Texas Digital Library Repositories

http://repositories.tdl.org/tdl/
What a treasure-trove of online dissertations and theses! Try searching for "music" and you will be overwhelmed by thousands of free articles to browse.

Sample titles:

~ Schoenberg's transition to atonality (1904-1908): the use of intervallic symmetry and the tonal-atonal relationship in Schoenberg's pre-atonal compositions

~ Operas by Women in Twentieth Century America

~ William Byrd's English anthems and Latin motets: a stylistic comparison

~ Music as sinthome: joy riding with Lacan, Lynch, and Beethoven beyond postmodernism

A Soprano and A Scribe

(From Wikipedia)

The Soprano: Kathleen Battle is an American soprano known for her agile and light voice and her silvery, pure tone.

The Scribe: Romain Rolland was a French dramatist, essayist, art historian and mystic who was awarded theNobel Prize for Literature in 1915.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

   I'm in the middle of Romain Rolland's "Essays on Music," and I'm in awe not only of the man's ability to write, but also of the breadth and depth of his knowledge on music and history. His life is a testament to his many passions.

   Here are some quotable quotes from the book:

   "Very often, thanks to its depth and spontaneity, music is the first indication of tendencies which later translate themselves into words, and afterwards into deeds. The Eroica Symphony anticipated by more than ten years the awakening of the German nation. The Meistersinger and Siegfried proclaimed ten years beforehand the imperial triumph of Germany. There are even cases where music is the only witness of a whole inner life which never reaches the surface."  (He later on makes the claim that Music and musicians started 'the ball rolling,' so to speak, of the liberation of the individual soul, which eventually affected all of Europe circa 18th century before expressing itself in action by the French Revolution!!)

   "... Thus music shows us the continuity of life in apparent death, the flowering of an eternal spirit amidst the ruin of the world."

   "... What a danger is here! For everything in art that is not subjected to the imitation or the control of nature, all that depends merely upon inspiration or inward exaltation, all in short that presupposes genius or passion, is essentially unstable... Such a flame is subject to momentary eclipses or to total disappearance; and if during these phases of spiritual slumber scrupulous and laborious talent, observation, and reason do not take the place of genius, the result is absolute nullity."

   "...It is curious that so many great musicians -- Schutz, Handel, Kuhnau, Telemann -- should have been obliged to begin by studying philosophy or law. However, this training does not seem to have done the composers any harm, and those of today whose culture is so indifferent would do well to consider these examples, which prove that a general education may well be reconciled with musical knowledge and may even enrich it."

   It is a delight to see how the man mixes dry facts with gorgeous prose, so right after an exposition on the difference of the "Italian overture" (vivamente -- lento -- vivamente) versus the "French overture" (lento -- vivamente -- lento), he intercedes thus:

   "...Music itself is something more than a question of technique. If we really love music, it is because it is the most intimate utterance of the soul and its expression of joy and pain. I do not know which I like the better -- Beethoven's finest sonata, or the tragic Heiligenstadt Testament. The one is equal to the other."

   "...It would be foolish for students of musical history to reject the opinion of everyone who did not follow music as a profession; it would mean confining music to a small circle and being dead to all that went on outside it. An art is only worthy of love and honor when it is a human art -- an art that will speak to all men and not only to a few pedants."   

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

   Yesterday was the 61st birthday of one of my favorite sopranos, Kathleen Battle. (I admire her strictly for her voice, not for her persona.) Some of you might know her as a soprano who epitomized what it is to be a "diva," in the negative sense of the word. She was fired from the Met because she was deemed too difficult to work with.

   There are a lot of horror stories about her, but one can't help but fall in love with her angelic singing. I really do not think any other lyric soprano can compare to "The Battle." Don't believe me? Go here and listen to her version of "Ombra mai fu" (which, incidentally, is from Handel's XERXES. Catch it live on August 26 at the CCP!).

   This weekend, I will check the 1st quarter exam papers of my students while listening to Kathleen serenading me through my mp3 player's earphones. :) Here's hoping that I still have some time to finish my Romain Rolland book. Have a great weekend, everyone!!

Plugging our college's 93rd anniversary concert

YouTube - Nathan "Flutebox" Lee and Beardyman @ Google, London

Beatboxing at its finest :) Waaaa now there's something to consider... shouldn't music majors ought to have a subject in beat boxing? :)

Makiling Ruminations

Last weekend proved to be a most memorable one. 11 teachers from RMM (myself included) were sent to the Boy Scouts of the Philippines Basic Training Course for teachers at Jamboree Hall, Makiling, Los Baños. If we passed all the requirements, we would be recognized as certified patrol leaders.

