'The riches of a virtuous, pure heart will bear eternal profit.' Sunday Reflections, 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

 

Tacloban City, Philippines after Typhoon Hayan/Yolanda

[Wikipedia; photo]

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Mark 12:38-44 (shorter form: 12:41-44) (English Standard Version, Anglicised)  

[In his teaching Jesus said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the market-places and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretence make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”]

And Jesus sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Pope Francis with victims of Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda

Palo, Leyte, 17 January 2015 

[Wikipedia; photo]

Typhoon Hayan, known in the Philippines as Super Typhoon Yolanda, made landfall in the country on the night of 7 November 2013. As it passed over the country it killed more than 6,000 and affected 11 million people. I was living in Bacolod City at the time where we got heavy rains and strong winds but it wasn't catastrophic, though it did some damage on the island of Negros where Bacolod City is located.

The Wikipedia entry on the storm gives details of the assistance sent by many countries to the Philippines. However, one is missing: Guinea-Bissau, a small country in west Africa that is less than half the size of Ireland or of Mindanao, with a population of around 2,100,000. It declared its independence of Portugal on 24 September 1973. This was recognised on 10 September 1974. About 11 per cent of the population are Catholics. The country has two dioceses.

An Agenzia Fides report dated 9 December 2013 reads: In the spirit of the liturgical season of Advent, the Bishops of the dioceses in Guinea Bissau and Bafata , His Exc. Mgr. Pedro Zilli and His Exc. Mgr. José Camnate na Bissign have invited all the diocesan communities to a 'Day of fasting and prayer for peace in the world, in Africa and in Guinea-Bissau' to be held on December 13. Further on the report states: In tune with the wave of international solidarity in favor of the Philippines, a nation deeply wounded by Typhoon Haiyan, the Bishops recommend to all parish communities that 'the fruit of fasting has to be destined to the victims of this natural disaster'. Furthermore, the Catholic Church promotes a fundraiser for the Filipino people until Sunday, December 22.

I remember being deeply touched by this report. I sent the link to a local newspaper but it wasn't interested.

Typical Scenery, Guinea-Bissau

[Wikipedia; photo]

This story of the Catholics of Guinea-Bissau sending aid to the Philippines is similar to that of the Choctaw people in the USA  who had been dispossessed of their traditional homeland. In 1847 they raised money to help the people of Ireland who were starving because of the failure of the potato crop over a number of years. In 1840 Ireland had a population of about 8,000,000. By 1850 a million had died and another million had emigrated to North America, Britain and other places, man dying on the way. (The population of Ireland kept decreasing through emigration till 1950 and today there are fewer people in the country than there were in 1840.) An enduring bond has lasted between the Choctaw people and the Irish to this day.

Flag of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma

[Wikipedia; photo]

On the Sundays in Ordinary Time the First Reading and the Gospel have a common theme. I have been praying with these readings during the week and the generosity of the Catholics of Guinea-Bissau to the people of the Philippines and that of the Choctaw people to the Irish kept coming to mind. They reminded me of the generosity and faith of the widow who gave the prophet Elijah water to drink and bread to eat even though she had really nothing. They reminded me of the widow giving her two small coins to the Temple treasury in Jerusalem, totally unaware of Who noticed this. Neither widow is given a name. 

I doubt if any of the people in Ireland dying of hunger in the 1840s had ever heard of the Choctaw People of if the latter had ever heard of Ireland until someone told them of the plight of the people there, similar to their own plight. I doubt if the majority of Filipinos know where Guinea-Bissau is or if the people of that country know much about the Philippines. There are no historical links between the two no more than there were between the Choctaws and the Irish in the 1840s, though there are now.

The widow who looked after Elijah in his hunger and thirst and the widow to whom Jesus drew the attention of his followers have been giving to the Church for 2,ooo years. Their generosity continues to be a channel of God's grace to the Church and to the whole world.

The amount given by the two widows seems like nothing. The amount the Choctaw people sent to Ireland and that the Catholics of Guinea-Bissau, one of the poorest countries in the world, sent to the Philippines were minimal compared to that sent by other nations and groups. But it was far greater in that it was sent by people with pure and generous hearts and by people of faith. In the case of the Catholics of Guinea-Bissau that faith was their Catholic faith. And every donation given by individual Choctaws and by individual Bissau-Guinean Catholics was a 'widow's mite'.

