THE gospel reading of the 2nd Sunday of Easter which is also called the Divine Mercy Sunday (cfr. Jn 20,19-31) can very well tell us about what Easter life is all about, what life after Christ’s resurrection is all about insofar as we are concerned.
The gospel starts by telling us about Christ’s appearance to his stunned disciples, showing them his hands and his side to convince them that he really was Christ. Then he told them that they had the same mission that Christ had. “As the Father has sent me, I also send you,” he said. Then he breathed on them the Holy Spirit such that whose sins they forgive, they are forgiven, and whose sins they retain, they are retained.
Then by some twist of fate, Thomas, one of the disciples, was not around at that time. And when told about Christ’s appearance to them, he did not believe. “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe,” he said.
Thus, 8 days later, Christ again appeared to them, this time with Thomas around. He called Thomas, showed him his hands and side, and that was only then that Thomas believed, saying, “My Lord and my God!” From a doubting Thomas, he became an intensely believing Thomas.
All these details of the gospel tell us that living the Easter life means that we should realize ever deeply and abidingly that we have the same mission as Christ, pursuing it in different ways and in accord to one’s status in the world and in the Church. We have to continue the work of redemption whether we are clerics, religious or laypeople.
In this regard, it is important that our faith is always strong and deep, and that we show that faith always in deeds, since that would convert that faith into real charity which is what we ultimately should achieve. In other words, we need to be strong in faith and active in good works, doing all sorts of apostolate wherever we are.
Easter life, in effect, is life in the Holy Spirit. We have to always strengthen this awareness about our life that would make us always feel that we are never alone, since God in the Holy Spirit is always with us.
We have to feel very much at home with this very wonderful reality and start to correspond to it as we ought. We have to go beyond our earthly dimensions and enter into the more fascinating world of the spiritual and the supernatural.
This does not mean that we escape from our earthly reality to be in the spiritual and supernatural reality. No. It means that while deeply immersed in our mundane conditions, we also have to learn to go beyond them to be with God. This is what the word ‘transcendence’ means.
To be sure, we are enabled to do that, because of our intelligence and will. These are powerful faculties that would enable us to know and to love, and eventually to enter in the lives of others and ultimately to be with God. But more than that, we are given God’s grace that would enable us to enter and to share God’s supernatural life and nature.
This is what Easter life is all about!
It’s not surprising at all if the country’s telecommunication companies are dismayed over the “unsuccessful” drive of the government to have the people’s SIM cards registered. It is because, the registration process is strictly limiting itself to certain valid government IDs that not all people possess.
Per experience by many, this SIM card registration is not easy. The process is meticulous, and extra sensitive as well. For instance, while one is filling out the form to comply with the registration requirements, the process could suddenly stop, saying that the registrant had gone overtime. In other words, there is a time limit for every step, and it cannot wait nor extend as one would have to start all over again.
Not only that but the process is also very demanding. It demands registrants to upload a valid ID, for instance, and would not allow any ID at that. Now this is quite problematic, because again, many people do not have such valid IDs for many reasons, such as age, employment, etc. Grade school children who mostly own their own mobiles cannot register their SIM cards since they can’t have valid IDs yet; all they have is a school ID.
It is for this reasons that telcos are appealing to the government to be considerate enough if it wants the registration procedure to succeed. The government, no doubt, is working in good faith here, aiming to eliminate scams or mobile related crimes involving cellphone users. But such registration should be made easier for people to process.
Now that the registration deadline is fast approaching, which is April 26 this year, the number of those who registered is still far from the expectation. The government then should extend that deadline, or else so many subscribers and cellphone users would lose their SIM card numbers. Such loss is great, indeed.
COLOR WALK PARADE. Thousands of residents of Palompon in Leyte celebrated the Easter Sunday(April 9) through the colorful and boisterous Color Walk Parade. The event has been staged in the town since 2015 but was stopped due COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo Courtesy)
Held every Easter Sunday
COLOR WALK PARADE. Thousands of residents of Palompon in Leyte celebrated the Easter Sunday(April 9) through the colorful and boisterous Color Walk Parade. The event has been staged in the town since 2015 but was stopped due COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo Courtesy)
PALOMPON, Leyte-After two years in hiatus, the ‘Color Walk Parade’ held in this town resumed on Sunday (April 9).
The Color Walk Parade started in 2015 wherein participants are dripped from water cannons full of various colors while they are parading in the towns’ major thoroughfares.
