Mass of the Holy Spirit

To start the school year right, students, faculty and staff, joined by parents and guests, celebrated the Mass of the Holy Spirit today, July 18, 2019. We share with you the homily delivered by our School Chaplain, Fr. Roque Reyes:

We have just sung the beautiful song Liwanag ng Aming Puso for the Mass of the Holy Spirit that we are celebrating right now. It is a beautiful prayer set into song. It is a Tagalog translation of a 9th century sequence that is sung during the Solemnity of Pentecost that commemorates the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church. It was Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle who translated it and Fr. Hontiveros of the Society of Jesus put in the beautiful melody.

Liwanag ng aming puso, sa ami’y manahan ka. In this first line of the song, we invite the Holy Spirit to come and dwell in our heart and be its light. We invite him to be the sweet guest of our soul. If the Holy Spirit stays within us, he will not only become the light of our heart. He will also be the life and the love of our heart. Light, Life and Love, all with capital L. That is God, the Holy Spirit: Light, Life and Love. Our heart will overflow with love for God and kindness toward everyone we meet, and we will spread peace and joy wherever we are.

We are just beginning a new school year. Ahead of us are the ten months of learning, of study and formation. To become the best versions of ourselves, we need God the Holy Spirit to be the light of our heart and mind, to be the light of our life. We ask the Holy Spirit to drive away the darkness of hate and indifference, the darkness of ignorance and bad habits, the darkness of sin that enslave our soul and fill our heart with the light of truth and love, and of grace and freedom that renew us from within. That’s how we become children of light, the beloved children of God in Christ that God wants us to be. We all need to be renewed, acquire a new attitude, develop a new outlook, a more positive mindset, and an openness and docility to God’s ways. We all want a better Woodrose and we know that it begins with a better person in each one of us. That is what we ask the Holy Spirit when we sung the lines

Liwanag ng bagong buhay, sa ami’y umakay Ka.
Linisin ang aming sugat, Ang diwa’y bigyang-sigla.
Akitin Mo ang palalo, Damayan ang naliligaw.
Ituro Mo ang landasin, Patungo sa aming tanglaw.

With the Holy Spirit as the light of our mind, all our learning will lead to Love, that is, a deeper love for God and a greater love for others. We will love everyone in our own family, our classmates, our friends, our colleagues at work. Whether it is Social Studies or Science, Pilipino or Math, all the subjects that you will study will help you love Jesus Christ more and more each day. And together with him, the Father and the Holy Spirit. We will all together create a culture of positivity and optimism, of kindness and love, of peace and joy.

We also invite the Holy Spirit to be the light of our life. With the help of the Holy Spirit, our everyday life, at home, in school and with our friends will be a life pleasing to God. We will face the trials and challenges in life with courage because we know that the Holy Spirit will be there to help us. Even if we experience failures in our studies and in our relationships, we remain calm and serene because we know that we are loved by God with a love that is full of tenderness and compassion, a love beyond all telling. God loves each one of us with an unconditional love that is none judgmental and none condemning. His love for us is a forgiving love that we experience every time we go to confession. We can get up from where we have fallen and have our wounds healed. We can be found when we are lost because God searches us out.

If we want to know more about the Holy Spirit, we have to ask the help of Our Blessed Mother Mary for she is the Spouse of the Holy Spirit. She has the openness, humbleness and obedience to the gentle motions of the Holy Spirit that we should always have. If we imitate Our Lady, the Holy Spirit will do great things in us. Each one of us with his instruments to spread love, peace and joy. Amen.