Marimel after 30+ years

Happy Birthday, Winnie!

Joined high school classmates in Subic to help celebrate Winnie's birthday.
July 25, 2010

High School Classmates

Reunion on 25 June 2010

YouTube - SJCHS Batch 1973

Thanks to the hard work and thoughtfulness of our high school classmate, Evangeline Hernaez-Legasto, we now have a digital copy of our high school yearbook. You're awesome, Ivan!

SJC Chapel Reveries

This is where, as a child, I discovered how it was to be in communion with the Spirit. Entering this place opened a way for me to be close to a Supreme being. I was in awe of Someone so much bigger than me yet the intimacy of the small place seemed to be an embrace from Him who loved me.

Even then, I guess, solitude was something I sought. I found solace in the soft light and the simple beauty of the chapel. I remember now that I would take a few minutes each day to pray like a young girl would. I was so sure that He was always there to listen to me.

The chapel is also where I heard the beautiful singing of the sisters in the late afternoons (Vespers, I think). I would be entranced by the angelic voices wafting from the windows. Those moments would transport me into a state that had me imagining I could be like them. 

And then I grew up!  And would ultimately decide that the sisters' world wasn't for me.

But seeing the chapel again after more than 30 years, it still held me spellbound. Sitting quietly there brought me back to the days when life was pure and simple. Reminding me how good it was when loving God and pleasing him without question was all that mattered.

SJC Ladies who Lunch

Beng, Roxanne, Belen, Mila, & Vikki

Any reason or no reason at all is a good excuse for us to get together! Wasn't it only yesterday (actually, many, many decades ago) that we were classmates in Kindergarten? HIndi naman halata, di ba?

Giving, pure and simple

Attention: If there are any SJC alumnae from the 60s and 70s who might recognize this image, please pause for a while  to read.

    Do you remember this? I recall seeing this in the Information desk of the main entrance to the school when we were in grade school. You know,  the area which you passed to go up the stairs to the chapel. I think beside this was the telephone which you could ask the receptionist to use to call home. I think there was also a replica in the principal's office.(Of course, back then it didn't have a Pondo ng Pinoy sign.)

    I saw this statue recently in the FMM convent in Tagaytay and it brought me back to my elementary days when contributing to the foreign missions was a big thing with me.  Every good Catholic was enjoined to pray for our missionaries and to give whatever he or she could to help spread the word of God in the farthest corners of the world. In my young mind, I earnestly believed that the coin I saved up from my allowance would help an African mother and child, much like the one represented by the statue. So  most days leading to Mission Sunday (October yon, di ba?), I would make the supreme sacrifice of dropping maybe 5 or 10 centavos into the slot in the statue. (That was a lot in those days considering my allowance as a young grader was no more than 25 centavos.)

      A place in heaven as a reward for my "saintly" act was no more than an abstract idea then. What I looked forward to after I dropped a coin was the bowing (actually, nodding of the mother's head) which would follow. I'm not sure why I enjoyed seeing that. Did I see that as a sign of the gratitude from the future recipients of my contribution? Or was I just fascinated by what kind of mechanism was inside the statue which was responsible for causing that movement? Whatever it was, it led to my childhood goal of trying to reach out to the missions through my measly coins! 

    Oh, to be able to parallel a child's generosity (and curiosity) once again!

Mga Kaibigan

High school classmates, College buddies, Former and present colleagues, SVD & parish friends...