Happy New Year

The beginning of the year is greeted with loud and enthusiastic greetings of "Happy New Year"! This column joins one and all in wishing everyone and our whole world a peaceful and happy new year, 2017! May this New Year be another period of time when everyone love and care for each other and all of us united in peace!

God loves us so much that He sent His only begotten Son, born of the Virgin to bring peace to us and to all people of good will. On the eight day after Christmas day, the Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God. This title of Mary may not be found literally in the Bible, nor can human reason deduce the truth that a virgin could be mother at the same time, and that a creature could be a mother of the Creator; but, the Catholic faithful believe and accept this truth. Catholic faith is an assent of the mind not based on human logic or reasoning alone, but on the authority of God who is the source of all truth. The human person, a creature of God, needs only to surrender his mind and will to what God declares even through the Church that He willed to establish on earth.

When the human person imitates the example of Mary who obeyed God though unable to grasp fully what God, through an angel, told her to do, he experiences true peace in his heart. Our obedience to God's will and our efforts to unite always with the Almighty, like what Mary did, will bring true peace and joy to everyone, which could also bring peace to the whole world.-bpcantillas@gmail.com