Contributed photo
More than 30 devotees of San Pedro Calungsod, known as ka-barkada ni Pedro, participated the Thanksgiving Mass in celebration of the 7th anniversary of the Barkada ni Pedro (BNP) last August 6 at San Pedro Calungsod Youth Center in Cebu City.
The mass was presided over by Cebu Archdiocesan Commission on Youth Director Rev. Fr. Andrei Ventanilla and was broadcasted online thru the Barkada ni Pedro fan page account in facebook.
In his homily, Fr. Ventanilla said, “The digital environment is one of the major phenomena that our young people are facing nowadays. What is digital in the present context is not just an instrument to be used, rather it has become an environment, a culture, a way of living.”
He added, “It is something that we can’t anymore do away with. Knowing that this phenomenon can bring both positive and negative effects, our move should be to insert and to bombard this phenomenon with evangelization, BNP has taken up the challenge to tell the world of God’s love thru social media.”
After the mass, BNP moderator Marlito Cabigas presented the new BNP logo and some programs to expect from the page.
The BNP Team, who is managing the page, is now under the direct supervision of the Director of the Commission on Youth of the Archdiocese of Cebu.
Barkada ni Pedro is an online prayer community created by young people to promote a culture of praying for one another. It is also an online resource on materials in the propagation of devotion to San Pedro Calungsod.
BNP was launched last 2012 at the height of the canonization of the 1st Visayan saint during the term of the then Commission on Youth Director Rev. Msgr. Arturo Navales, P.C. Seven years after its birth, the page has accumulated over 25,000 likes already.