      I thought I was in for good, clean fun... leisurely strolls through mountain trails, breathtaking scenery, inhaling copious amounts of fresh air, singing “The hills are aliiiiiive”... you get the picture.

      Boy oh boy, I was in for the shock of my sheltered life.

      They fed us a huge lunch when we first arrived last Friday. Lots of adobo and 1 ½ cups of rice for each person! I pretty much felt like a pig being fetéd before being led to the slaughterhouse. I wasn’t far off the mark.

      That hearty meal was followed by several hours of lectures on the history of the Boy Scouts, the mission-vission, the oath, etc. We were also split up into patrols or troops, where I was put in Kantanod (the others were Kambing, Kuting, Kabayo, Kulasisi, etc.) and taught the basics of getting into formation (Basically it involves a lot of “find-your-height,” following hand signals, and running as if the hounds of Hell were after you once you hear the whistle blown by the Scout Commander). When our brains were protesting from too much information at around 9 p.m. we were allowed to march into the Mess Hall to eat dinner with our patrol.

      (For the non-initiates, the patrol is a boy scout’s family. They eat, sleep, and do everything together. So if one patrol member had to go to the loo and was absent from the mess hall, the whole patrol had to stand up and wait for the tardy member to arrive before finally settling down to eat.)

      Mealtimes at the mess hall were hurried affairs, with the Scout Commander yelling out every minute or so: “Ayokong makakita ng tira! Ubusin niyo LAHAT!” It’s pretty hard to consume everything on one’s plate if 1) You are eating on banana leaves, without the use of fork and spoon, and 2) the ulam or viand is tuyo (dried fish). Plus the knowledge that if one eats slower than the others, that person will have caused the whole patrol to wait for him. It’s impossible to fully enjoy a meal in such conditions!

      That first night was “Socialization Night,” and we were allowed some time to practice our patrol numbers before performing in front of everyone. Our patrol was blessed to have two extremely talented dancers in our midst (Go MAPEH teachers!!), and so we did “Bayan Ko” with me singing while the others did a patriotic tableau to frame the two lead dancers. I say this objectively, our performance would have been fit to grace the halls of Manila Cathedral for Tita Cory. J And hurray! Our patrol won the best performance award, along with the best dancer and best singer awards. We proudly stapled our little paper medallions to our troop flag.

      We thought the evening was over at midnight, but no! We were told that we had to fix our “Patrol Corners” on the walls of the Session Hall because the Scout Commanders would look at them tomorrow at 5 a.m. So we got out our manila paper and pentel pens, and wrote down the Scout Oath, the Troop Mission-Vision, the Boy Scouts of the Philippines Mission, the Troop Song, the Troop Yell, the Troop Cheer, the Troop medallion, etc.       (One thing that I disliked... while we participants were slaving away, the Scout Commanders took turns swigging from the flasks of alcoholic beverages that they brought, and serenading us at the karaoke machine with voices loud enough to wake the dead. Am actually surprised that Maria Makiling didn’t swoop down and silence them! I would have. And they continued to sing away as we dragged our tired bodies to bed at 2 a.m.)

      Before 6 a.m. we were up again, this time to finalize the decorations on our Patrol Corners and to practice our Troop Song, Yell, Cheer and Skit for the Campfire later on that night.

      Breakfast was another hurried affair. One of my patrol mates had peptic ulcer and requested permission not to finish off his large breakfast. The Scout Commander yelled, “Wala akong pakialam! Maghanap ka ng paraan para ubusin yan.” Poor thing. I had to help him hide the remains of his tuyo and kanin in an empty brown folder and stuffed it in my shoulder bag (which smelled of tuyo the rest of the weekend).

      The day passed, a big blur of lectures and workshops which included Knot-Tying, Bandage-Wrapping, Flag-Hoisting and Compass-Reading a.k.a. Orienteering. Lunch was served at 3 p.m., and by then, some of the older teachers were almost fainting from hunger. There was no such thing as a “break” or “recess,” as even eating times were strictly monitored (15 minutes max!). As soon as we finished eating, we were off to another lecture session. There was also no time to take a bath, and even if we had time, we couldn’t as there were frequent power interruptions, and consequently no water for one whole day.

