4 Living Water - January 9, 2015

PLEASE WEAR YOUR BLD ID EVERY FRIDAY

A N N O U N C E M E N T S

FINAL CALL ! There are several seats remaining for the com-

munity Start-of-the-Year Retreat. “Ascent to

the Pure Love of God” by Fr. Charles Anang,

St. Augustine Seminary.

Please register at the basement hall after the

Prayer Meeting or call Annie 905-568-4198

or e-mail: bld_toronto_pastoral_services@googlegroups,com

JANUARY 2015 LECTORS

January 9

1st reading.................Cliff and Cristy Jacinto

Psalm..............Willie and Annette Guillermo

2nd reading............Bing and Emma Ongteco

January 16

1st reading....................Ling and Bing Brinas

Psalm........................................Edmar Aquino

2nd reading............Willie and Vivian Saguil

January 23 1st reading...................Bert and Cecile Cruz

Psalm................................Marife Capistrano

2nd reading.........Gusty and Annie Andino

January 30 1st reading............Charlie and Jo Gonzales

Psalm......................................Linda Canaria

2nd reading..............................Espei Cosme

YOUTH MINISTRY KORNER

Registration is on-going for the 2015 YLSS #

16 on January 9, 16, 23 and 30, 2015. Non-

BLD youth are welcome to attend YLSS # 16.

Please visit the Youth Ministry desk in the

basement hall for registration or e-mail

Froilan and Charito Piamonte at

st_casimir@rogers.com for more information.

Welcome/Salubong will be held on

Friday, February 13, 2015

LIFE IN THE SPIRIT MINISTRY

LSS No. 31 : April 11 – 12, 2015

Orientation will be held on the following

dates and days:

Fridays at the Mark 10 room

January 16 and 23 after the Praise

and Worships

January 30 before the Praise and

Worship

February 6 before the mass

Salubong will be on Friday, February

13, 2015.

For more information, please contact any

members of the Life in the Spirit

Ministry.

Living Water - January 9, 2015

January 9, 2015

BUKÁS-LOÓB SA DIYÓS • OPEN IN SPIRIT TO GOD

www.bldworld.org www.bldtoronto.com

THEME

We are guided by the star in our journey of

faith when we strive to obey God’s command-

ment.

WORD

Is 55:1-11; Is 12:2-3, 4bcd, 5-6; 1 Jn 5:1-9;

Mk1:7-11

ORDER “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call

upon him while he is near.” (Is 55:6)

“Everyone who thirsts, come to the

waters.” (Is 55:1)

DIRECTION Let us bring everyone to our forthcoming

LSS for adults and Youths.

Draw people closer to the Lord by being a

good witness

REFLECTION

This Sunday we celebrate the feast of the Bap-

tism of our Lord Jesus Christ. It marks the end

of the Christmas season, which is about a cele-

bration of Incarnation, when Heaven and Earth

meet through the arrival of God as a human

baby. It is also a demonstration of Jesus’ awe-

some humility. This Sunday also marks the be-

ginning of what is called “Ordinary Time.”

However, the purpose of Christmas does not

end.

Last Christmas (December 25, 2014), Pope Fran-

cis made a private visit to the Sistine Chapel for

his personal prayer and devotion to celebrate his

baptism, eight days after he celebrated his 78th

birth anniversary. Earlier, on December 14th, in

a baptismal ceremony with the attending fami-

lies, he said, “I would be somewhat curious to ask a

question…but I won’t ask for the answer…How

many of you know your day of Baptism? However, if

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

www.bldworld.org www.bldtoronto.com

tel:%28905%29568-4198mailto:st_casimir@rogers.com

2 Living Water - January 9, 2015

.

you don’t know it, go find out: call your aunt, your

mother, your god mother…Because it is a feast day,

that is the day that we encountered Jesus for the

first time (underlining is ours)… This is a task for

the home. When was I baptized? … it’s beautiful! I

was baptized, precisely, on Christmas Day!” Pope

Francis said it was the custom – at least in Ar-

gentina – to baptize children eight days after

their birth. He exhorted his listeners to remem-

ber this always as he promised to pray for them

and wished them to have joy, “so much joy,”

with the children, joy in the home, and joy in

hope (Zenit.org., Deborah Castellano Lubov,

December 31,2014).

Birthdays, like Christmas are important, yet as

some commentaries have declared, Christmas is

now thoroughly commercialized or secularized.

All of us in many respects are party to this com-

mercialization making Christmas, at least, an

over-rated celebration. Easter is less significant

in Christian celebrations, but it is the greatest

victory feast of Christendom.