Calon Lân (A Pure Heart)

While I was praying in one of our small chapels during the week the Welsh hymn above, which I've used here before, kept coming into my mind and I listened to it a number of time from my mobile phone through my hearing aids. Calon is the Welsh for 'heart' and Lân the word for 'pure' or 'clean'. The Welsh have a great choral tradition, largely due to the rise of Methodism in the late 1700s and 1800s. Part of that tradition is that hymns are sung before international rugby matches. The above video was made before a match between Wales and Scotland in 2014.

Calon Lân contains the lines, None but a pure heart can sing, Sing in the day and sing in the night. Further on we find, The riches of a virtuous, pure heart will bear eternal profit.

I have no doubt that the two widows in this Sunday's readings are singing in the eternal day of heaven, bearing eternal profit because of their virtuous, pure hearts. May each of us pray for a virtuous, pure heart.

Traditional Latin Mass 

Resumed Fifth Sunday After Epiphany 

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 11-10-2024 if necessary).

Epistle: Colossians 3:12-17.  Gospel: Matthew 8: 23-27.

Reading the Bible

Gerrit Dou [Web Gallery of Art]

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish one another in all wisdom (Colossians 3:16; Epistle).

'Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.' Sunday Reflections, The Baptism of the Lord, Year B

The Baptism of Christ (detail), Tintoretto, 1579-81

Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) 

Gospel Mark 1:7-11 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)

John the Baptist proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

The Census at Bethlehem, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1566

Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels [Web Gallery of Art]

Two weeks ago, on the Feast of the Holy Family, I celebrated Mass in Holy Family Home for Girls here in Bacolod City. At the beginning of my homily I asked a number of the girls to look at a copy of the painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder above and to point out the Holy Family in it. None of them could find Mary and Joseph, just as none of the figures in the painting notices the young woman on the donkey and the man leading it.

Detail of Bruegel's painting [Wikipedia]

In Tintoretto's painting of the Baptism of Jesus it is clear who the two figures in the foreground are. But there are many people in the background. When Jesus asked John to baptize him the others in the line would not have known who he was. They would have presumed that, like themselves, he was a sinner instead of the Word who became flesh and lived among us (John 1:14).

In his birth and at the beginning of his public life Jesus is almost anonymous, a 'nobody'. St Theodotus of Ancyra  reflects on this:

The Lord of all comes as a slave amidst poverty. The huntsman has no wish to startle his prey. Choosing for birthplace an unknown village in a remote province, he is born of a poor maiden and accepts all that poverty implies, for he hopes by stealth to ensnare and save us.

If he had been born to high rank and amidst luxury, unbelievers would have said the world had been transformed by wealth. If he had chosen as his birthplace the great city of Rome, they would have thought the transformation had been brought about by civil power.

Suppose he had been the son of an emperor. They would have said: 'How useful it is to be powerful!' Imagine him the son of a senator. It would have been: 'Look what can be accomplished by legislation!'

But in fact, what did he do? He chose surroundings that were poor and simple, so ordinary as to be almost unnoticed, so that people would know it was the Godhead alone that had changed the world. This was his reason for choosing his mother from among the poor of a very poor country, and for becoming poor himself.

Pope Francis will be coming to the Philippines on 15 January. One of my priest-friends whose flight was delayed in Manila the other day for two hours - one of many delayed flights - in the context of many flights that will be cancelled on the day the Pope lands in Manila and on the day he leaves - said, only half-jokingly, He should be made wait two hours like everyone else! Bruegel's painting, The Census at Bethlehem, suggests that Mary and Joseph will have a long wait when they join the queue outside the office to the left of the picture. And maybe Jesus the adult had to wait quite a while before reaching St John the Baptist, just as in my young days I often had to wait quite a while outside the confessional in my parish church in Dublin on Saturdays because there were so many sinners there before me.

Tacloban Airport after Haiyan/Yolanda [Wikipedia]

And in today's Philippine Daily Inquirer [9 January] Archbishop John Du of Palo, the archdiocese that includes Tacloban City devastated by Supertyphoon Haiyan/Yolanda in November 2013, is reported as asking security people to 'soften' their draconian security measures during the visit of Pope Francis to Leyte. Pope Francis specifically asked to visit Tacloban City so that he could meet survivors of the typhoon. He will celebrate Mass at the airport there on 17 January. But those who wish to attend will have to be there the evening before and will not be allowed to bring tents, umbrellas or bottled water, though there will be water stations at the airport. And tonight's weather forecast says that an area of low pressure may hit where Tacloban is located around the time the Pope visits. If it does it will probably bring lots of rain.

