Happy Commenting!

I must be getting really old. Anyway, I am actually one year shy off half a century. So, I am halfway there!

Why this observation or this thought out loud? For a good while, since using this customized template, I was trying to figure out how to enable my comments to be used by anyone, who do not need to be a Google+ member.

I didn't realise that I just had to untick my Google+ comment setting. *shake head*

So, go ahead. Make my day and comment away (but be civil)!

(by the way, no harm being a Google+ member...)

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Rearrangements...

English: Google+ wordmark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am sprucing up the blog presentation for the posts you see here, linking them to the Google+ account that comes with this Blogger account.

New, Sort Of...

Image by mjdave via Flickr

New look, new feel...

The weeks past has been very taxing with many other work and responsibilities that cropped up which occupied my time and attention, making blogging rather difficult to attend to. There was the annual priests' retreat, of which I was in the committee that was organising it. Then came several visitors from Rome who needed my attention again as I played tour guide for them. They were the rector and spiritual director of the Collegio where I stayed during my studies in the Eternal(ly Crazy) City.

It is only today that I could do something viable for this 9 year old blog which had been with me through thick and thin, with some wear and tear here and there. It is appropriate today for a little 'facelift' and since Blogger had a new inbuilt template designer, it was a good day for a 'renewal'.

Meantime, I finally took the plunge and got myself an iPad and it was an investment well spent! I have been using it for the past week already and it is 'magical' as Apple claimed it. I know it is really a bigger version of the iPhone with its OS that uses apps and all, but I am not complaining. I have already used it for teaching in my classes, both in the Seminary and over at SPI, and it is really a good and useful help! I used it in these classes for notes referral during my lecturing.

This has been a little sliver of light in the midst of the dark throes of problems that continue to hover over this parish, as the struggle to stay sane and above waters become a usual staple of activities here...

iPad?!

Image via Wikipedia

Unlike my fellow blogger over at ruminations, I haven't the capacity these days to sit down in front of the computer screen to put down an entry weekly that would be of interest or inspiration to those who drop by for a read.

My mind, for the past few months, have been experiencing some sort of writer's block that made blogging here rather tedious and wasting. I don't know if I can get out of this rut. Perhaps, forcing myself to write something here, anything, may bring back some enthusiasm for this...

So, while looking nonchalance as I possibly can and without seeing to be too caught up by the hype and media that has been going on with the Apple's iPad lately, I must say I am rather impressed by the product and what it can offer. Already I can see what it can become, when taken to liturgical extreme - try using that as the Book of Gospels during the entrance procession, when it is carried in by the lector, with the Apple logo in place of the crucifix, and used later for the readings as the pages are flipped by the two finger swipe! This is the perfect nightmare for any God-fearing liturgist to undergo in his/her sleep.

What say you? Thinking of going the way of everybody else and getting that iPad?...

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It Has Been 9 Years!....

Image via Wikipedia

Priestly bloggers are a great gift to the Church

So says the headline over at one of Britain's leading Catholic newspaper, The Catholic Herald.

In conjunction with World Communication Day, The Holy Father has issued a message and document on how the Church is encouraging her members and even her priests to use the technology of today to promote activities in the area of evangelisation. The Pope writes: "... Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelisation and catechesis."

I have been blogging since my days in the seminary way back in 2001 and never stopped. That makes this my 9th year of engaging in the blogosphere. When the blog phenomenon first appeared sometime in August 1999, I wasn't yet aware of its influence and only got round of its presence when I had nothing to do one evening and did some surfing in the office of the St Anne's parish where I was doing my pastoral there then in 2001. It was then that I came across the Blogger website and decided to sign up (free) to become one of its already growing base of bloggers online. The rest, as they say, is history.

When I first started, I found it a useful tool and an outlet for me to express my thoughts concerning the journey I was going through as a seminarian then and to, sort of, catechise the general public what life in the Seminary was all about. Then the entries were mostly in text and links. Today, as you have already gathered, a blog entry can easily accomodate all kinds of visual stimuli and specialised links that can take a person on a portal ride to another universe!

It has been quite a ride since I started blogging and I have never once regretted taking this up. It certainly has been an instrument of evangelisation, with what little I have contributed so far, and a way of reaching out to readers of liked-minded inspiration or to those who just want to find out what goes on in the mind of a priest like myself. It is also humbling to note that my blog is listed in the Catholic Blog Directory under the 'L' section all this while, with a new addition recently of Fr Luke's one under 'R'...

So, if you haven't decided anything yet about blogging, maybe you would like to seriously considering this as your next project? Speaking of which, here's one which I managed to help put up after convincing these friends to put their passion for food into a light-hearted commentary on local culinary delights. How's that for putting in another 'soul to the fabric of the Web'...

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