Friends burning for friends

Every year, the clergy of Laoag go on what we call Lakbay-Aral. Before I was ordained in 2003, the priests had already toured Northern Luzon, Bicol, Bohol-Cebu, and, Zambales-Bataan-Corregidor. On my first lakbay-aral in 2004, we enjoyed the sun and sand of Boracay before our pleasant intrusion of the Panay provinces (except Antique), and Guimaras. In 2005, we flew to Davao. Our destination the following year was CalaBaRZon. Then with our new bishop, we spent four days in Palawan last year. This February, we had a great vacation in Thailand, our first trip abroad as a clergy. Aside from the satisfaction of our need to relax and unwind, this annual trip aims at strengthening our brotherhood. The following was a brief reflection I wrote in a rush when I was compelled to give a homily in one of our masses during our Panay sojourn in 2004. There's some good in keeping old planners (smiles).

The years have taught me that God wants me to treat and approach him as my friend. One day, while on retreat, I was praying God to be always with me. It was a rather cloudy morning, but gradually, I began to see my shadow, myself, before me. The sun had finally victoriously wrestled itself out of the dark clouds. And then I felt tears welling in my eyes and then falling. I realized God will always be with me. I may not see him, but I know that He would continue to shine at my back even without my acknowledging him. When He shines thus, I see myself. As a friend, God will always - even eternally - burn for me.

But God wants to - in fact, does - burn for each one of you as well. It seems that this is how He wants to be identified: I am your friend. "I no longer call you slaves but friends because I have told you everything that I have learned from my Father."

We have been called to a special kind of friendship called the priesthood. As God's friend, I have been gifted with this special relation with him. And I behave as a friend as I fulfill my priestly responsibilities and obligations.

Since the priesthood is a gift we have received from one and the same Friend, we must also treat one another as friends. Don't friends love one another? "You are my friends if you do what I command you. Love one another as I have loved you." How did Jesus love us? He kept himself burning unto death for us.

Do we count every brother priest our friend?

Frederick Faust once said: "There's a giant asleep in every man. When that awakens, miracles happen." I'd like to think as one among this company of friends that that giant is the friend in us.

I have read of a man who got lost in the woods. He met a stranger and asked him, "Can you show me the way to the highway?" "No, I can't," said the stranger. "But if we walk together, we might just find it."

Wouldn't it be a big miracle if we walked the priestly stretch together without becoming a babel of voices against a brother priest or anyone? I believe we would become more credible as friends to the people we serve if they see us priests behaving as friends to one another.

If they ask us, "Who do you say that Jesus is?" and we tell them, "He is my friend, our friend," we would make sense.

May this get-together make us grow in our friendship.

Photographs on the wall

As the secretary of the Priests’ Assembly of the diocese, I went to the bishop’s residence to have the minutes of the last meeting photocopied. Passing by the dining room, I took glimpses, as I usually do every time my feet take me there, of the laminated pictures of our venerable priests who, we pray, are already enjoying the beatific vision. Under their names are written the date of their ordination and the date of their earthly departure. And I was drawn to the invisible reality between those dates, an unwritten history - that which really matters. Going back to the car, I could hardly shake myself from these thoughts.

These great men, whose memory is perpetuated in those pictures, exude an air like they had never seen years of discontent. What could have their years been like? How am I to see those hidden years? The days of glory are come, but I am drawn to the days leading to the laurels. For to me, what matters is not so much what challenges laid on their way as how they responded to those challenges. And I can see their chasubles yellowed with overuse, the stoles gradually losing their colors, their chalices enduring the elements, their breviaries worn and torn. I can hear their strong words to parishioners who force their devious thoughts and opinions, and yet I can also hear their hearts throbbing with compassion. I can hear the sound of their vehicles braving mud in the barrios. Cups of coffee, perhaps a few sticks of cigarette, alerted them at their tables as they prepared their sermons, conferences and other talks in the late of night. The dining tables might have given up on them several times. Some ingrates might have pierced their ears and caused them pain. Others might have been indifferent to their labors and blind to and perhaps even frowned upon their sacrifices. But through all this, they remained faithful. And then there I was standing before their photographs on the wall. I get to ask myself: will people be enriched by my own years in between?

