33rd Kadayawan sa Dabaw

Excerpt from Archbishop Romulo G. Valles’ homily during the Holy Mass for the opening of the 33rd Kadayawan Festival last August 10, 2018 @ Magsaysay Park, Davao City.

Dako gyud ang akong kalipay nga this year again, we have organized as part of our pag-abli sa Kadayawan sa Dabaw this act of prayer, this act of worship. With smiling faces, we want to proclaim to each other and to the world that part of our Kadayawan festival is to say that we could not have a true Kadayawan and overflowing with joy and goodness if not we don’t realize that all of these really comes from the Lord. And so, I am very proud, very happy nga taga Davao that again, part of the celebration, in fact, part of the pag-abli sa Kadayawan is this holy sacrifice of the mass.

But like last year, I would like to clearly make this comment that as a minister of the Catholic Church, as the Archbishop of Davao, I do this humbly and recognizing that we are not the only community of faith in Davao… there are people who believe truly in God but different styles, different proclamation of faith and thank you very much, you are present here; it means deeply that the holy mass is a Catholic tradition, a beautiful tradition but also your physical presence here people of other faith is telling us another beautiful truth of Davao that in prayer, we can come together. We may be different, but to present ourselves as sons and daughters of the Most high, we can come together.

What our celebrating today is the martyrdom of St. Lawrence… What is the beauty of that? Briefly… To achieve, to nurture, to develop Kadayawan… the message is we die in a different way… in order for Kadayawan to flourish in Davao really it needs sacrifice from us. That many times for the good of everyone, for the majority of Davao; beginning with our dear mayor, for each one of us, what is demanded is we die in little ways, we forget ourselves in order for others to live.

My dear friends, in this pag-abli sa Kadayawan sa Davao… it is so beautiful, I really appreciate this part of the program to turn our attention to the Almighty, to our Maker, to our Creator, to our Lord, to our God who is really the source of real and definitive Kadayawan.