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It’s the start of the Holy Week and it is the perfect time to start our Holy Week reflection and asked ourselves have we led our lives in line with the will of God or are we living our lives according to our will Perhaps we can start with a Tuote from St. John the Baptist, who after he baptized our Lord Jesus Christ said of our Lord in John 2 The ne t day -ohn sa -es s oming to ard him and said ehold the amb of od ho taNes a ay the sin of the orld Later in John 0, St. John the Baptist said

This should be our attitude for the Holy Week that we must decrease in our earthly work and increase our spirituality in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is why Catholics who are true to their Christian faith and vocation must use the Holy Week as a week for reflection. Better still, it is best to go into a retreat and withdraw from the hassle and bustle of our daily routine and commune with the Lord and reflect on his passion and death on the cross for which purpose he was sent by God the Father for the ultimate sacrifice to die in lieu of the sins of mankind. No easy feat even for one who is God, who had to become human, just like one of us.

I have no doubt that the majority of Catholics in this country would go back to their provinces for their annual reunion, which is a good thing. After all, in the Filipino culture, the family is most important to us. In fact, Vatican II recognizes the Family unit as the “Domestic Church.” Thinking about this it is this Domestic Church that our liberal brethren who supported the 5eproductive Health 5H) Law were trying to destroy.

Thankfully, the Supreme Court SC) skillfully came up with their ruling on the 5H Law as “not unconstitutional” but upholding the 8 Constitution on the rights of the unborn and parental rights over the state. I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit guided the SC Justices when they made their ruling on the 5H Law a law that has been rendered “toothless” and therefore cannot be implemented with the force of other laws with penal clauses.

Last Friday afternoon, April , we had a short recollection with our group called Task Force for Life Family TFLF) in the residence of 0rs. Fe Barino and the big Tuestion on the table was asked, fter the C r ling on the a here do e go from here Indeed, many of us formed various task forces to fight the spiritual battle for the Catholic Church, a battle that caused the nation to be so divided between pros and antis. This is why suddenly a group emerged from nowhere who called them “Catholics for 5H,” a group that obviously “profited” from the huge funding that supporters of the 5H Law were given from the 8nited Nations 8N).

But I dare say that this division had a direct link to the division within the Catholic Clergy, represented by the Catholic Bishops of the Philippines CBCP), who more often than not did not have the guts to confront the ATuino regime for pushing the 5H Bill simply because some of these Bishops believed in the ATuino propaganda machinery. So when the Lay Catholics ask the Bishops to confront the ATuino regime, many of these Bishops would throw the issue back to the Laity and say This sho ld be sSearheaded by ay SeoSle and the Ch r h o ld follo yo r lead.

So reading excerpts from Vatican II, Fr. John 5ona gave the definition of the Layman taken from men enti m The hosen SeoSle of od is one one ord one faith one baStism. s members they share in a ommon dignity from their rebirth in Christ. They have the same filial gra e and the same vo ation to Serfe tion. They Sossess in ommon one salvation one hoSe and on ndivided har ity . nd if by the ill of Christ some are made tea hers disSensers of mysteries and sheSherds on behalf of others yet all share a tr e eT ality ith regard the dignity and to the a tivity ommon to all faithf l for the b ilding S of the ody of Christ.

Actually, there is more in Lumen Gentium that gives authority to the Laity and especially in this Year of the Laity, we must come up with a body that could help unify our Christian brethren towards the Love of Christ because of the division within the CBCP. So at exactly 2 p.m., a new group emerged from the ashes of the battle against the 5H Law, in reply to the big Tuestion Catholics are asking themselves here do e go from here

So the leaders of the Task Force for Life Family TFFL) composed of 2 Lay Catholic members suggested to create a counterpart of the CBCP was decided that in the Year of the Laity, Lay Catholics from all regions in this country would create what we call the Catholic Lay Conference of the Philippines CLCP) as the Lay counterpart of the CBCP. The seeds of this body will be planted in Cebu where the seeds of Christianity was first planted and we expect it to grow and support the CBCP in this noble cause to unify Catholics to restore ourselves as one nation, one people under one God. We will explain more about this in our column for Holy Thursday.

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