      The big event of the evening was the Campfire. It started at midnight and ended at 2:30 a.m. It was held outside, in the rain and mud. People actually acted, danced, yelled and sang, with not a few of them slipping and falling into the mud.

      We finally got to sleep at 3 a.m., only to be woken up at 6 a.m. for Assembly outside. In the rain again.

      As this was the last day, we had only two lecture sessions after breakfast, and then it was off to the Hiking activity. This was the crowning jewel of my Makiling experience! Three hours of hiking in treacherous muddy mountain and forest terrain, through obstacles such as the tire tunnels shown below:      

And rope courses: 

And lots more that I wasn’t able to find pictures for. Along the way, we were also told to do things like “Carry a patrol mate on your back for fifty metres!” and decode a secret message that was posted along the trail. All this, plus negotiating steep mountain slopes, made even more deadly by the slippery mud that nearly carried me away too many times to count, had it not been for the steady supporting arms of my patrol-mates.

      The lowest point of my whole life came when I was stuck in the middle of the tire tunnels, with my arms cramping up and altogether too weary to pull myself out. All I could think of was, “How pathethic! I graduated from college, and I can’t even pull myself out of this tunnel!!!” It was extremely humbling, let me tell you! I was so blessed to have gentlemanly and physically-fit patrol-mates who pulled me out of that hell-hole, literally.

      I made it through that Hiking trail not on the merits of my own strength, in fact I think I would have gotten lost or at the very least, broke my neck, if I had gone through it alone. I am not exaggerating when I say that my patrol-mates SAVED me. I owe them so much.

      I was never so happy in my life as in the moment that we emerged from the wilderness to lay eyes on Jamboree Hall, where we had the chance to bathe and change out of our torn and muddy clothing.

      The graduation ceremony afterwards was made more special by the presence of the Parañaque mayor’s son, and so I was asked to sing a special number. I’m happy to say that, despite my bone-deep exhaustion, I was able to pull off a decent rendition of “Sa Kabukiran,” only, I took the liberty of changing the words to “Sa Kagubatan” to suit the occasion better. And in return, one of the Scout Commanders (who was a graduate of the UST Conservatory of Music) gave me a neat flashlight (the kind that needs no batteries but can be manually “charged”) and my very own multi-purpose knife (like the Swiss Army knife, only without the brand name)! Not bad for one song! J

      When we finally left Makiling, it was already getting dark. Our bus service dropped us off at RMM approaching 8 p.m. already. All of us RMM teachers were bruised, sore, and nearly catatonic with exhaustion, but we still managed to exchange stories about our experiences while on the school bus. I am proud to say that we RMM teachers are a hardy lot. Despite all the puyat, not a single one of us was absent for work the following day! J

      As my father put it, I have learned more life skills in those three days than all my five years in the College of Music. It has truthfully been a life-changing experience. I am wiser and a lot more humble. I have come to realize just how little I really know, in terms of survival skills. The forests and mountains of Makiling were a far cry from my comfort zone of practice room and classroom, but I have survived and am stronger and better for it.

      Reading through this blog post, I am struck by the futility of words to express all that I’ve learned, especially about people. I used to belong to a high school crowd that looked down upon kayumanggi skin and probinsyana features, that praised smooth fair complexions and dainty, princess-like mannerisms. But now I know that city folk can’t hold a candle to probinsyana girls/boys when it comes to the things that REALLY matter... like going through mountain trails! In fact, if it hadn’t been for my probinsyana patrol-mates, I would not be alive right now, typing at this computer. When I have a daughter of my own, I am going to send her to the province as often as I can (maybe during the summer). I’ll go along with her, too. I’ll teach her how to climb mountains, go through gravity-and-death-defying obstacles, be able to tell where North is despite the lack of a compass, and go through any and all hardships with a smile on her face and joy in her heart.

