Don’t lose hope, Albay bishop tells typhoon victims

A Catholic bishop has told the victims of recent typhoons that claimed lives and destroyed properties not to give up.

Bishop Joel Baylon of Legazpi, in a message issued Nov. 14, urged the survivors to face the devastation “with new hope and a firm resolve to rise from the ruins and build again”.

The bishop has admitted it’s hard to explain why such disasters happened, but said that people are called to cling to faith.

People of Albay province, he said, have known disasters all their lives — from volcanic eruptions to super typhoons, from heavy flooding to landslides.

“And so here we are again, survivors of yet another disaster, called to do what we have always done in the past: filled with faith and trust in a God who does not abandon us, to rise, rebuild and move on,” Baylon said.

A wave of successive typhoons have caused massive destruction and loss of lives in Albay and other Luzon provinces.

Countless are also displaced and many more suffered losses brought by strong winds and heavy rains.

As they have done in the past, Baylon asked the people “to reach out to each other” and work “hand in hand” towards recovery.

“Let our cities, towns, barangays, parishes, neighborhoods and especially our families once again be communities of caring and sharing, of mutual trust and living faith,” he said. (CBCP News)

A version of this article was first published on CBCP News.