Fr. Stephen, MSC

I spent the entire afternoon with about 30 other pinoys in Rome. We had mass at 4:00pm to celebrate Easter Sunday. After the Eucharistic celebration we had a little salu-salo and lots of chikahan. We chatted about anything – from how the pansit tasted to how their Italian employers treated them. The pinoy migrant workers’ [...]

I just came from St. Peter’s Basilica where I attended the Easter Vigil celebration. The basilica was chock-full of people that even nuns had to squat on the floor during the readings. The Vigil began with the traditional service of light at the atrium. The readings, which were in different languages, recalled how God made [...]

I went out to do a "visita iglesia" this morning. My first stop was the Basilica di Sta. Maria Maggiore. Inside the church I saw more tourists taking pictures than devotees praying. These candelas are not made of wax. They are electrical lights that are made to look like candlesticks. You insert 50 cents into [...]

She is my friend Evelyn. I happened to meet her this afternoon at the Basilica di Santa Pundenziana. Tradition has it that the basilica was built on the house where St. Peter the apostle was given hospitality when he was in the Eternal City. At present Santa Pudenziana is the home of Sentro Pilipino, the [...]

Jesus is randomly portrayed as Superstar, King, Judge, Legend, Son, Punisher, Lord, Ruler, Savior… the list is virtually endless. My most favorite image is that of Jesus who identified himself with the poor, the powerless, and the oppressed. Life stories of the saints abound with testimonies about how Jesus appeared to them as a beggar, [...]

His friends call him Egay. He came to Italy in the year 2000 and now works as a gardener and maintenance man in Rome. This morning I saw him while he was mending a wooden table for his employer. We had a short chat and I learned from him that he holds a Geodetic engineering [...]

That’s Jonathan. A few years back he earned a degree in Criminology in Manila but chose to leave the Philippines to find work overseas. He is now employed as a contractual domestic helper in the Generalate House of a missionary congregation here in Rome, Italy. I took this shot inside the chapel this afternoon while [...]

Although Rome is the center of Catholic faith, not many Romans go to church anymore. In San Pantaleo Church, just about a kilometer from St. Peter’s Basilica, Filipinos celebrated Palm Sunday while Italians just passed them by. There are more than 40 Catholic Filipino Communities in Rome, each regularly celebrating masses on Sundays in Tagalog [...]