The Sanctuary of Padre Pio

It is a place tucked away from the long C5 Road in Libis, a block before one turns right to Eastwood City.

It is one of those places you discover in the midst of corporate chaos and gutter politics. An oasis, if one risks the cliche.

There are no plastic flowers in the main chapel, neither in the smaller ones joined like fingers in one hand. Red roses only, please.

A tiny room allows one to write down prayers. It is where I found myself last Tuesday. 'Twas the first time I put in written words what I would usually speak through my mind. A darkened room, it allows one the power to use one's skill of the hand to write blindly in the dark. And I wrote, blinded by darkness, and lo! through unstoppable torrent of tears. The miracle was in the act. The miracle that atheists and agnostics miss.

Even if there indeed is no God and all was pure concoction of the manipulators of wealth and of human minds, I still count myself sanctified for the seed of faith in something not concretely seen. The faith that allows grace to flow - beauty, kindness, mercy and benevolence all at once.

In a world where every other person tries to save the world from unprecedented "inconvenient truths", from the programmed promiscuity of the youth, from utter lack of propriety and respectability among adults, from the shameless stockpiling of wealth, one is indeed blessed in finding little packages of truth like streaks of sunbeam seeping through thick clouds of a brewing storm.

There simply cannot be no God.