Blessed are the poor in spirit!

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IVE Youth day in the Philippines

institute incarnate word - youth

Dear all,

“Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mathew 5: 3)

The rich man of the Gospel did not understand this reality and, therefore, he went away sad… Sad, for he had many possessions… What a paradox for the modern world! Being very rich, he was very sad.

Because of this the Holy Father proposed the beatitudes as motto for the coming World Youth Days since only with them is possible to find the true happiness. Yes, the true happiness is found in the poverty, in the purity, in the tears and in the persecutions. This is the Gospel’s paradox which fills with owe the entire world!

In the same way, we wanted as well to show here in the Philippines, by choosing the beatitudes for our IVE Youth Day’s motto, that whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Jesus’ sake will find it (Mathew 16, 25).

So, we organized our 3rd Youth day under the guidance of the first beatitude.

It was on Sunday 8th of February in Lipa City and around 250 youths have attended. It was truly a big grace of God! Many of the youth came from Caloocan, from San José, from Santo Tomás, from the same Lipa City and 19 from Malaysia.

To the latter, since they stayed with us for almost a week, we were able to make them know some of the historical and touristic spots of The Philippines, as well as our religious houses and our apostolates. The week finished and they left very happy and edified.

As what is our custom, we began the activities with some introductory words read by some youth and we continued with two conferences alternated by a break. In the first one Andrew Khoo, a member of our Institute from Malaysia, spoke about the necessity of living and conforming all the things toward our final end, which is Heaven. In the second one the topic spoken was about the religious and priestly vocation as God’s calling which is rooted only in the election made by Him and not in our qualities.

In the “fogón” (the time of performances) after lunch, some members of our Religious Family and of the youth went on stage for some musical performances. After this the theater group Saint Philip Neri presented the comedy sketch “La Viborita” (the snake).

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During the afternoon there were sports, games and some snacks. Later on, in the evening we had the procession with Our Patroness the Virgin of Luján, the Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament with a catechetical dialogue and finally the Holy Mass presided by Fr. James Ty, IVE.

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Many of the youth approached to receive the sacraments, especially the Confession. The lines were very long, and the priest were very few…

During the entire day the IVE stand was available. There our Religious Family was introduced by some pictures, maps, brochures and some documentaries and videos that make known in a better way our spirituality and our specific end.

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We give overflowing thanks to God who never stops showing us how much reason we have for hoping, because the youth in grace are in truth a great reason of hope!; and even more when we see that they want to be crazy and poor for Christ, since “Blessed are the crazy for Christ!, for they are truly poor, they live triumphant poverty, they obey until death…[1], for they are truly happy.

Sem. Bernardo Ibarra – 14/02/15

[1] BUELA, C. Youth in the third Millennium. Page. 399

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