Salvation is now just a text message away for Filipinos.

Prayers for lotto wins, jobs in Canada and even boyfriends have been flooding a Philippine Catholic Church project allowing Filipinos to send their petitions via text messages from their cellular phones.

photo:Taipei Times

Filipinos have also been downloading novenas and daily prayers from the Text Mary server by simply texting a keyword.

"Even if people are preoccupied with material things, they're still wanting in prayers," said Noli Yamsuan, an organizer of 'The Way of Mary' Foundation.

Many texters prayed for jobs and financial assistance with one asking divine intervention to win a lottery jackpot and others seeking God's help to find jobs in Canada, New Zealand or the US.

One woman appealed to God to make her boyfriend "keep his promise to marry early next year" while another petitioner asked that her friend find a boyfriend within the year.

Each text costs 2.50 pesos (C$0.05). Proceeds from the project will fund church programs, including a fund for poor families.

Organizers have stressed that the Text Mary project was meant to provide a convenient option for Filipinos who do not have the time to go to church.

More than 80 per cent of the Philippines' estimated 84 million people are Roman Catholic.

Telecom companies earn some C$10 million a day for their text services.

Filipinos send some 20 million text messages a day, equivalent to 10 percent of the worldwide volume.

Msgr. Hernando Coronel, a church spokesman, said the project will enable the people, both in the Philippines and abroad, "to reconnect with Our Lord Jesus Christ and Our Blessed Mother, cultivating deep love and devotion to Jesus and Mary."

Coronel said the church is encouraging all priests to use the new medium of evangelization to better reach the Catholic faithful.

Soon, project organizers said, they will expand the services to overseas Filipino workers and introduce other mobile features like operator logos, picture messages and cards and MMS wallpapers.