Sunday, October 29, 2006 Do 12 heroic things to make a difference, cardinal asks
ALL it takes is one step at a time to do 12 little acts of heroic Christian citizenship.
That was the message of Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, as participants of the “Fun Run for Peace and Solidarity” gathered at the covered court of the Archbishop’s Palace for mass yesterday.
More than 500 members of the Philippine National Police, church organizations, students and representatives of different parishes in Cebu participated in the fun run that started at 5:45 a.m. at the palace grounds.
Police Regional Office 7 Director Silverio Alarcio Jr. fired the shot that signaled the start of the fun run.
The participants headed to Fuente Osmeña, the Capitol and returned to the Archbishop’s Palace for the mass officiated by Fr. Carmelo Diola, coordinating steward of the church-based group Dilaab, which organized the event.
The cardinal could not officiate the mass himself as his doctor advised him to rest due to a case of gout.
“One small step at a time, repeated over and over again, brought you here from where you started. It didn’t matter if you walked or ran, jogged or hopped. What mattered is that you were moving one step at a time,” the cardinal said.
“Moving one step at a time symbolizes the effort every good citizen must exert in order to work for the common good.”
The fun run, explained Fr. Diola in the invitation, is Dilaab’s contribution to the 12th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit this December.
The activity, with the theme “One caring and sharing community,” aims to emphasize physical and mental wellness in the lives of “heroic Christian citizens.”
Dilaab wants to educate each Cebuano to become a heroic Christian citizen through simple actions that can help the country. The actions are taken from the book of lawyer Alexander Lacson titled “12 things I can do for my country.”
The 12 things are: be a good parent or child; adopt a scholar or poor child; pay your taxes; pay your employees well; vote; support your church; dispose of your garbage properly; respect authorities; be proud of your country; buy Filipino; ask for an official receipt; and follow traffic rules.
“All of these are common-sense things, but our observance of them has often been wanting because while we think everybody should do them, we felt that our neglect of them will not matter at all because we are insignificant,” Cardinal Vidal said. (JGA)
