The Pope Will Visit Us On January 15-19

While in elementary school, I remember being told that our Lord, Jesus Christ, said to Peter: Thou art Peter, the Rock, and upon this Rock I will build my Church. The teacher went on and said that this meant that He was establishing His Church and Peter was It's leader, the very first Pope of His Church!

The very first pope that I was aware of was Pope Pius XII but in those days it wasn't easy to travel so the pope was almost always in the Vatican. Pope Paul the VI (1963–1978) was the first Pope that I ever saw. When he came to the Philippines in the 70s, I parked my car with my wife Agnes and our family of three along EDSA where the Papal Entourage would pass, and we were amply rewarded with a few seconds of unobstructed view of the Pope amiably waving from an uncovered car!

It was an ordinary scene  in a very ordinary place that I've passed a few hundred times, but in my mind "that Papal scene" was ethereal, with the Pope suffused in an aura worthy of Hollywood! Believe me, he was!

(Come down to earth, Jun!)

Today we look forward to Pope Francis'  five day visit to the Pilippines come January 15, 2015.

 

And I am tuned in to http://papalvisit.ph/  for news on Pope Francis!

 

How Old Do You Look Like?

From today's Yahoo News Philippines:

This technology can estimate your age from your face and how long you have to live. All you need to do is upload a decent size photo according to the requirements (face forward, no smiles, well lit and hair pulled back), answer a few simple questions and voila! It will give you an estimate of your age and how long you have left to live.

FaceMyAge.com analyzes your face based on the uploaded picture and takes into account the answers on your lifestyle choices (smoking habits, drug habits, sun exposure, and marital status) to estimate your age and predict your lifespan. The program looks for sagging muscles and fat paddings on your face as well as skin discolorations and wrinkles by your eyes to estimate your current age (hence the ‘no smiles’ requirement).

(>>Read the full article here.<<)

 

Thirteen Years After High School

Some 13 years after our graduation from high school, this melody (please click the "play triangle" above left) was "on top of the charts," if only because it was forced on the Filipinos!.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times - yeah, I know, somebody wrote that before I did! Also:

Brutus:
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3, 218–224

And Lee Kuan Yew put Singapore on the map!

And the Philippines???