Batten Down the Hatches, Hagupit Has Introduced herself

My window is now sealed and a Benedictine Cross guards the shutters. The only time I have ever shut my windows is with a typhoon. I've done so because Supertyphoon Hagupit (known locally as Ruby - yes Filipinos like knick names), has said hello. Fast gusts of wind, rain falling horizontally and then disappearing and calming down again - this storm has introduced herself.

Even though the official landfall isn't until tomorrow night at this time (Saturday 5-6pm) because she is so big, we have already started to enjoy her presence. She is said to be 700km or 445 miles wide.

I just finished shopping for the 100 people soon expected to arrive here, an official typhoon shelter. The brothers are in an extra ordinary good humor. I love to see them this way, it is in crisis that they have shone the most. Really the best has started coming out if these future priests. It is difficult to describe the magnanimous hope this engenders to see such a thing. God is very much alive and moving in amazing ways in their lives for the life of the Church.

Please continue to pray for the aversion of this storm. St Faustina, the "Secretary of Divine Mercy'" was told by The Lord Jesus, that the prayer of Divine Mercy, the offering to the Father the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, is particularly helpful to calm storms and avert disasters.

Tomorrow, first Saturday of the Month, we will still host the 2000 hail Mary's in reparation and supplication for the salvation of the world. Then on Sunday night we will host an all-night Vigil in honor of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

It is quite a beautiful thing to pray amidst such fury. We did the same when typhoon Glenda hit. Perhaps one of the most riveting experiences of my life was leading, or rather shouting at the top of my lungs amidst the raging typhoon, the rosary before the exposed Blessed Sacrament, begging God for safety for especially all the families in our care.

Join us as we journey forward through the raging storm. Hail Mary...

Pray the Divine Mercy chaplet for us.