A Catholic bishop has offered Catholics ways to help them develop a godly and respectful attitude towards others, reported CBCP News.
A good starting point, said Bishop Patrick Daniel Parcon of Talibon, is to respect others because “we are all children of God”.
He said that people can never go wrong if they always bear in mind that they are God’s children.
“And since I am a child of God, I have nothing else to do but to love, to care, to protect, and to show respect to my fellow children of God,” Parcon said.
“Because we are all children of God we deserve to be respected, we deserved to be loved, we deserved to be cared for,” he said.
According to him, doing this is close to impossible unless people are connected to Christ.
“These things will never be accomplished unless we remain in Him, the source of life, the source of grace,” he said.
The bishop was speaking in his homily during Mass with the baptism of 100 adults at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Rule in Cebu province’s city of Lapu-Lapu on Tuesday.
The event marked the last day of the Triduum for the 500th anniversary of the First Baptism in the Philippines on April 14.
As baptized Christians, Parcon said that people are called to respect each other regardless of their stature.
“Do not respect me because I am a bishop. Do not respect the priests because they are priests. Respect them, respect us because we are children of God,” he said
“In the same manner, we will respect you not because you have a title in the society because you are somebody in the society. We will respect you because you are a child of God,” Parcon added.
He then reminded the newly baptized that baptism as a sacrament has corresponding responsibility that goes with it.
“God is asking us to be part of his mission,” the prelate said. “Our mission is to bring, to share this gift of love to one another, to all people in all walks of life.”
The Mass was presided over by Auxiliary Bishop Midyphil Billones, with Bishop Prescioso Cantillas of Maasin and retired Auxiliary Bishop Antonio Rañola of Cebu as concelebrants.
Also in attendance were Cardinal Orlando Quevedo, the archbishop emeritus of Cotabato, and Archbishop Jose Palma of Cebu.