A Repost: Fr. Arevallo's Homily At Cory Aquino's Funeral Mass

“We give her back to You, with grateful but breaking hearts"

By Catalino Arevalo, SJ

(Homily at the Funeral Mass for former President Cory Aquino, Manila Cathedral, August 5, 2009)   IF I may, I will first ask pardon for what might be an unseemly introduction. In the last days of President Cory’s illness, when it seemed inevitable that the end would come, the assignment to give this homily was given to me by Kris Aquino. She reminded me that many times and publicly, her mother had said she was asking me to preach at her funeral Mass. Always I told her I was years older, and would go ahead of her, but she would just smile at this. Those who knew Tita Cory knew that when she had made up her mind, she had made up her mind.   What then is my task this morning? I know for certain that if liturgical rules were not what they are, she would have asked Congressman Ted Locsin to be here in my place. No one has it in him to speak as fittingly of Cory Aquino in the manner and measure of tribute she uniquely deserves, no one else as he. Asked in an interview, she said that the address before the two Houses of Congress at Washington she considered perhaps the supreme shining moment of her life. We know who helped her with those words with which she conquered America . These last few days, too, every gifted writer in the press and other media has written on her person and political history, analyzed almost every side of her life and achievement as our own “icon of democracy”. More powerfully even, images of her and of Edsa Uno have filled hour after hour of TV time. Really, what else is left to be said?   SO, Tita Cory, you’ll forgive me if I don’t even try to give a shadow of the great oration that should be given here this morning. Let me instead try to say some things the people who persevered for hours on end in the serried lines at Ortigas or here in Intramuros can (I hope) more easily follow. This is a lowly tribute at one with “the old sneakers and clothes made tighter by age, soaked by water and much worse for wear” of the men, women and children who braved the rain and the sun because they wanted to tell you, even for a brief and hurried moment, how much they love you. You truly “now belong among the immortals”. But these words are for those mortals who with bruised hearts have lost “the mother of a people”. Maybe less elegantly than the seminarian said to me Monday, they would like to say also: “She was the only true queen our people have ever had, and she was queen because we knew she truly held our hearts in the greatness and the gentleness of her own.”   One of my teachers used to tell us that if we really wanted to know and understand a position held, we would have to learn it from someone fully committed to it. Just as only one who genuinely loves a person, really knows him or her also. So to begin with, I turned to three real “experts on Cory”; to ask them where for them the true greatness of Cory Aquino lay. My first source thought it was in her selflessness, seen above all in her love of country—surely above self; yes, even above family. Her self-giving, then, for us; what she had received, all became gift for us. The second, thought it was in her faith her greatness lay, in her total trust in God which was also her greatest strength. And the third said it was in her courage and the unshakable loyalty that went with it. It was a strength others could lean on; it never wavered; it never broke....Cory’s selflessness and self-giving; her faith (the Holy Father just called it “unwavering”); her courage, her strength. May I use this short list to frame what I will say?   O, let me name my experts now, if I may. They were three, all of them women close to her: Maria Elena Aquino Cruz, whom we know as Ballsy, Maria Aurora Aquino Abellada, Pinky to her friends; and Victoria Elisa Aquino Dee, Viel to the family. Kris and Noynoy are the public figures; they can speak for themselves. I hope they will forgive me that I did not ask.   First, selflessness   First, then, her generous selflessness. For us this morning what is surely most to the point is her love of country. When her final illness was upon her already, she said—most recently at the Greenmeadows chapel (her last public words, I think)—that she was offering her suffering, first to God, then for our people. I heard that grandson Jiggy asked her why first for country and people, and she said that always the priority line-up was God, our country and our people, and then family. On radio, the other night, the commentator asked an old woman in line why she stood hours in the rain to get into La Salle . “Ito lang ang maibibigay ko po sa kanya, bilang pasasalamat.” “Bakit, ano ba ang ibinigay ni Cory sa inyo?” “Di po ba ang buhay nya? Ang buong sarili nya? At di po ba ang pag-asa? Kaya mahal na mahal po namin siya.” Early on, on TV, they ran many times the clip from a last interview. She says, “I thank God, and then all of you, for making me a Filipino, for making me one of you. I cherish this as one of the truly great gifts I have received.” A few weeks from her death, she could say that; without put-on or the least insincerity. “I thank you, for making me one of you.” Her selflessness, her self-gift. Pope Benedict likes to say that the God whom Jesus Christ revealed to us, is Father. A Father who is wholly self-gift; the God “whose nature is to give Himself”—to give Himself to us, in His Son. And, the Pope says, that is what is the meaning of Jesus and the life of Jesus, and, by discipleship, what the Christian’s life is meant to be. We Christians, too, we must give ourselves away in the self-giving of love. “Ang buhay po nya at sarili. Kaya po mahal na mahal namin sya.” In the last days, when finally and reluctantly still she admitted she had much pain, I kept thinking that only a couple of weeks before, for the first time publicly, she said that she was offering it up first of all for us.   