First off I’d like to send my greetings of Happy Valentines to you! So how did you spent the day? Was it a remarkable one? On valentines day we visit the place of El Salvador Municipality, particularly the Divine Mercy Shrine. It is Sunday so a mass was held at the chapel. Luckily we have attended the said mass. The mass is treated with great respect and solemnity. Ladies are required to wear long skirts as it is a holy and sacred place, so ladies take note, when going there use the appropriate skirt specially when they are holding a mass (Sunday). It’s my first time to visit the place and I don’t have the knowledge yet about this policy. I’m sorry about this ignorance. Good thing they lend long skirts to visitors wearing pants like me. So I end up looking like this. So how do I look with this one?

Okay this is not the highlight of the Shrine but this 50 feet statue.

Bryan and I are amazed and awed upon seeing the structure. It’s a huge and beautifully crafted one. If you are devoted to the Divine Mercy, you should watch it in real life. You can only climb the stairs and reach the heart of the Divine Mercy when you have the permission (given by the priest and staff of the shrine). Inside the heart of the Divine Mercy is a hidden niche of a life size statue of St. Faustina. The cross section of Ray is made up of stained glasses.

Some Facts about the Divine Mercy Shrine:

Lot Area:9.8 hectares
Purchased Price: P8,500,000.00 including taxes
Master Planner of architects: Palafox Associates, Makati Metro Manila
Sculptor: Nick Reyes, UP Fine Arts

They also have a flowing holy water. So when you go there bring with you an empty container so you can fill it with this water.

Following are the pics I took while we are climbing the stairs. I took it to show or reveal how the statue looks like as you get nearer to it.

Looking like a real tourist….and the face looked so tired too. hehe

Seeing the wide ground with flowers surrounding it creates a good feeling. Across the hill where the Divine Mercy stood is the endless sea. It’s a breathless view and the air is so refreshing.

El Salvador

And let me remind you to bring an umbrella, the heat can spoil your visit.

Or if not, enjoy a cute shade of a plant.

It was a great day and we’re happy with our date. Enjoy your visit too.

Feeling the love in the air? Don’t wonder if you see many hearts hanging on walls in every place you go. Month of the hearts is here! We usually refer valentines to love so I’m sharing here my favorite love descriptions.

This passage have been heard many times during weddings and masses but the thought it gives never gets old. It’s so refreshing to hear these words and its meaning is absolutely beautiful. Love though profound and exceptionally hard to explain is the most wonderful thing that a man can experience.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.8 Love never ends.

I’m smitten with the words of William Shakespeare. His descriptions of love could weaken any bone, it’s so deep. Makes me want to think if there’s a big difference of how people love in those Renaissance period and in this modern times. How did they expressed their love? Through poems? Cause they are magnificent writers. And now, just a text away and you could earn a lovelife so easily. You know what I’m talking about. So here are two sonnet of William Shakespeare that’s been a personal favorite of mine.

Sonnet 116 Let me not to marriage of true minds admit impediments.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Sonnet 63 Against my love shall be as I am now

Against my love shall be as I am now,
With Time’s injurious hand crush’d and o’erworn;
When hours have drain’d his blood and fill’d his brow
With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
Hath travelled on to age’s steepy night;
And all those beauties whereof now he’s king
Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his spring;
For such a time do I now fortify
Against confounding age’s cruel knife,
That he shall never cut from memory
My sweet love’s beauty, though my lover’s life:
His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
And they shall live, and he in them still green.

Then here’s Elizabeth Brownings (1806-1861) undying love poem she dedicated to her poet husband Robert Browning.
I’m in love with this poem ever since I read it. Read and be mesmerized.

How do I love thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

And below are some famous lines about love and loving. Hope you enjoy!

Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

All love that has not friendship for its base,
is like a mansion built upon the sand. - Ella Wheeler Wilcox

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in a spirit of love. - Henry Drummond

You come to love not by finding the perfect person,
but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly. - Sam Keen

Live well, laugh often, and love with all of your heart! - Unknown

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place. - Zora Neale Hurston

Anyone can catch your eye, but it takes someone special to catch your heart.
Unknown

May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live. - Robert A. Heinlein

There is no remedy for love but to love more. - Henry David Thoreau

Love is a friendship set to music. - Joseph Cossman

Love is the greatest refreshment in life. - Pablo Picasso

Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age.
~ Unknown

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows.
For love is the beauty of the soul.- St. Augustine

Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it. - Thomas Fuller

Love cannot endure indifference. It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another’s heart, or its flame burns low. - Henry Ward Beecher

The life and love we create is the life and love we live. - Leo Buscaglia

True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.
~ by Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away. - Elbert Hubbard

Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love you will find that you are left holding only yourself. - Leo Buscaglia

Love is an act of endless forgiveness
A tender look which becomes a habit. - Peter Ustinov

The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart. - Helen Keller

Love asks me no questions,
And gives me endless support… - William Shakespeare

A simple I love you means more than money. - Frank Sinatra

Life without love is like a tree
Without blossom and fruit. -Khalil Gibra