Following the success of “365 Days with the Lord” Liturgical-Biblical Diary, SIMBAHAY – the Filipino Bible Diary – came out in January 1995. The Diary at first made use of the Filipino Gospel translation of Msgr. Jose Abriol, a copyrighted work with the Daughters of Saint Paul. In 1997, however, the decision was made to use the Gospel version found in the Biblia ng Sambayanang Pilipino which is the Filipino edition of the Christian Community Bible that is jointly published by the Society of Saint Paul and the Claretians Communications.
SIMBAHAY was born out of casual discussions between Pauline priest Fr. Apolinar Castor and Desiderio “Sid” Ching, a lay collaborator of the Claretians. They had such opportunities whenever they met at the annual Frankfurt Bookfair. Sid Ching wrote and edited the reflections for the 1995-2001 editions.
In 2002, ST PAULS took over the work completely. This development also marked a change in the tone of the daily Gospel reflections. The Pauline priests – Frs. Domie Guzman, Cris Cellan and Dante Lumabas – decided to shift from the personal-experiential approach introduced by Sid Ching… into an exegetical form of daily study on the Gospel. They did this by translating previous materials published under “365 Days with the Lord” Liturgical-Biblical Diary. The copy editing was done by Rita Asajar-Lampitoc.
Now under the editorial management of Fr. Rollin Flores, SIMBAHAY continues to grow as a Filipino counterpart of “365 Days with the Lord.” This time, however, it has its own set of contributing writers and its own annual theme.
