Today is the feast of Nuestra Señora del Santo Rosario, La Naval de Manila. The fiesta Mass at Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City will be at 8 a.m., to be presided by Cubao Bishop Honesto Ongtioco. The grand procession will be at 4 p.m.

Below are excerpts from the message of Fr. Gerard Francisco P. Timoner, OP, prior provincial of the Philippine Dominican Province and appointed by Pope Francis as a member of the International Theological Commission:

“We lovingly call the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Mother, Mama Mary, Inang Maria. This expresses our loving and intimate relationship with Mary. But … [if] Mary is our Mother, then we are brothers and sisters. Thus, how we treat one another, especially the poor among us, tells us a lot about how we truly treat Our Mother.

“Pope Francis asks us, on this International Year of Consecrated Life and Year of the Poor in the Philippine Church, to wake the world up! But are we truly awake when we see people asleep on the streets, or are we also asleep with the sleep of indifference?

Expand filial boundaries

“Filipinos are family-oriented. However, we also ought to learn that the boundaries of ‘family’ must expand as we embrace the greater human family. The sharing that begins at home ought to overflow into bigger homes i.e., the Church and the nation.

Whenever we call someone a kapatid sa pananampalataya (brother or sister in faith), we acknowledge a shared source of life. It is an acknowledgment that our ‘umbilical cords’ are cut (pinatid) from one womb, from our Mother, the Church.

As we call others kapatid sa Panginoon (brother or sister in the Lord), we acknowledge a shared life under God’s Fatherhood. If we are brothers and sisters to one another, then we ought to share. Hating-kapatid is a family value that makes limited resources available to everyone.

This was the same value that animated the first community of believers: ‘The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common’ (Acts 4:32).

“Through hating-kapatid, sharing, a follower of Christ becomes acutely aware of his/ her responsibility for the material wellbeing of the community, of the human family. Like the early apostolic community, sharing of goods becomes a concrete sign of the kingdom of love. Consequently, it orders also one’s relationship with God who says: ‘If you love me, feed my sheep.’ To nurture the sheep of Jesus is to make sure that one’s generous love leaves no one in need.”

Dominican jubilee retreat

Aside from Father Timoner, another papal appointee is British Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, OP.

A former master general of the Order of Preachers (OP or Dominicans), Father Radcliffe has recently been appointed by Pope Francis, a Jesuit, as consultor to the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace.

Radcliffe is one of the featured speakers in the Asia-Pacific Region Dominican Family Retreat, a retreat of all members of the Dominican Family—friars, sisters, contemplative nuns, third order, clerical fraternities, laity, students, youth—in connection with the 800th foundation anniversary of the Dominican order next year.

The retreat will run at the University of Santo Tomas’ Quadricentennial Pavilion Oct. 12-14.

Father Radcliffe is a very famous British Catholic writer-thinker. He holds views on homosexuality and same-sex marriage that may rile the Catholic establishment. His confrere in the British Dominican province, Fr. Aidan Nichols, OP, perhaps the most famous British theologian today and one of whose books introduced the thought of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the English-speaking world long before Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, holds totally opposite views.

Other speakers in the UST retreat are Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines; Fr. Vincent Lu Vien Ha, socius to Fr. Bruno Cadore, OP Master of the Order, for the Asia-Pacific; Fr. Franklin Buitrago Rojas, coordinator for the jubilee of the OP; Fr. Kevin Saunders, provincial of the OP Assumption Province (Australia); and Fr. Vivian Boland, vicar of the Master of the Order.

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