“Someone once said that Satan cannot make you sin,
he will just make you very busy until you can no longer pray, and that for him, is already victory.
Our biggest downfall is when we no longer take time nor make time to pray because we are too busy. Prayer time is prime time.”
Fr. Jerry M. Orboz, SV
Phil. Daily Inquirer
Sunday Feb. 5, 2012
In our family, we would always come together in front of our altar , either for Angelus or the Holy Rosary.
I definitely remember, my brothers as always the ones, assigned to lead the rosary;
it kept them from clowning around, while prayer was going on. ( which usually was what happened.
But my brothers turned out well.
My father and mother had always encouraged us to pray, especially the holy rosary.
It must have been because of the prayerful lives of both my grandmothers from Camiguin Island:
my paternal grandmother from Catarman, Lola Inday Torayno Banaag and my late maternal grandmother from Tupsan, Lola Rosario Sarah Paderanga Espinosa
As my mom just recently told my sister Steffi, who is troubled with studies there at U.P. Law,
” Wala nay mas labaw nga pangaji , sa usa ka inahan para sa iyang mga anak, nga wala gi hatag…. unsa nalang ang inahan sa Ginoo. ”
( No prayer is greater than what a mother ask for her children and that which was not granted..so what more with the Mother of Our Lord…)
My mom would also cite as an example, the family of her first cousin,
NEDA Cabinet Secretary to Cory and presently in PNoy’s administration,
Sec. Cayetano Paderanga Jr. Or Uncle Dondon, who comes from a family of sixteen children.
She would always tell us how prayerful the parents of her cousins were.
Her Tiyo ( Uncle ) Yeyeng and Tiya ( Auntie ) Soling , both lawyers would hear mass and say the rosary everyday.
And with that, my mom felt, that should be the secret, in keeping up with a big family.
I always have this pregnant image of my mother, brisk walking , going around our house with a rosary in her hand and reciting the “decades.”
( Something which I understood to this day, as reciting all the mysteries in one prayer, regardless of the assigned days, something like three rounds of the rosary and now four , with the mysteries of Light. )
Also, my mom has deep admiration and love for Mrs. Cory Aquino and her devotion to the holy rosary, all because through God, she was able to glorify His word and as my mom puts it , Cory placed a different meaning to the word, ” housewife .”
So how delighted I was, for my mom most especially, that I had that chance to get to talk to Fr. Rev or Father Catalino Arevalo.
or as my mom would say ” kadto bitawng pari ni Cory.” ( The priest of Cory. )
Aside from being Cory Aquino’s spiritual confidante and professor emiritus at the Ateneo , he was also accorded the pro Ecclesia et Pontifice award and the honor of being the Father for Asian Theology.
But of course many of us would remember Fr. Rev for that beautiful homily during Cory’s funeral in 2009 when he talked about how great Mrs. Aquino’s faith was, till the day she died.
I am one of those who, you could say as ” totally guilty of not making prayer , prime time.”
Sometimes or well most of the times, in the middle of my prayer, or my rosary,
or even while listening to Hill Song’s ” One Way ” , ( my favorite song since my LSS with the Emmanuel Community at Greenbelt chapel) ,
sleep or laziness would still overpower me.
( imagine that. )
Father Orbos is correct in his article in the Phil. Daily Inquirer , two Sundays ago, that we should never be too busy to pray.
And my admiration for supposedly ” busy, big guys ” and stories about them, taking time to pray, just gets overwhelming.
One Manny Pacquiao anecdote told by Quinito Henson or was it Ronnie Nathanielz, relates that, the greatest time they really felt intimidated by Manny Pacquiao was that one lunch time in a hotel.
Everyone who were just as hungry, hurriedly devoured their food, only to glance at the boxer who was making the sign of the cross and praying over his meal;
their spoons that were about to be placed inside their mouths, just froze in mid air.
Or Tim Tebow,
Tebowing for the Denver Broncos
Or Harvard grad Jeremy Shu-How Lin of the New York Knicks,
Proud of his faith,
I must say, it couldn’t be just their talent and their good looks.
Nor Landry Fields’ couch: ( but I would want one, though.)
It should be their humility in acknowledging, where everything they have, came from.
They take time to do that in prayer.
Busy? Not at all.