Second, her faith   Second, her faith. Pinky says, it was her mother’s greatest strength; it was what was deepest in her. Her faith was her bedrock, and it was, bedrock. Frederick Buechner the ordained minister and novelist likes to say that through his lifetime, he’s had many doubts, even deep doubt, daily doubts. “But I have never really looked down into the deep abyss and seen only nothing. Somehow I have known, that underneath all the shadows and the darkness, there are the everlasting arms.” I think Cory’s faith was like that, not in the multiplicity of doubts (even if, in a life so filled with trial, there surely were doubts too), but in the certainty of the everlasting arms. More than once she told me, “Every time life painted me into a corner, with seemingly no escape, I always turned to Him in trust. I knew He would never abandon us if we trusted in Him. And you know, somehow, He found a way out for us.” And so Pinky says, “Mom was always calm even in the most trying times. She trusted God would always be there for us, She was our source of strength. She made this world seem so much safer and less cruel for us. And now that our source of strength is gone, we have to make our faith something more like hers. But we know in our hearts that in every storm she will watch over us from heaven.”   Devotion to Mary   Within this faith was her devotion to Mary, the place Our Lady of Fatima and the rosary held in her life. All we can say on this, this morning is that Our Lady truly had a special, living presence in her life: Mary was, for Cory, true mother and incomparable friend; as we say in the hymn—vita, dulcedo et spes: life, sweetness and hope. No, Mary was not the center of her faith, but its air, its atmosphere; and the rosary, her lifeline through every trial and crisis. In the long harsh months of her illness, Sister Lucia’s beads almost never left her hands. She was holding them, as last Saturday was dawning and her years of exile were at last done, when we know her Lady “showed unto her, the blessed fruit of her womb.”   Third, courage   Lastly, her courage, her strength. Her children tell us that their father was only able to do what he wanted to do, because her loyalty and her support for his purposes was total, so she practically raised them up as a single parent. Ninoy himself wrote, again and again, that he endured imprisonment and persecution, leaning so much on her courage and love. And after his death, when she could have withdrawn in a way “safely” to her own life with her children at last, she stayed on her feet and fought on in the years that followed, through the snap elections and what went before and after them, through her presidency and the seven coup attempts which tried to bring her down. Even after she had given up her rule, could she not have said “enough”, and we would all have understood? But with not the least desire for position or power again, whenever she thought the spaces of freedom and the true good of our land were threatened, she went back to the streets of struggle again. Once again she led us out of the apathy we so readily fall into; once again she called us out of our comfort zones to the roads of sacrifice.   Purity of heart   Here, even hesitantly, may I add one trait, one virtue, to those her daughters have named? One day Cardinal Stephen Kim of South Korea asked if he might visit her. Through Ballsy, she said yes. It was a day Malacañang was “closed”; they were making up the roster of members of the forthcoming Constitutional Convention. Someone from the palace staff ordered us turned away when we came; it was Ballsy who rescued us. Stephen Kim, hero and saint to his own people—perhaps, along with Cardinal Sin, one the two greatest Asian Catholic prelates of our time—spent some 45 minutes talking with her. When we were on our way back, he said, “I know why the Lord has entrusted her with power, at this most difficult time...It is because she is pure of heart. She has no desire for power; even now it is with reluctance she takes it on. And she has done this only because she wants to do whatever she can for your people.” He said, “She truly moves me by the purity of her spirit. God has given a great gift to your people.”   With this purity of heart, in the scheme of the Christian Gospel, there is joined another reality which really, only the saints understand. It is suffering. How often (it is really often; over and over through the years) she spoke of suffering as part of her life. Much contemporary spirituality speaks of suffering almost as the epitome of all evil. But in fact for all the saints, it is a mystery they themselves do not really understand nor really explain, Yet they accept it quietly, simply as part of their lives in Christ. There is only one painting she ever gave me. Kris said then, when her mom gave it to me, that it was her mom’s favorite. The painting carries 1998 as its date; Cory named it “Crosses and roses.” There are seven crosses for the seven months and seven weeks of her beloved Ninoy’s imprisonment, and for the seven attempted coups during her presidency, and many roses, multicolored roses all around them. At the back of the painting, in her own hand, she wrote a haiku of her own: “Crosses and roses/ make my life more meaningful./ I cannot complain.” Often she spoke of her “quota of suffering.” When she spoke of her last illness, she said: “I thought I had filled up my quota of suffering, but it seems there is no quota. I look at Jesus, who was wholly sinless: how much suffering he had to bear for our sake.” And in her last public talk (it was at Greenmeadows chapel), the first time she spoke of her own pain: “I have not asked for it, but if it is meant to be part of my life still, so be it. I will not complain.” “I try to join it with Jesus’s pain and offering. For what it’s worth, I am offering it up for our people.” Friends here present, I tell you honestly I hesitated before going into this, this morning. But without it, part of the real Cory Aquino would be kept from view. Quite simply, this was integral to the love she bore for her people.   