Saturday, December 22, 2007
Vidal to pray for safety of workers in media
ASIDE from reading his Christmas message before the media yesterday, Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal extended his best Christmas wishes to the workers in the media.
“I will pray for you and for your safety. I understand the risks of doing your job,” he told reporters.
Several media outlets in Cebu will be working on Dec. 24 and 25, which have been declared a special non-working day and regular holiday, respectively.
With a smile, the prelate said he had not so far heard of any reports on killings since his Misa de Gallo started last Dec. 16.
He wished that no bloody incidents, killings, or shootings will happen on Christmas Day.
In his Christmas message, Vidal asked to spend Christmas as a time to say, “I love you,” “Thank you,” “I am sorry,” “Please help me” in more concrete and concerned ways.
Conscience
He challenged the Catholic faithful to learn the message of Christmas through contemplating on the image of Jesus in the Bible, where “he is laid in the manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes, but also in the lives of real people who are still hungry or thirsty or homeless or naked or ill or in prison.”
“Remember: Christmas is not only Jesus’ birthday. It can be our birthday, too, if only we, Cebuanos, keep Cebu the cradle of Christianity always a beautiful place to be born in to and only a better people to grow up in it,” said Vidal.
In his fifth dawn mass at the Christ the King Parish in Barangay Alang-Alang, Mandaue City, he posed another but more personal challenge for the Catholic flock: examine your conscience this Christmas.
“Through examining our conscience, let us ask when we will allow Jesus to win over us. Which part in our life will he be our king of? And how will we let him command us? How will we journey with Jesus everyday as we strive to live a Christian life?” said Vidal in Cebuano before hundreds of mass goers.
However, he advised them not to answer these questions immediately.
Instead, he asked the flock to reflect on them carefully before the Belen, “where Jesus was wrapped in cloth because he is king of peace, truth, justice, love, and freedom.”
“And as we continue to contemplate on the face of Jesus according to the Bible, may you listen and confess your sins because Christ will soon be king,” Vidal said.
Christ the King Parish in Barangay Alang-Alang, established in 1986, is one of the two parishes under the Archdiocese of Cebu that bears “Jesus as King” as the titular.
The other one is in Bulak, Dumanjug, Cebu, which was built in 1968. (NRC)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (December 22, 2007 issue)
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