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Valedictory

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - December 18, 2006 - 12:00am

With this article I bid farewell to my readers. This will terminate not only this column but also 50 years of involvement with the press – an involvement that has been merely marginal.

Fear not!

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - December 11, 2006 - 12:00am

Many years ago, because I had a large mailing list, I decided not to buy expensive Christmas cards but to have my own printed: just a simple card with a quotation. At first, the quotations were from my own...

Magna aude

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - December 4, 2006 - 12:00am

It takes one’s breath away to think of what St. Francis Xavier did as a missionary during only ten years. If you or I had been born in the 16th century and had been sent as a missionary to the "Indies",...

Throwing away a treasure

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - November 20, 2006 - 12:00am

The much awarded movie Titanic ends with the leading lady throwing into the sea a very expensive ruby necklace. That necklace had been given to her and placed around her neck by a wealthy suitor during the...

A symbolic song

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - November 13, 2006 - 12:00am

There is a folk song among the Hiligaynon of Panay that seems to me one of our saddest of songs. I learned it in English translation as a child in primary school long ago, but it was not until many decades...

Two pictures of purgatory

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - November 10, 2006 - 12:00am

November is the month in which we remember our dead. For Catholics it is not mere remembrance. As the Bible puts it, "It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their...

A grand organization

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - October 30, 2006 - 12:00am

In October 1881 a young assistant priest, Michael McGivney, gathered together a small group of Catholic laymen in New Haven, Connecticut, and proposed the creation of a fraternal association. It was chartered...

Good Samaritans

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - October 23, 2006 - 12:00am

A professor at one of the more famous American universities was traveling in Italy on board a train bound for Venice. In the first class compartment, he found himself alone with a young man, a hippie: he...

Good Samaritans

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - October 23, 2006 - 12:00am

Educational bigotry

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - October 16, 2006 - 12:00am

Many years ago when I was teaching in Taiwan, a dinner was hosted by the Minister of Education. Guests at the dinner were all the foreign professors (mostly Americans and a few Spaniards and Germans) who...

Brahman and modern business

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - October 2, 2006 - 12:00am

Those interested in the history of ideas should read the books of Leonardo Silos. Dr. Silos is a professor at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) but his approach to management is not on the level of...

Our Malayo-Polynesian languages

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - September 25, 2006 - 12:00am

In 1767 King Carlos III of Spain ordered the expulsion of all Jesuits from Spain and all territories under Spanish rule. Previously, Portugal and France had done the same. The exiled Jesuits were all dumped...

Wasteful living

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - September 18, 2006 - 12:00am

In a recent conference in Manila, a brave and perceptive man said that Filipinos cannot afford to emulate the "wasteful" lifestyle of the Americans. People in the United States (he said) consume...

A saintly Filipino in Spain

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - September 11, 2006 - 12:00am

In the mid 1970s I visited the beautiful city of Arrequipa in the highlands of Peru. One of the Jesuit priests working there was a Spaniard who asked me if I had known Apolonio Baluyut. Yes, I told him, I...

Blest are the poor

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - September 4, 2006 - 12:00am

When you are rich you have everything. You have the best in housing, in food, in clothes, in entertainment and you enjoy the most luxurious forms of travel. And of course, the best of friends, because everyone likes...

An intellectual and spiritual giant

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - August 28, 2006 - 12:00am

August 28 is the feast-day of a giant of the intellectual and spiritual life of the world, St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church. His early life was not edifying. Born in northern Africa to a pagan...

The murder that boomeranged

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - August 21, 2006 - 12:00am

Ninoy Aquino was murdered because he was perceived to be a threat to those in power. Their reasoning was simple: Kill Ninoy and the threat will be eliminated. So they made elaborate plans. Bring a man to...

A mother’s unique prerogative

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - August 14, 2006 - 12:00am

Many years ago I was invited to an unusual birthday party. Unusual because the celebration was in New York while the birthday celebrant was in Manila, one of the American Jesuits (let us call him Tom). In...

The ex-Duke’s tribute

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - July 31, 2006 - 12:00am

The year 1550 was a Holy Year of Jubilee and many people went to Rome to pray at the four great basilicas. Among the pilgrims was the Duke of Gandia, former Viceroy of Catalonia (one of the few noblemen...

Martyr from Bataan

by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ - July 24, 2006 - 12:00am

Sometime ago Max Soliven, commenting on the appointment of a new Ombudsman, mentioned in his column that the appointee is a niece of a Jesuit who had been tortured and killed by the Japanese. Some of Soliven’s...

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