Christmas in Bethlehem

Have you been to Bethlehem? You don’t have to go to Holy Land (i.e. Palestine) to go to Bethlehem as there is a place in Davao City which has been called Bethlehem for almost twenty years now. Where is this Bethlehem in Davao City? It’s just in Davao Mental Hospital! For about nineteen years now, the Marists Lay together with their benefactors have been celebrating the Holy Eucharist every last Sunday afternoon here, followed with the giving of bread to the patients, just after they have partaken of the Heavenly Bread. Ma’am Carmen Vergara, a Lay Marist who is regularly serving in the mass as guitarist/Music ministry, used to invite her Theology students at the Ignatian Institute of Religious Education Foundation (IIREF) to join in these masses and she would ask them, “would you like to go to Bethlehem with me on Sunday?” The name Bethlehem in Hebrew and Aramaic means “house of bread”. Some of her students have continued supporting this activity long after they graduated from IIREF. One of them is Miss Valerie Fernandez, a Professor in the Pharmacy department of the University of the Immaculate Conception, who has even brought her students who are club members of PHARMCARE, to also support this as their outreach activity. Just recently the club members donated the much needed sound system.

Last December 30, 2018 the Feast of the Holy Family, the patients at Bethlehem (i.e. Davao Mental Hospital) received not just bread, but meal packs, juice drinks, and gifts which were all solicited from generous donors. All these were given to them after the mass celebrated by Fr. Bryan (Camillian priest), during which they also received the Heavenly Bread–Jesus our King–the One who was born in Bethlehem. (Manilee Araune)