This is only my first sacerdotal anniversary. The words of the Lord, “Feed my sheep,” encapsulated the vision of my life as priest. As I celebrate my first year anniversary as a priest, I feel summoned to confront myself in regard to my priestly motto. Have I concretely been a shepherd after the heart of the Lord? How close have I approximated the Lord’s model? Have I been a compassionate priest? Could have I shooed some sheep away instead of leading them into the stalls? I realize I need to forgive myself.

But remembering that great day when I solemnly said ‘yes’ to the Lord, uplifts me as well. That special memory has a mysterious way of building up my spirit. It renews and reenergizes. It further gears me up for the ministry. I won’t enumerate the very little things I have done thus far. Or have I done anything? But I hope to make each day of my priestly life count.

It’s amazing how the dead can still instruct the living about living, and how dead priests continue to teach and edify me in my own ministry. The time will come when my photograph, too, will hang on that cold wall near the dining room of the bishop’s residence. May my priestly passion never die while I live. (November, 2004)

Living the priesthood

“What is great about life is not what we do for God but what God does for us.” On occasions like today, I dwell on thoughts like this. God has, indeed, been good to me every single day of my life. He has given me life. He has caused me to be in a beautiful family, who taught me what it means to love and be loved. He has sown and brought to fruition the seed of priestly vocation in me; he has given me the gift of the priesthood and has sustained me for four beautiful years. Through me, he has touched the lives of many souls. These are great things I need to thank God for.

One of the first messages I received through text ran: “You’re another year older. Thanks for all that your priesthood has shared to my family. Your priesthood made possible unbelievable things in my life. Your priesthood is both a miracle and a mystery. I’m sure it did so many great things to other souls, too. A lot of times you may be sad also. But as you often tell me, God suffices. Don’t forget that every time I remember you, I also say a little prayer. It’s because you taught me how to love life, to love, to love more and to love a little more.” That text message caused some kind of a feeling of relief to surge within me. It certainly is great to have people say that I have been making such impact on their lives. With such words, people might consider me successful as a priest. But for me there is no such thing as ‘successful priesthood’. Using the words of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, God did not call me to be a successful priest. When he called me to be his own, all he asked of me was to be faithful to him through thick and thin. For it is only on ‘faithful times’ that my priesthood can be meaningful.

How has my four years been like? Forty days at the Bishop’s Residence, two years five months and 12 days as assistant parish priest in San Nicolas, one year five months and six days as Prefect of Disciple at St. Mary’s Seminary. I smile when I remember how my humble word or silence, or action or non-action made a difference in a person’s life. I sigh of regret when I remember those times when I could have done better but didn’t. I strike by breast and say mea culpa as scenes from my life that I am not happy about flash in my mind. How I wish I could relive those wasted or unfaithful times and live up to what I promised – that I would feed God’s sheep. But what’s done is done. I cannot go on regretting and sulking; I have to forgive myself for the times I failed God, for the times I hurt people, for the times I hurt you. I believe this is what celebrating anniversaries is all about. I get to start all over again with a renewed spirit and fresh vigor. I am given a second shot at living a meaningful priesthood. And what’s more, I have you all to help me.

I realized more and more in my four years that priesthood is really about listening. Listening to God, listening to people, listening to myself – in that order. Yes, I have to listen to the feelings and emotions, dreams and aspirations, needs and wishes of other people even before I listen to my own. I have to put myself in their shoes to feel what they feel, to share their dreams, to understand their need. This is the beginning of charity. This must be the only way towards a faithful, meaningful priesthood. A priest who doesn’t know how to listen wouldn’t know how to live his priesthood. A priest who doesn’t listen will never be a good priest. Such priest will only think of himself, of his own feelings and emotions, dreams and aspirations, needs and wishes. He will not talk kindly and will raise his voice at the littlest irritation. He will not care whether people get hurt with his words because he thinks he is always right or even has the monopoly of truth. I am afraid that when I look at myself in the mirror, I’d be looking at such priest. I think it’s this inability to listen as I should or in the order above that has largely caused the wastage and unfaithfulness in my priestly life. Perhaps, by listening less and less to myself, I’d grow in the thought that what is great about priestly life is not what people do for me but what I do for them.