The ordinary people of Leyte, many of them still living in makeshift houses, will be treated just as Joseph and Mary were along with the people outside the office in Bruegel's painting. And the Pope's very purpose in visiting Tacloban will be thwarted to some extent, even though tight security is sadly necessary in today's world.

But the world of first-century Bethlehem, the world of Bruegel's 16th-century Netherlands, the world of 21st-century Tacloban City is the world in which the Word became flesh and lived among us.

The Good News is that the Word who became flesh still lives among us.

This hymn by contemporary English composer John Rutter isn't linked to the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. But it is a hymn of thanksgiving to God for all that he has given us. The greatest gift of all is our Christian faith, received at our baptism. It is that faith, for which many Filipinos have a great sense of gratitude, that Pope Francis is coming to affirm. Please pray that his visit will bear fruit and bring all of us to focus our lives on Jesus Christ so that we, like St John the Baptist, may draw others to him.

Tacloban, Philippines, destroyed twice before by storms

.

Home destroyed by Super Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda, Tacloban City, Philippines

Philippine historian Ambeth R. Ocampo had a very interesting story in his column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer yesterday, 20 November. Tacloban was destroyed twice before by violent storms, in 1897 and in 1912.

Mr Ocampo quotes from an Australian newspaper, Barrier Mariner, 12 January 1898 [emphasis added]:

TYPHOON AND TIDAL WAVE IN THE PHILIPPINES. 7,000 Lives Lost. Mail advices, brought by the steamer Gaelic from Chinese and other ports in the Far East, contain details of the fearful destruction wrought in the Philippine Islands by the typhoon and tidal wave during October [1897]. It is estimated that 400 Europeans and 6,000 natives lost their lives, many being drowned by the rush of water, while others were killed by the violence of the wind. Several towns have been swept or blown away. The hurricane first struck the Bay of Santa Paula, and devastated the district lying to the south of it. No communication with the neighborhood was possible for two days. The hurricane reached Leyte on Oct. 12, striking Tacloban, the capital, with terrific force, and reduced it to ruins in less than half an hour. The bodies of 126 Europeans have been recovered from the fallen buildings. Four hundred natives were buried in the ruins. 

Tacloban City, 14 November 2013

The Washington Herald of 20 November 1912 reports: 

15,000 DIE IN PHILIPPINE STORM. That 15,000 persons were probably killed and wounded in a typhoon that swept the Philippine Islands last Tuesday was reported yesterday in cable dispatches to the Bureau of Insular Affairs.

The typhoon swept the Visayas and is said to have practically destroyed Tacloban, the capital of Leyte, and to have wrought enormous damage and loss of life at Capiz, the capital of the province of Capiz. Tacloban has a population of 12,000. Capiz has a population of over 20,000. Capiz is the terminal of the railroad from Iloilo. It is a most important sugar port.

The first news of the catastrophe came in a dispatch of the governor general of the Philippines. No figures of the dead or injured were given, but it was stated that probably half the population of the two cities had been lost. The governor general sent his dispatch on Thursday. He informed the department that he was rushing a shipload of food, clothing and all available medical supplies to Tacloban. All telegraphic communication has been destroyed, and it is impossible to get other than vague reports of the extent of the disaster. That Tacloban has suffered an enormous loss of life is believed to be certain. Following the receipt of the dispatch announcing the heavy casualties in the Visayas, the Red Cross prepared to rush a relief fund to the governor general. The Washington office has cabled the insular government asking how great is their need.

The town of Capiz referred to is now Roxas City. It now has a population of more than 156,000 while before Haiyan/Yolanda Tacloban City had a population of around 220,000. During the 1912 typhoon they had around 20,000 and 12,000 respectively. This suggests that relative to the population the typhoon 101 years ago was more devastating than Haiyan/Yolanda was. But the reports also imply that twice before Tacloban and other towns rose from post-typhoon ruin.

One of the ironies of Haiyan/Yolanda is that just as in 1912 All telegraphic communication has been destroyed and yet the world's media were able to show us live what was happening in Tacloban City and elsewhere this time.

Mr Ocampo ends his column with this statement: All of the above suggest we do not learn from history.

His statement also suggests to me that while we have to try to analyze climatic events and calamities to see if climate change and global warming are a major factor in storms such as Haiyan/Yolanda and to ask if we humans are responsible for this, we also have to ask other questions.

Haiyan/Yolanda approaching the Philippines, 7 November 2013.