The event is held every Easter Sunday but when the pandemic caused by the coronavirus disease (COVID1-19) ravaged the country and the rest of the world in 2019 it was temporarily stopped due to health protocol imposed by the government and the World Health Organization.
The said event is sponsored by the local government and is participated by thousands and was starting to draw tourists.
The walk from the Municipal Hall where the program started going through the major thoroughfares of the town comes next where all participants will be poured with colors in selected stations on their way back to where the program started.
Its restaging last Sunday shows how the participants missed the events as they relished being poured and painted with colored water.
Personnel from the local police and Bureau of Fire Protection were around to secure the peace and order of the street festival and for any possible rescue operation, respectively. (ROBERT DEJON)
ORMOC CITY-A passenger van driver was arrested by operatives of the Provincial Drug Enforcement Unit of the Eastern Samar Provincial Police Office, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Station Drugs Enforcement Team of the local police of Sulat, Eastern Samar on Tuesday (April 11).
The suspect, Francis Sesio, 37, is listed as a newly- identified individual on the drug watch list of both the provincial and local police in Eastern Samar.
Recovered from the possession of the suspect during the sting operation in Brgy. Riverside at about 8:10 pm were two sachets containing a white crystalline substance suspected to be shabu procured by an operative in the amount of P1,500.
And during a body search, operatives recovered from the suspect seven more sachets containing the same white crystalline substances also suspected to be shabu.
Charges of violations of RA 9165, the Comprehensive Law against Illegal Drugs of 2002, were filed against the suspect who is now detained at the locked-up cell of Sulat municipal police station. (ROBERT DEJON)
CATARMAN, N. Samar– A barangay chairman and three others were arrested by police operatives for alleged illegal gambling.
Raymundo Esparto, 77, village chairman of Bangkerohan in this town, was arrested along with three other persons while in the act of playing mahjong inside the house of his brother, Romeo Esparto, when the police raided the latter’s house around 3:30pm on Good Friday(April 7).
Romeo, 71, a barangay tanod, was also arrested along with Juana Deniega, 68, barangay health worker, and Rose Ann Gallego, a saleslady.
According to the police, the group attempted to flee upon seeing the approaching police.
“The house was jampacked with people but only (the four) arrested were caught gambling. The others who ran away were just sitting and onlookers,” town police chief, Colonel Michael Jude Dotingco, who led the raiding team, told Leyte Samar Daily Express.
The police recovered from the scene the P182 bet money, two pieces of dice, a mahjong table mat, and one set of playing mahjong tiles.
Esparto and the three other suspects were put in jail and were charged with violation of Presidential Decree No. 1602 for illegal gambling. (RACHEL ARNAIZ)
Rep. Marcelino “Nonoy’ Libanan of the 4Ps party-list vowed to construct more farm-to-market roads not only in Oras but in other towns in Eastern Samar to help the farmers and for easy and fast travel among the residents. On Tuesday (April 11), the party-list solon led the groundbreaking of a farm-to-market road project in Oras covering eight towns at a cost of P100 million.(ROEL T. AMAZONA)
In Eastern Samar
Rep. Marcelino “Nonoy’ Libanan of the 4Ps party-list vowed to construct more farm-to-market roads not only in Oras but in other towns in Eastern Samar to help the farmers and for easy and fast travel among the residents. On Tuesday (April 11), the party-list solon led the groundbreaking of a farm-to-market road project in Oras covering eight towns at a cost of P100 million.(ROEL T. AMAZONA)
ORAS, Eastern Samar– Residents in eight remote villages of this town are thankful that the government has finally responded to their longtime dream to have a paved road.
On Tuesday (April 11), the 6.8 meters farm-to-market road project had its groundbreaking with Rep. Marcelino Libanan of the 4Ps party-list, officials of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) headed by their regional director Robert Anthony Yu and Mayor Roy Ador leading the event.
Residents from the villages of Iwayan, Minap-os, Nadacpan, Agsam, San Eduardo, Alang-alang, Cadian, and Saruong, where the event took place, are to benefit the P100 million worth project.
About 3,616 farmers from these villages are also to directly benefit from the project to help them transport with ease their farm produce to the market and institutional buyers.
Alang-alang village chairman Jocelyn Cabilan said that once the road project is completed, residents in their village will no longer have to ride a “bote,” a motorized boat without an outrigger, when going to and from the town proper.
