Editor's note: "The Faith in Our Lives" is a monthly series spotlighting Catholics in various walks of life, and how they connect faith with what they do.

Andy M. Tecson had just come from seeing the play "Blind Alley" on a September Sunday evening in 1992. He was parking his car at his home on Wilton Drive in Los Angeles when he spotted the figure --- a man pointing a pistol right at him. The first shot hit the bumper. But as he was running away, the second tore into his back, an inch from the upper spine.

The photographer and insurance agent spent the next few days on life-support systems in Cedars-Sinai Hospital's trauma center. The .22 caliber bullet had lodged between his spine and the aorta.

"The doctor said I was very lucky," Tecson reports today, his voice still laden with emotion from the ordeal. "Either I am dead or disabled. So that was really a miracle."

Like for so many, the near-death experience altered the man's life.

"I took the incident as a reminder that, perhaps, it is time for me to slow down, to take time to touch a rose in the morning dew, to appreciate more the advent of every dawn, spend more time with my family and to do more charity work," he told a reporter at the time.

Tecson also decided it was time to take his faith more seriously.

"After that I started to join the church and pray," he points out. "My wife was already playing with the choir, but I was just attending Mass. I thought the Lord would like me to share my talents and participate more with the church. So I joined the choir and started playing my violin. And I increased in faith."

When his wife, Elizabeth, died from colon cancer in 1997, that faith supported the father of four. He also integrated it into his work as an agent at Sotiangco Insurance Agency, realizing that he had a "mission" to help others during times of crisis. He says a good life insurance policy is the "best benefit" a family has when the breadwinner dies.

And he proudly talks about the 10 death benefits he's personally delivered to policyholders over the years --- funds that allowed widows and widowers to keep their homes and, more importantly, "their dignity."

2,000 weddings

And then there are the 2,000 weddings he and his associates have shot over three decades, including nine at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. But the professional photographer --- who learned the craft from his artistic father, Lauro, in the Philippines as a boy, and who is currently chief photographer for the Asian Journal --- has also worked Protestant, Buddhist, Seven Day Adventist and Orthodox Jewish ceremonies.

Tecson, who came to the United States in 1972, calls this his "ministry." And being up front and center at all these unions has affected his own spirituality.

"Because at every wedding you have the homily where the priest or celebrant reminds you of your faith in God, your faith in yourself, your faith in your spouse," he explains. "You're reminded what are the qualities to have a successful marriage and successful life. So every wedding, I receive this again."

The 57-year-old Tecson has recently received another spiritual gift from his fellow parishioners at St. Brendan Church, members of Filipino groups across the archdiocese as well as friends and relatives: their heartfelt prayers for his own health.

A few weeks ago, after tests --- including a biopsy --- Tecson found out he had prostate cancer. The good news is a bone scan indicated that the malignancy was still localized, having not spread to other vital organs. And on May 24, he will undergo surgery at UCLA Medical Center.

"I am putting together my life at this point," he confides. "I have prayed a lot, and a lot of my friends in groups are praying for me, too. I am trying to be positive, and I am trying to have more faith that God will help.

"Sometimes the Lord will try to test you. That's the way life is," Andy Tecson muses. "I just have to keep praying. My friends told me, the doctors will have the wisdom to cure you, but God will do the miracle."