Photos from Wikipedia page on Typhoon Haiyan.

'There will be great earthquakes . . .' Sunday Reflections, 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Sto Niño Basilica, Cebu City, Philippines, 15 October 2013

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)                                  

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel Luke 21:5-19 (Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition) 

And as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, Jesus said, "As for these things which you see, the days will come when there shall not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down." And they asked him, "Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign when this is about to take place?" And he said, "Take heed that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name, saying, 'I am he!' and, 'The time is at hand!' Do not go after them. And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified; for this must first take place, but the end will not be at once." 

Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake. This will be a time for you to bear testimony.  Settle it therefore in your minds, not to meditate beforehand how to answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.  You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and kinsmen and friends, and some of you they will put to death;  you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives."

Tanauan, Leyte, after Super Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda 8 November 2013

Sr Maricel Fuerza TC and Sr Reah Lei Talibas TC are friends of mine, members of the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family. They both happen to be in the same small community at the novitiate of the Sisters in Talisay City, Negros Occidental, just north of Bacolod City.

Sr Maricel is from Catigbian, Bohol, very near the epicentre of the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that hit Bohol and other parts of the Visayas, noticeably Cebu, the morning of 15 October. Her family home was destroyed, though nobody was hurt.

Sister Maricel is on the left.

Sr Rhea Lei is from Tanauan, Leyte, a coastal town south of Tacloban City that has been featured so much in the news since Super typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda passed through the central Philippines on 8 November. Her family home too was destroyed though all are safe. Sister texted me the other day that her family were suffering from hunger because of the lack of food and water. She texted later 'I desire to go [home] but I feel helpless at this time'.

Sister Rhea Lei is on the far left.

A word I have often used about the people of the Philippines is 'resilience'. Many reporters, foreign and Filipino, have been seen that resilience this last week. I have seen it so many times. I remember travelling on a bus nearly 40 years ago in northern Mindanao sitting next to a young couple with two or three very young children and two or three bags. I didn't really find out their story but I knew they were moving to another place to make a new start. Jesus tells us at the end of today's gospel, By your endurance you will gain your lives.

People here, especially those who are poor or without influence, are long-suffering. Sometimes this can result in an unhelpful passivity. But the other side of that is an extraordinary resilience when disaster strikes. Very often this is an expression of deep faith. I saw on TV a shot of people kneeling and praying in front of a statue of Our Blessed Mother in one of the churches in Tacloban City. These were people left with nothing who had probably lost family members or others close to them.

The Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the Redemptorist church in Tacloban, is sheltering 200 to 300 families,  the pews serving as beds. A BBC reporter there described Fr Edwin Bacaltos CSsR, the parish priest and whom I know, as a genuine good shepherd. And it was stated that, as usual, there would be four Masses on Sunday.

Though there has been some looting, what I saw on TV showed an 'orderliness' of some kind, even though some were taking goods that couldn't possibly be of any use. I have been struck by the orderliness of very long queues of people, young and old, waiting patiently  and with hope for food and water, even when hardly anything is available.

Christ on the Sea of Galilee, 1854, Eugène Delacroix [Wikipedia]

I know that the Church in some countries will have special collections for the victims of Haiyan/Yolanda. I know that people will be very generous, as so many have been already.

'I have returned', 1944, Gulf of Leyte [Wikipedia]

An iconic photo from World War II is that of General Douglas MacArthur landing at Tacloban to help, with the aid of both American and Filipino soldiers (the soldier with the helmet behind General MacArthur is Philippine General Carlos P. Romulo), to liberate the Philippines from the Japanese. 69 years later an American aircraft carrier has arrived in the same area to help, with many others, to liberate the people of Leyte from their present misery. The 'many others' include not only countless Filipinos but people on board ships sent by the United Kingdom and Japan. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom Jesus tells us, That was the reality in the Pacific War 70 years ago but now former enemies are working together to help the victims of what is said to be the strongest storm ever to hit land.

Surely this is a symbol of God's presence just as Jesus, God who became man, was present while asleep on the boat in the middle of a storm.

Filipinos have a great devotion to the Sto Niño, the Child Jesus. The video at the top shows the bell tower of the Sto Niño Basilica in Cebu being destroyed by the earthquake. The main church in Tacloban City is also named after the Sto Niño. I used the video below earlier in the week. The hymn to the Sto Niño of Tacloban was recorded in that church, which is seen in the video. The hymn, both the words and the way it is sung, captures for me something of the faith and hope of Filipino Catholics, in this instance those in the region that has been most severely stricken, a trust in God's love and mercy. The people fervently sing as they ask the Holy Child of Tacloban not to leave them.

