Creating Saints

We are celebrating Father’s Day by interviewing my own father, Fred De Leon. Join us for a special conversation about how my father grew in his Catholic faith.

• If you’re an immigrant, or come from an immigrant family, and if there is a safe space to talk about it, ask your father or father figures what their faith journey was like.
• Reflect on and pray about God’s fatherly love for us.
• Reflect and pray about how St. Joseph’s presence was like in Jesus’ life as a father figure.
• If you didn’t have a positive father figure, what steps will you take to ensure that that cycle does not perpetuate?
• Give thanks to fathers and people who fill in father roles in your life.

Today’s guests are our 3 children! We talk about what our prayer life looks like as a family and we ask each other questions to reflect on:

• What is your favorite memory of your family praying?
• When are some significant times in your life when your family has come together to pray?
• How do we pray as a family?
• How do you teach your kids about having a personal relationship with God? How do you know where to look for God?

We also provide you with some tips to deepen prayer life with your family

• Find some sort of routine and create time and space for prayer
• Pray before meals together
• Thank God for the beauty of creation
• Use household chores as prayers for everyone in your home
• Involve the kids in helping the poor and vulnerable
• Share your struggles with your kids
• Transparency about what is happening in the world and praying for those suffering
• When praying for others’ intentions, keep them in mind, and follow up with them at a later time
• Table ministry with family and friends
• Share the fruits of prayer with your family

Cris’ resources on getting closer with Jesus during SIP:
Podcast: An Invitation to Pray with Father Josh during COVID-19
Podcast: The Sacraments and Mass During COVID-19
Prayer Resources: Imagine: A Guide to Jesuit Prayer

Welcome back for our 2nd episode! It has been quite a difficult week so we’re sharing with you why and how prayer has been instrumental in keeping us afloat during times of chaos. In this episode, we ask each other questions about our personal prayer life and how resistance to God pops up from time to time. We also share some ideas on how to deepen your prayer life if you need a jumpstart! Lastly, we provide some space to invite the Holy Spirit into our lives so that we can be filled with the love and mercy that God has shown us.

Wow! It’s finally here, our ‘Creating Saints’ Podcast! This is super exciting and we’ve been praying about this for a while now. We’re living in a pandemic and we’re wondering how can we continue our ministry beyond quarantine life.
In this episode, we:

• Introduce ourselves and why we’ve created this podcast
• Talk about our favorite saint & favorite Catholic quote or scripture passage
• Talk about our conversion stories
• Discuss how our families practiced the Catholic faith
• Discuss how our cultures have influenced our faith development.
• Acknowledge how to deepen and enliven your relationship with God
• Preferred ways to pray

The Creating Saints Podcast was produced by Gwen Ramos, our theme song is written and performed by VJ Chanco, and special thanks to Zett Malong, who helped with our photography. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram under “Creating Saints”.

Today, we interview Suzette Malong, a family friend, who immigrated to the United States from the Philippines. We talk about the challenges that she faced when she immigrated to the US and talk about how her faith played a role during those difficult times. We also examine some significant differences about how faith is expressed in various cultures. If you or someone you know immigrated, it would be interesting to engage them in conversation about some of these questions:

• How has your culture influenced your faith life?
• What were your expectations or held beliefs about living in the United States?
• What was it like living here initially?
• What role did your Catholic faith play during this stage of your life?
• Have you looked at immigration as a trauma and why do you think immigrants may not perceive it as a trauma?
• What are some notable differences in how you experience faith and church life in the United States compared to back home?
• What are the differences of how you practice your faith in the United States compared to back home?
• What are some ways you’ve held onto your faith and culture?
• How would you like to see the church address immigration and support immigrant families in the parish?