Cristo Rey will be celebrated tomorrow, 25 November. The Vicariate (Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary) celebration will in the Parish of St. Thomas Aquinas, Mangaldan, Pangasinan. It is the host for this year's celebration. The three other vicariates of the Archdiocese will have their own Cristo Rey celebrations.
Yesterday, I celebrated an afternoon mass in the host parish. I presided over the 8th day of the novena in honor of Christ the King. The Apostles of the Divine Mercy were the main group who came for the novena. Each day of the nine days, a different group would come.
At the end of the mass, a parishioner came. With a concerned look, he said, "Father, I hope it would not rain on Sunday!"
On Sunday, the day of the celebration, a big procession is scheduled at two o'clock in the afternoon. And since it is expected that there would be a huge number of people coming from the different parishes of the Vicariate, the Holy Mass will be celebrated outside the Parish Church.
"When it rains ....?" he further said.
"Let's pray that it will not", I told him.
Tyhoon "Mina," which packs maximum sustained winds of 175 kilometers per hour near the center, and gusts of up to 210 kilometers per hour, is expected to make a landfall tomorrow evening. Pangasinan may not be directly at the path of the super-typhoon but it may bring rains that may dampen the celebration.
