" The Lord is my Shepherd

Today, Holy Thursday, RPN 9 will have a one-hour special on "Kerygma TV" at 11 a.m. to 12 noon. "Dakilang Pag-ibig" will have Bo Sanchez and Rissa Singson on a teleretreat with other lay preachers and their life-changing stories and inspiring messages on God’s love, humility and servanthood.

Bo and Rissa also have a thirty-minute show on RPN 9 every Wednesday at 11:30 p.m. and they touch on little miracles in ordinary lives and give practical advice and homilies.

Let me share with you how Bo, through God’s help, was able to accomplish a minor miracle - making Kerygma, a Catholic magazine, a very successful venture ! Bo also has his bestseller books in the Boss Series published by shepherd’s Voice Publications.

My prayer for Bo is that he will remain anchored to the ground and not let his popularity as God’s messenger get in the way of his mission. The danger of charismatic preachers and healers is one of EGO. With Bo , it is his wife who keeps him "normal."

In Bo’s own words, about the publishing miracle of Kyrgma: "Publish a magazine that will tell people about God."

My father, Gene Sanchez, spoke these historic words more than a decade ago in an Elders’ meeting of the Light of Jesus Community. I knew then my Dad was dead serious on the matter. His voice was a few decibels stronger, his jaw more taut, his forehead more creased.

Pio Espanol, another elder, enthusiastically confirmed the proposal and said, "We can touch many, many people through a magazine. Let’s do it!’

In my mind I knew I was in trouble because the majority of the team had already spoken. After all, we only had three members in the Council of Elders! But I wondered if it occurred to them that the only person who hadn’t voted was the one who would actually do the work of writing the magazine.

"I don’t know…" I looked up and wondered what God had in mind. I shared my hesitation with the team, explaining to them the work we already were busy with-building covenant community, conducting seminars all over the place.

The two men obliged my request for more prayer and discernment. Perhaps inwardly, I had hope that the idea of the magazine would be forgotten and would never be raised again in our weekly elders’ meetings.

But that never happened. Because every so often, that scene would be repeated and it went on and on until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I said, "Okay, I’ll do it!"

That day I called up Chay Santiago, editor of Mod magazine, for help. Chay happened to be a member of our community and she agreed to be our consultant editor as long as we didn’t pay her anything.

A few days later, I bumped into Mike Joseph Jr., my spiritual mentor, and told him that we were going to come up with a magazine. What would be a good name for it?

"Kerygma" he blurted out. It was a name that fell from the sky. I knew what it meant in Greek "Proclamation of the Gospel" and that was exactly what we wanted to do.

Instinctively I knew how the magazine would be written. No high theology, no big words, no obtuse theologies hanging up in the air. I was going to write it in such a way that God would be understood, simple, down to earth and even entertaining whenever possible.

I wanted people to enjoy reading about God.

I started writing, drawing the illustrations, designed the cover and Chay put it together - with her husband Ed Santiago shooting the photos. And in January, 1990, we published the first issue of Kerygma. We printed 2,000 copies and gave it away free.

We did it for six months. People loved it but our community didn’t. It was depleting our community funds, fast ! The three-member elders team met again and decided that we had two choices: Either go bankrupt and never publish another Kerygma or sell the magazine.

But would people actually buy a religious magazine?

In July, 1990 we sold Krygma for the first time.We were shocked at the outcome. The demand was so great that we soon ran out of copies! That was when we began to see the meteoric rise of our circulation. From 2,000 copies, we moved to 3,000 and then 5,000 and then 10,000 … (it rose to 70,000 copies a month in the late ‘90s before plateauing to 45,000 today)

Bishop Ted Bacani Jr. who for years wrote a column for us proclaimed, "Kerygma is indeed the publishing miracle of Asia!"

We didn’t think of becoming the number one Catholic magazine in the country. We just wanted to publish God’s Word. But God holds our destiny in His hands.

All we can say is, "Here I am Lord. I have come to do Your will."

And the rest is His-story."

Amen!