Thanks to her children   AT this point, may I, following the lead Mr. Rapa Lopa has given, just speak a word of thanks to President Cory’s children, who shared so much of her service and her sacrifice. They have almost never had their father and mother for themselves. For so many years, they have been asked to share Ninoy and Cory with all of us. And because of the blood and the spirit their parents have passed on to them, they too gave with generosity and grace the sacrifices we demanded of them. Ballsy and Pinky, Viel and Kris, your husbands and your children, and Senator Noynoy, may we thank you this morning from all our hearts, and may we offer also the gratitude of the hearts of a people now forever in your debt.   I have used up all my time, some of you will say, and I have not even approached the essential: her political life, that she was our nation’s unique icon of democracy, that Cory Aquino who is know throughout the world; was TIME magazine’s 1986’s woman of the year; she who led the ending of the dictatorship that had ruined our nation, the bearer of liberation, of freedom, and of hope for a prostrate people.   So, by your leave, may I add one item, along this line at last. In October 1995, Milano’s Catholic University , conferred on her the doctorate honoris causa in the political sciences (incidentally, only her twenty-third honorary degree). This was only the fifth time this particular one had been given since the university’s inception: the first time to an Asian, the first ever to a woman. She wanted, at the end of her lectio magistralis, to spell out, perhaps for the first time with some explicitness and completeness, her personal political creed. She listed seven basic beliefs which, regarding political life , she said she tried to live by. Then she spoke of one more, “one more I may not omit.” Perhaps the paragraph which followed is worth citing here, even without comment, because it has something to say to our present hour.   (We cite her words now.) “I believe that the vocation of politics must be accepted by those who take up the service of leadership as a vocation in its noblest meaning: it demands all of life. For the life of one who would lead his or her people—in our time as never before—such a life must strive for coherence with the vision aspired to, or else that vision itself and its realization are already betrayed. That vision must itself be present, in some authentic way, in those who seek to realize it: present, in the witness of their example; present, in a purity of heart vis-à-vis the exercise and usages of power; present, in an ultimate fidelity to principle, in a dedication that is ready to count the cost in terms of ‘nothing less than everything.’ It is Cardinal Newman, I believe, who said that in this world, we do good only in the measure that we pay for it in the currency of our own lives. For us Christians, there is always the image of Jesus, and the price his service demanded of him. And for me there has been, as a constant reminder, the sacrifice my husband offered, and the word that it has spoken, to me and my people.” (Cory Aquino, end of citation)   Conclusion   With all this said, I am done. Ma’am, tapos na po ang assignment ko. It has been so hard to do what you asked. But I comfort myself that these so many words really do not matter. What counts in the end is really—what all this week has been; these past few days’ outpouring of our people’s gratitude and love; what will come after all this today; what we will do, in the times ahead, in fidelity to your gift. I received a text last night from a man of some age and with some history behind him. “She made me proud again, to be Filipino.” Maybe that says it all. Cardinal Sin used to put it somewhat differently. “What a gift God has given our people, in giving Cory Aquino to us.” The nobility and courage of your spirit, the generosity of your heart, the grace and graciousness that accompanied you always. They called it “Cory magic”—but it was the truth, and the purity and beauty, clear and radiant within you, that we saw. And the hope that arose from that. And when the crosses came to you and you did not refuse to bear them, more to be one with your Christ and one with your people and their pain. “Blessed are the pure of heart; for they shall see God.”   Thank You Father in heaven, for your gift to us of Cory Aquino. Thank You that she passed once this way through our lives with the grace You gave her to share with us. If we give her back to you, we do it with hearts of thanksgiving, but now, oh, with breaking hearts also, because of the greatness and beauty of the gift which she was for us, the likes of which, perhaps, we shall not know again. Salamat po, Tita Cory, mahal na mahal po namin kayo. (Source: http://pinoyjesuits.multiply.com/journal/item/39/Fr._Arevalos_Homily_)