuring); participating in the singing and responding aloud (not just listening like in the movies - on the contrary, we are even moved more and affected by the movies - "ang galing galing ni ....!")

If only.......

And there are other areas we can improve on so that we as a nation moves on to better our lives:

• in our driving
• in our business dealings
• at work
• in politics
• in exercising our right to vote