THROUGH UNTRUE Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P. Filipino religiosity peaks during Holy Week. If not for the pandemic and the government-imposed restrictions and protocols, many of us would be doing our usual Holy Week observances these coming days. Families would flock to churches for the annual...
THROUGH UNTRUE Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P. Like most people, I seldom found joy and excitement in washing my clothes. The tedious and boring task wore me down. I would rather that someone did it for me. But I realized that avoiding important chores made them more difficult to accomplish. So I...
THROUGH UNTRUE Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P. Before Jesus underwent His terrible ordeal leading to His crucifixion, three apostles witnessed an amazing event in His life – the transfiguration . Today's Gospel reading describes what happened thus: “His face shone like the sun and His clothes...
THROUGH UNTRUE Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P. Since childhood, we have been taught, and rightly so, that cleanliness is next to godliness. But today, thanks to the hygiene industry and their aggressive advertisers, cleanliness is no longer synonymous with being rid of any form of dirt or messiness....
THROUGH UNTRUE Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P. I have heard people phrase this question in different ways but with the same intense desperation. They want God's answer to their plea: “Awake O Lord, why do you sleep? Why do you hide your face?” (Psalm 44:23). One time, a widow approached me...
THROUGH UNTRUE Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P. Last week, a friend told me: "I don't know what's happening to me. I’m constantly stressed and always tempted to be angry. Before the pandemic, I knew exactly who I was. But now, I'm turning into someone I don't want to be." When I told him I...
THROUGH UNTRUE Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P. The gospel reading today narrates that when Jesus called His first apostles, they left everything to follow Him. Discipleship seems very easy, like a walk in the park, but is it? Responding to God's call always entails suffering. And perhaps, the...
THROUGH UNTRUE Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P. A recent SWS survey shows that 91 percent of Filipinos welcome the year 2021 with great hope for the future. I am tempted to ask: "How will this hope come true?" The media bombard us daily with news about muggings, kidnappings, robberies, rapes,...
THROUGH UNTRUE Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P. Two days ago, we celebrated Christmas. If preparing for it was tiring, the post-Christmas days are even more exhausting – cleaning the mess after the visitors have left, looking for ways to settle the unpaid bills, calming frayed nerves due to lack of...
THROUGH UNTRUE Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P. In English, it is all right to say: apple, pear, or grape. It is also correct to say in Spanish: manzana, pera, uva . But if you notice, our Filipino names for these fruits always appear in the plural form: mansanas, peras, ubas . I'm sure you haven't...
THROUGH UNTRUE Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P. There should be a law banning the use of Christian words to name commercial products. When Christian words are used for marketing purposes, they lose their original meaning. The power and influence of the realities they symbolize are diminished. For...
THROUGH UNTRUE Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P. Many men subscribe to an extreme notion of masculinity that emphasizes aggression, brute power, and machismo. They project themselves as brave men who don't cry, don't run from a fight, and can instill fear in others by an implicit threat of violence....