He won't.

Shortly after I uploaded Sunday Reflections I received the following reflection from a friend in Manila, not as a response but by coincidence.

Calamities, natural and man-made have besieged our country in recent months and years, with increasing frequency, intensity and horror. As Christians, how do we witness about God, to a man cradling his lifeless daughter in his arms, or a child made orphan by surging sea and homeless by howling wind, or a community whose locus of worship for centuries has been reduced to a pile of rubble in seconds? Is God punishing us? As Catholics, fortified by the Year of Faith, we can never ever believe that. Instead, we witness to a God of love, as we help bury the dead, feed, clothe, shelter the living, comfort the grieving. We cling to our faith in a God who brings good out of evil, for our sake and for those who are on the verge of losing their faith. The good has started coming, in the deluge of donations, equipment, rescue and medical missions, from all over the world – even from those, with whom, we have had differences. Indeed, natural calamities make humankind realize how fleeting is life, how fragile is our shared planet. Reminded of how helpless we truly are, we raise our hearts in prayer, our arms in surrender, like children asking to be carried, confident, that our Father will scoop us up in His arms and carry us home.

Blessings

Vi

'We may have ratified our own doom.' Aftermath of Super Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda in Tacloban City, Philippines

The photos above were uploaded on October 30 on her Facebook account by my friend Rhea Gladys Mae Sarigumba, a social worker who lives in Tacloban City. She is with one of her two daughters in the top right while her mother Mrs Vicenta Matildo is in the photo below with her to granddaughters, the children of Rhea and her husband Rogel who is pictured in the top right with his two daughters, his mother-in-law Vicenta and sister-in-law Lalai with her daughter Barbie.

Rhea with her husband Rogel and their daughters whose nicknames are 'Xycy' and 'Xie Ann'.

I've had no news about Rhea since Super Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda hit Tacloban City early on Friday morning, 8 November. One of the last entries by Rhea on the timeline of her Facebook is a link to an update on the approaching storm on the website of PAGASA, the national weather bureau in the Philippines issued at 6AM on 7 November, less than 24 hours before it hit the islands of Samar and Leyte in the Eastern Visayas. ('PAGASA' is an acronym but in the Visayan languages, spoken in the hardest-hit areas, it means 'hope'.)

Rhea's very last entry on Facebook, dated 7 November, was How can I sleep when 

all I hear is raindrops.. #kanta lang teh? (Just sing?)

Vicenta, Rhea's mother left Surigao del Norte in Mindanao, where she lives, for Tacloban City on Sunday but I haven't heard from her since. However,  a mutual friend and neighbour of Vicenta texted me this morning that Vicenta's mother and her sisters are all safe as they had evacuated before the storm hit.

This afternoon I received a text message from another Rhea, Sr Rhea Lei Tolibas TC, a young religious of the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family who is based in the novitiate of the Sisters just north of Bacolod City. She's from Tanauan, Leyte, seen at the beginning of the video above, a coastal town about 45 minutes south of Tacloban City. Her family are safe and in an evacuation centre but lack food and water. Sr Rhea mentioned that people are desperate. 

BBC World reported this afternoon, Wednesday, that eight people had been killed while a crowd stormed a storehouse looking for food.

Church of the Assumption, Tanauan, Leyte [Wikipedia]

The website of the Mercy International Association carries this report of damage to the hospital and school of the Mercy Sisters in Tacloban:

As a human tragedy, the scale of the disaster is so enormous that it is almost beyond our comprehension. What makes this tragedy especially compelling for us is that our own Sisters are significantly effected. The new Mother of Mercy hospital at Tacloban is 50% damaged, the Holy Infant school and college 75% damaged, the Convent in Mindanao badly damaged and the food supplies have run out. It is,of course, impossible to make direct contact with our Sisters, but our understanding is that no Sister is hurt, thank God. However, news has filtered through that some of our Sisters' families are harmed or missing. In the midst of this disaster, these Sisters of Mercy continue to bring human and spiritual comfort and support to all in such drastic need around them.

Six Irish Mercy Sisters from St Maries of the Isle, Cork, went to Tacloban in 1954 at the invitation of Bishop Lino Gonzaga of Palo. That original group grew into a new congregation of Mercy Sisters that now has 47 members, all Filipinos, working in a number of areas. Education and medical care have always been central to Mercy Sisters. Mother of Mercy Hospital, Tacloban City, was one expression of that. 

