By Bro. PV Beley
BCBP President
I am sure everyone is relieved that we are starting a New Year. It is a time of new beginnings. A time to move forward rather than dwell on past sorrows and failings. A time to be thankful. For though 2020 was a difficult year for all of us, we have also borne witness to so many blessings and moments of grace from the Lord. Let us count those blessings and moments. Let us remember them for they will always remind us of God’s faithfulness and love for us. I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to our servant leaders led by Tito Serafica and Joffe Almoro who have ended their terms of service for their unselfishness and dedication to the tasks entrusted to them. I pray and hope that they may continue to serve the Lord and BCBP.
Let us look at the New Year with much hope and joy. Let us trust in God that 2021 will be a much better year. In one of the homilies of Pope Francis last month, he exhorted us to live in joy. He said, “This is joy: directing toward Jesus. Joy must be the characteristic of our faith. In dark moments, that inner joy, of knowing the Lord is with me, that the Lord is with us, that the Lord is Risen. This is the center of our life.”
He challenged us to live in the joy of being Christian and in turn communicate to others that to be Christian is to be joyful. Because the center of our lives, Jesus Christ, is the source of our joy.
2021 will also be a big year for the Philippine Church, for all of us. This year we will celebrate 500 Years of Christianity in our country. The theme for the celebration is Gifted to Give. This is a reminder to our community that we have a mission to bring people to the Lord. We who are in the BCBP have been blessed and gifted. But the gift we have received will not bloom unless we share it. Yet we cannot give what we do not have. We will be more effective in our mission if the persons we plan to bring to the Lord, the persons we want to invite to the breakfast and the BCLP, can see that we are a people full of hope and joy.
Brothers and sisters, let us live the New Year as the Lord’s instruments of hope and joy. Let us renew our commitment to bring Christ to the marketplace and win the marketplace for Christ.
Let me share with you this verse from Romans 15: “ May the God of hope fill with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
A Happy and Blessed New Year to you all!