Thank you all for celebrating this great day with me. But allow me to thank foremost my parents. I owe them my life; there is no Fr. Tom without them. The person who texted me said, “You taught me how to love life, to love, to love more and to love a little more.” I would not have been able to teach people about love if I had not first felt it from and seen it in my parents. They are people who truly know how to listen and do listen. I thank Fr. Lester, Fr. JV, Sr. Catalina, the teachers, the personnel and the seminarians for this great journey together. My gratitude, too, goes to my relatives and friends for teaching me about life in many ways.

My priesthood is what I make it. Please continue praying for me especially that I may always have that listening attitude like the Blessed Mother’s and make each day of my priestly life count. (St. Mary's Seminary, Laoag City, November 21, 2007)

Clerical controversies in the eyes of a young cleric

Much ink has already been spilled on the issue of clerical “sexual” misappropriations. For a good number of times, this has been the dish of the broadsheets, and the broadsheets sold like hot potatoes. When the issue on Apo Bacani came up, it took the front page and was even the banner for a few days straight. The bishop “unwillingly” enjoyed a good share of airtime, too, on TV. And so he, who, I suppose, would be better known to the masa as the spiritual director of Velarde of the El Shaddai group, became a household name in an instant. The press, and mass media as a whole, has the power to do just that. It seizes people, noble or not, and uses them to spice up its otherwise dull papers, before it lets them go. Once they are let alone, breath would seem the only thing they have left. What’s a name without credibility? Good for them if they have no integrity to worry about. It’s really ironic to see how the press may disserve the truth. Noble people are killed before they are tried.

The wake of such clerical hitch usually sees the resurgence of the question whether priests should be allowed to marry, even as reasons for keeping to tradition, stretching from spiritual to practical, have time and again been presented. Abrogating the law on celibacy has often been put forward as the solution to the sexual misconducts of priests. Whose proposition? Mostly lay and a few clergymen. Like flaming liberals, these lay people who choose to see a non-celibate Catholic clergy forget that their priests chose to be celibate, in the first place. When they entered the priesthood, they knew full well the kind of life they were to live – a celibate life. And presumably they recognized its nobility and meaning, so they set their will to it. It’s the priests themselves who understand better than anybody else the whole import of celibacy to priestly ministry. I find it amusing, then, that the lay people should suggest “what would be good” to priests relative to their ministry. They are saying like, “I scratch your arm because it’s itchy.” Probably, they mean well. But I think they would be of better help if they just pray for their priests and create a nurturing atmosphere in which to do their ministry.

A recent study on American priests who have been 10 to 30 years in the ministry revealed that if they were to have a second shot at being a priest, they would choose to be celibate. If for some priests celibacy leads to a life of loneliness, the priests in the study attested that celibacy does not preclude warm friendships and intimate relationships. In fact, some of them even spoke of the freedom that celibacy gives them to have more such relationships than married couples. These relationships are the “I-Thou” kind, which enable them to be more effective, helping, enabling and loving. The priests I have come in contact with share the same sentiments. How, then, could the lay suggest, with a certain insistence, that the Catholic Church lift the celibacy law to solve the so-called clerical misappropriations? Of late, even an Aglipayan bishop figured in such sexual hitch, and he was very much married!

As a young cleric, I think there’s no better way to un-invite myself to such issue than choosing “to have a life.” I have to enjoy being a deacon, and being a priest later on, embracing the celibate life. I am convinced that being God’s minister is a significant way to spend my life, that what I do is important to the Church and to society. This conviction is sustained by a relationship with Jesus, by an active spiritual life involving prayer, scripture and liturgy. Looking at the days ahead, I will try to be authentic and form close relationships with my family and build a strong supporting network of priests. I will try to draw life from the people I serve, so that I will be able to serve them better. Listening first, I will allow my ministry to be characterized by service, compassion and empowerment. I will maintain a sense of balance and give myself a moment of repose. This is the life I see. (October, 2004)