The Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Translation of the Holy House

Lord have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

Lord have mercy.

Christ hear us.

Christ graciously hear us.

God the Father of heaven, have mercy on us.

God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.

God the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.

Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, pray for us.

Holy Mother of God, pray for us.

A Poem for the Virgin Mary

My painting of Our Lady of the Southern Cross.
(acrylic, c. May 2011)

I praise and worship the Triune God, 

for giving you to me, my Glorious Queen.

You who with trust bore and gave birth to my Lord,

I rejoice for with your 'fiat' I am redeemed. 

'Ave Maria gratia plena Dominus tecum',

with the Archangel Gabriel I sing.

By a singular grace you were conceived sinless --

as only God can grant you through Jesus our Sovereign King.

To you oh Virgin Mary my Sweetest Lady,

I give honor as Jesus Himself honored you.

I thank Jesus your Son for entrusting me to you;

Know my dearest Mother that I love you!

(It has been four years since I wrote this poem for Our Lady. How time swiftly flew by. I am glad that through all the ups and downs of life, I can claim to also be the child of the Theotokos! "I have gained a matchless prize, and thus I stand beneath the skies; the child of Mary.")

Swim Against the Tide

My daily commute to work is, at most times, uneventful. Often I'd take the one-tricycle, one-jeepney ride to go to New York, Cubao (my stop), and then walk about a minute or so to get to the Obispado. (It's been a joke among friends that I'm a New Yorker, only that I work near New York Street in Quezon City. The streets around the office are names after some North American cities, like Chicago, Vancouver, Seattle, Maryland, Denver, among others.)

This morning I took an FX from Rotonda. (An FX is a term used for non-metered taxis, named after the 1986 Toyota Tamaraw FX model of multi-purpose vehicles.) I sat at the back, where it was comfortable. Beside me was a woman probably in her 50s. Across from me were two young male students. In the middle seat were three more young men, and a woman. In front, beside the driver, were two women who wore uniforms I recognized as from a bank. The male passengers, based on their conversation that the rest of us could not help but overhear, are students of a university that we'll pass along the route to Cubao.

Be God's Lady

Today marks the end of the Flores de Mayo, the May festivities dedicated to the Queen of Heaven and Earth, the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

Last night our parish had its Santacruzan, a procession that depicts the finding of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem by Queen Helena of Constantinople (Reyna Elena) and Constantine the Great. I looked out for favorite "participants of the Sagala, like the Reyna del Cielo (Queen of Heaven), or Rosa Mistica (Mystical Rose), but did not find them. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed it, especially watching the little girls dressed as angels holding the letters of the angelic salutation, AVE MARIA! I have to admit, though, that I miss the more traditional ones that I used to watch at my parents' small provincial town in Quezon. There seems to be too much pageantry going on now, and less of the religio-historical aspect that I grew to love. But I won't write about that here.

Before Mass earlier, I found myself looking at a stained-glass window of the Annunciation. For an instant, I felt like being brought back to that moment when our Sweetest Lady said her Fiat to Archangel Gabriel. As I stared in awe, almost seeing the delicate incomparable beauty of our Lady in the flesh, I could only utter a silent prayer for the grace to also grow in the virtues that Mother Mary has attained so perfectly!