A New Year Message of Love - 2012

In 2009, I created a video inspired by an article I wrote in 2007. I updated the video as presented above and the original article that inspired it is shown below. Happy New Year!

A New Year Message of Love

Originally posted on Jan. 1, 2007 

Happy New Year to all!

Last night, I served as Commentator in the Midnight Mass for New Year’s Day at the St. Joseph Church inside Camp Crame. One of the songs that were sung during the mass was the song “One More Gift.” It has a line that goes “… it would be peace, here on earth…”

This morning, Queenie mentioned to me that when she was singing the song, she realized that in the word earth, putting the “h” in front instead of at the rear would turn the word “earth” to “heart”. I reflected on this and I thought, yes, indeed, perhaps what our “earth” needs now more than anything else is a conversion that gives more emphasis to our hearts and what it can do. This inspired me to write this New Year message of LOVE.

In my Christmas message of HOPE, I wrote that the H in HOPE is a message of Humility that Christ has given us through his humble birth. As my wife Queenie pointed out how a change in position of the “h” in earth can lead to the word “heart”, I reflected that yes, indeed, what our world needs now is to have more heart. More love, more charity, more compassion, more generosity; a reaching out to our neighbors in a gesture that mimics God’s love for us.

In the book “A Trese Trilogy (comprised of the books More Than Many Sparrows, Wisdom Shall Enter, and Many Are One)”, author Leo Trese points out that in the infinite mind of God, there is an infinite number of souls waiting to be created. Some of those souls will never get to be created at all. But for each soul that He chose to create, He chose it because He saw in that soul the capacity to love Him back. I think it is a very beautiful way to make us realize that God created each and every one of us out of a personal and individual love.

This love that God has so graciously and generously endowed on us is not for us to keep, though. God gave it to us because he wants us to be overflowing vessels of love that will in turn pour it out to our neighbors. This brings me back to the idea that I first embarked on in this message. I believe a primary requirement for us to be able to really love other people is to put humility first in our lives. We need to humble ourselves and start with an acceptance of our failings and weaknesses and a loving tolerance and forbearance of our neighbors’ shortcomings as well. It comes as no wonder then that in the seven capital sins, “Pride” is considered the original or most serious sin, and the ultimate source of all other sins.

In this first day of the New Year then, let us take time out to reflect on this New Year message of Love. Let us make this earth a beautiful place to live in by taking the “h” from the rear and putting it in front. Humility that will turn our “earth” into a “heart”, a heart full of love for our neighbors.

Muli, Manigong Bagong Taon sa lahat!

Iniibig ko ang Pilipinas,


Boogie Boydon