The six Irish Sisters were asked to take over the running of an already established school that has grown into Holy Infant College (HIC). Ironically, the thene for the 87th anniversary of the establishment of the school was Responding to the Challenges of Climate Change.

Yeb Saño, Climate Change Commissioner of the Philippines and a delegate to the 2013 Climate Change Conference in Warsaw speaks very movingly about the impact of Haiyan/Yolanda on his own family. Whether or not the super typhoon was caused by climate change it reminds us of the urgency of respecting God's creation. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good (Genesis 1:31, RSVCE). We may have ratified our own doom, Mr Saño points out. But there still is room for us to act.

From looking at news reports on television I see some hope that  within two or three days essential aid, food, drinking water, shelter, medicine,communication systems, proper sanitation, the recovery and burial of all the dead, may avert an even greater disaster than what is there now. Good weather that will last for at least a few days is expected by Friday.

Last night President Aquino said that the estimate of 10,000 dead was too high and that the government believed the death toll was around 2,500. The final figure may be somewhere in between those two estimates. But each death is a tragedy for family and relatives.

When my friend Rhea Sarigumba posted the PAGASA update on Facebook she wrote, May God guide us with His loving care and protection.

May God give strength to all in the affected areas, victims, those bringing aid, administrators and media people. 

Will Yeb Saño's warning, We may have ratified our own doom, come true or will there be a place for Xycy, Xie Ann, Mabel, the children born just after the storm, and their contemporaries around the world at the table of life when they grow up?

Just now, 7:50pm Philippine time, I received news that the family of Reah and Rogel are all safe. Thanks be to God.

Devastation in Tacloban City, Philippines

It has become clear that Super Typhoon Haiyan ('Yolanda' in the Philippines) has caused enormous destruction and, very possibly, many deaths. Tacloban City, on the island of Leyte in the eastern Visayas, the group of large islands in the centre of the country, looks as if a bomb had been dropped on it. I have visited it a number of times.

Much of the damage was caused by a storm surge, which is similar to a tsunami. I heard an official of PAGASA, the national weather bureau, explain on television today that where the seas is shallow, as it is in Tacloban City,  such surges tend to be much higher than where the sea is deep and therefore much more destructive.

Part of downtown Tacloban City

There are now reports that more than 10,000 may have died as a result of the storm. Reuters quotes a senior police official on this.

At 1.47 in the video above you can see the damage done to Daniel Z. Romualdez Airport. Below is a photo of the main building.

Although the airport buildings, including the control tower, as far as I know, have been badly damaged the runway has now been cleared of debris and military aircraft carrying supplies and troops have been able to land. President Aquino also visited today.

Reports indicate that it may be months before normal electricity services can be resumed.

There has been some looting in Tacloban City but scenes on TV showed this to be an 'orderly' process, if one can describe it as such. And footage shows people queuing up in orderly fashion at the airport, hoping for relief goods and, in some cases, hoping to get out. However, police and soldiers have been brought in to bring about order. One can well imagine that if people don't get basics such as food, drinking water, shelter and medical care, that matters could get out of hand.

One striking characteristic of Filipinos is their resilience. I've seen this over and over again. People pick up the pieces and start again.

Pope Francis sent the following telegram through Secretary of State Archbishop Pietro Parolin to President Aquino:

Deeply saddened by the destruction and loss of life caused by the super typhoon, His Holiness Pope Francis expresses his heartfelt solidarity with all those affected by this storm and its aftermath. He is especially mindful of those who mourn the loss of their loved ones and of those who have lost their homes. In praying for all the people of the Philippines, the Holy Father likewise offers encouragement to the civil authorities and emergency personnel as they assist the victims of this storm. He invokes divine blessings of strength and consolation for the Nation.

Basilica of Sto Niño de Tacloban

The Patron of Tacloban City is the Sto Niño de Tacloban, the Holy Child of Tacloban. May God show his love in a special way to the many children who have been traumatised by their experience in those places in the Philippines that bore the brunt of the typhoon. And may Mary and her husband St Joseph obtain for parents and others in positions of authority the strength and generosity to do what needs to be done to bring about a life-giving normality.

May the faith of the people of Tacloban City and other affected areas, expressed in the hymn above to the Sto Niño de Tacloban asking his blessing and mercy, touch the Merciful Heart of our loving Saviour Jesus Christ.

Photos from Wikipedia.