Travel time to their village takes about an hour depending on the engine of the boat but will now be cut to 50 minutes once the road is completed.
“When there is a typhoon or flooding, the boats cannot travel because of the strong current; owner fears that their boats will sink. This will be a big help because even during rainy season, we can safely travel to the town center to bring our farm products,” Cabilan said.
Minap-os village councilor Anthony Montallana added that they had long been waiting to have an access road leading to their village which is also located along the Oras River.
Aside from that, the road could help them in delivering their goods to the market and their children can safely go to school especially those who are in high school and studying in their neighboring villages like Agsam which can be reached by riding a boat.
“The children are using motorboats when going to school which is very dangerous when there is sudden flooding during heavy rain. Once the road is completed, they could go to school and home safely,” Montallana said.
For Cadi-an village chairman Benhur Aparra, not only the road project will help them have better accessibility for the transport of goods, accessibility to school and during calamities but this will also help those who are seeking for medical attention safely reach medical facilities.
Cadi-an is the farthest among the eight villages where the farm-to-market road traverses and can only be reached at the moment by an hour-and-a-half boat ride from Oras town proper.
“Right now we’re still transporting patients of emergency cases through motorboat which takes us longer time to reach medical facilities but once this road is completed we could bring out patients to the hospital in 30 minutes,” Aparra said.
During the groundbreaking ceremony, Rep. Libanan promised to look for more funds for the construction of more farm-to-market roads that will connect other villages of Oras town and will link them to communities in their neighboring towns.
“We will look for more funds to construct roads to link and connect every village not only in Oras but in the entire province of Eastern Samar to spur development and uplift the living condition of our people,” the party-list solon said.
Yu, in his message, emphasized that their agency’s mandate is not only to distribute lands but also to provide support services to the farmers like the construction of farm-to-market roads.
“Distributing or giving land is not enough. We also need to provide support such as farm equipment and machinery, and farm-to-market roads. This is the best way to help our farmer-beneficiaries; concrete road helps in the development of our ARBs and other farmers by allowing them to efficiently brought to the market their products and reduce the cost of transportation,” the DAR regional director said. (ROEL T.AMAZONA)
The Easter life
THE gospel reading of the 2nd Sunday of Easter which is also called the Divine Mercy Sunday (cfr. Jn 20,19-31) can very well tell us about what Easter life is all about, what life after Christ’s resurrection is all about insofar as we are concerned.
The gospel starts by telling us about Christ’s appearance to his stunned disciples, showing them his hands and his side to convince them that he really was Christ. Then he told them that they had the same mission that Christ had. “As the Father has sent me, I also send you,” he said. Then he breathed on them the Holy Spirit such that whose sins they forgive, they are forgiven, and whose sins they retain, they are retained.
Then by some twist of fate, Thomas, one of the disciples, was not around at that time. And when told about Christ’s appearance to them, he did not believe. “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe,” he said.
Thus, 8 days later, Christ again appeared to them, this time with Thomas around. He called Thomas, showed him his hands and side, and that was only then that Thomas believed, saying, “My Lord and my God!” From a doubting Thomas, he became an intensely believing Thomas.
All these details of the gospel tell us that living the Easter life means that we should realize ever deeply and abidingly that we have the same mission as Christ, pursuing it in different ways and in accord to one’s status in the world and in the Church. We have to continue the work of redemption whether we are clerics, religious or laypeople.
In this regard, it is important that our faith is always strong and deep, and that we show that faith always in deeds, since that would convert that faith into real charity which is what we ultimately should achieve. In other words, we need to be strong in faith and active in good works, doing all sorts of apostolate wherever we are.
Easter life, in effect, is life in the Holy Spirit. We have to always strengthen this awareness about our life that would make us always feel that we are never alone, since God in the Holy Spirit is always with us.
We have to feel very much at home with this very wonderful reality and start to correspond to it as we ought. We have to go beyond our earthly dimensions and enter into the more fascinating world of the spiritual and the supernatural.
This does not mean that we escape from our earthly reality to be in the spiritual and supernatural reality. No. It means that while deeply immersed in our mundane conditions, we also have to learn to go beyond them to be with God. This is what the word ‘transcendence’ means.
To be sure, we are enabled to do that, because of our intelligence and will. These are powerful faculties that would enable us to know and to love, and eventually to enter in the lives of others and ultimately to be with God. But more than that, we are given God’s grace that would enable us to enter and to share God’s supernatural life and nature.
This is what Easter life is all about!