The more significant, if not more important day

in our lives is our baptismal day. Our birthday

is most significant to our mother and father. For

each child is the result of the love of two per-

sons, the human cooperation of mother and

father and the power of the Holy Spirit (God).

Only God can create, God allows people to pro-

create. Note that Baptism is much more under-

rated, actually, it is practically forgotten in the

main celebrations of our Christianity. Do you

celebrate, at best, by offering Mass on this an-

niversary?

Baptism is the first and most powerful Sacra-

ment. Like spiritual immigrants, it is our Chris-

tian citizenship day. God became human on

Christmas day; we became godly, children of

God during our baptism. “See what love the fa-

ther has given us, that we are called children of

God” (1 John 3:1).

On a Wednesday general audience in 2013, Pope

Francis said, “Baptism is in a certain sense the iden-

tity card of the Christian, his birth certificate, and the

act of his birth into the Church. All of you know the

day on which you were born and you celebrate it as

your birthday, don’t you? We all celebrate our birth-

day. I ask you a question, that I have already asked

several times, but I’ll ask it again: who among you

remembers the date of your Baptism?” (Pope Fran-

cis; General Audience, Saint Peter's Square,

Wednesday, 13 November 2013).

“The day of our baptism — even should we live to be

well over 100 — is the most important day of our

life, the day that made us a child of God, a temple of

the Holy Spirit, a member of Christ’s body the

Church. It’s a day that opened up heaven for us. It

deserves to be celebrated” (Fr. Roger Landry,

Meditation: Renewing and Living our Baptism,

CIAM Center, Urbanium University, June 5,

2014). Do you celebrate by offering Mass on

your baptism day anniversary?

Baptism as a gift and power from the Holy

Spirit has been shown by the witness of the

early Christians in Rome in three centuries of

persecution; but again, almost for three hun-

dred years in Japan, a similar fate was endured

by the first Catholic Japanese converts through

the evangelization efforts of religious, such as

the Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits and

their followers from Mexico, Portugal, Spain

and The Philippines. The first Filipino born ,

Living Water - January 9, 2015

St. Lorenzo Ruiz was among them. Unlike the

evangelization of the first and third worlds, in

Japan, the only Sacrament that sustained Japa-

nese converts to keep the faith was Baptism.

They did not have priests, thus they never had

the gift of the other Sacraments like the Eucha-

rist. The Japanese children of God showed that

Jesus is with us through thick and thin, yester-

day, today and forever as promised in the Gos-

pel of Matthew (28:19-20).

Today, the main task is navigating evangeliza-

tion from the movement mainly from Bishops

monks and other religious (Fr. Raniero Canta-

lamessa OFM Cap, Navigating the New Evangeli-

zation, Pauline Books, 2014) to us the Laity, sup-

ported by select consecrated persons. The gift

and power of the Holy Spirit initiated at Baptism

is the spiritual seed that God has invested us, to

evangelize in the new missions, Christian life

among the previously baptised (”baptised pa-

gans”) and for the non-baptised. We pray as

Pope Francis has blessed the sponsors of the

newly baptized that our Baptism becomes the

initial power and reminder of the purpose of the

God-Man who is the infant we celebrate on

Christmas, the God-Man who dipped in the Jor-

dan river that henceforth all the water that roll

down from babies heads empower them as

faithful witnesses, evangelizers in the name of

our Master and Brother, our Lord Jesus Christ!

PROMISE

“…so shall my Word be that goes out from my

mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall

accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the

thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)

“Take care of your spiritual life, your relationship

with God, because this is the backbone of every-

thing we do and everything we are.”

“Take care of your family life, giving your chil-

dren and loved ones not just money, but most of

all your time, attention and love.”

“Take care of your relationships with others,

transforming your faith into life and your words

into good works, especially on behalf of the

needy.”

“Be careful how you speak, purify your tongue of

offensive words, vulgarity and worldly deca-

dence.”

“Heal wounds of the heart with the oil of forgive-

ness, forgiving those who have hurt us and medi-

cating the wounds we have caused others.”

“Look after your work, doing it with enthusiasm,

humility, competence, passion and with a spirit

that knows how to thank the Lord.”

“Be careful of envy, lust, hatred and negative

feelings that devour our interior peace and trans-

form us into destroyed and destructive people.”

“Watch out for anger that can lead to vengeance;

for laziness that leads to existential euthanasia;

for pointing the finger at others, which leads to

pride; and for complaining continually, which

leads to desperation.”

“Take care of brothers and sisters who are weaker

… the elderly, the sick, the hungry, the homeless

and strangers, because we will be judged on this.”

Pope Francis’

Suggested New

Year’s

Resolutions