Our human Thank-You-Prayer acquires a divine value only when Jesus offers it to His Father

Our human understanding and appreciation of the gift of life progresses according to our growth in our life of faith from childhood to priesthood. This progression is emphasized at certain important moments of Christian living.

On 01 November this year 2021, I will be 87 years of age. 1934 is the anniversary year of my birth in Leon, Iloilo.

I began to say, “Thank you, Lord, for giving me life”, at kindergarten catechesis around the age of five.

At age 15, 15 June 1950, I entered the San Vicente Ferrer Minor Seminary in District of Jaro in Iloilo City.

At age 27 on 18 March 1961, I was ordained a priest with 12 other classmates. On this day I will be 60 years as an ordained priest.

On 19 March of the same year, on the Solemn Feast of St. Joseph, patronal feast also of the parish of the Spousal of Mary and Joseph, I celebrated my first Mass in Latin.

It was in this Holy Celebration, a Thanksgiving Mass, when Jesus brought my Thank-You-Prayer to His Father! He was the Invisible Divine Celebrant of Holy Sacrifice visibly performed by a puny but grateful human being like me.

On 18 June 2021 I will be 46 years as ordained bishop having been ordained on June 18, 1975 in the Cathedral of Jaro with Papal Nuncio Bruno Torpigliani as main ordaining prelate assisted by Jaime Cardinal Sin, archbishop of Manila, and by Artemio Casas, then archbishop of Jaro.

Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo. Forever I will sing the mercies of the Lord!