Emmanuel

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”  This was part of the refrain I came to recite, memorize, and love since my early years at home, with my family.  The Angelus, along with other basic Catholic prayers and of course going to Mass, was taught me as soon as I was able to know--or perhaps even earlier than that.  God, Jesus, Mama Mary, grace before meals, other formula prayers, along with their more subtle counterparts as faith, grace, peace, love, were taught me through, with and in my family.  And in the house, there were concrete reminders for these: the image of the Santo Nino who saved my eldest living brother from a severe sickness when he was still a baby, the Last Supper in the dining area, little statues and stampitas of Mary, Help of Christians, St. John Bosco and other saints which were gifts from the Salesian priests, brother and sisters who administered our parish.

Like most Catholic children in Filipino households, I was introduced to the Christian faith at home, particularly through my mother.  Benita, who passed on last 2001, was a staunch devotee of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  I can remember no First Friday, or any Friday for that matter, when she would not bring herself to her movement’s appointment in the house where the image of the Sacred Heart is enthroned, or when she would skip Mass where the novena prayer is said.  Besides these recollections, I remember how she tagged me along to religious occasions elsewhere, like for the La Naval de Manila procession one October afternoon of my childhood, the Flores de Mayo afternoons in a summer vacation in her province Guimaras, and a stage play of the life of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque who, like her, was devoted to the Sacred Heart.

When I entered Grade 1, it was also on these Fridays where Nanay and Tatay brought me to the Bible study.  Ah, those Friday evenings!  I recall tagging along my parents to attend the Bible study sessions led by our new parish priest, a charismatic Salesian who just returned from Rome for study, Fr. Jun.  He was a person of great warmth, a priest whose dealings with people was marked with palpable interest, and whose commitment as a Salesian priest reflected in his passion for the Word and the sacraments, in his generosity and open-heartedness, especially to young people--and younger ones like me at that time!  Thanks to him, I have approached the Bible with deeper interest and openness, perhaps not like my contemporaries.  My budding relationship with God’s word in Scriptures--while I may not have been always consistently attentive to it--has served me in good stead in the years to come.

During these years of my childhood, I called on God using the prayers taught me, but it was also in these years where I learned to call on Him in a personal way: going out of the house, to ask Him to be with me in my trip; passing by a church, to pay Him homage; and once, even, losing my bowel movement inside the classroom, to plead for rescue (which didn’t come according to my magical wishes).  I also strove to know more about God and this religion which I was brought to know more and be good at, not only through the religion classes in school and catechism lessons on Sunday mornings in the parish, but also through my own interest, as shown by my reading books about religion and on religious figures, my awe and wonder at shrines and churches, and my love for and gift of music which I use in prayer.  I consider these years of “nurture” (where my elders taught me religion) and “nature” (where I explored God and relating with him by myself, using my own gifts and talents) as a fundamental period in my life with God.

Adolescence found me entering the minor seminary.  It seemed the “natural” course to follow: my two older brothers have done so, my family and people in my parish encouraged it consciously or otherwise, and the priests and brothers in our parish appeared to be the best future one can have.  I am particularly amazed at and attracted to how they deal with young people and bring them to God, making me--us--feel we are important, we deserve their time, their effort, their humor, their talents, in order to lead us closer to Him.  I completed its four-year program, but not without challenges--to my relationship with God, among those.  Obviously it was a new world, despite my familiarity with it due to “visiting Sundays” made to my two elder brothers who also entered, along with their stories when they had their vacation.  It was altogether new: new companions, new classes and courses, new culture, new way of living.  Couple it with the parallel newness in its various forms natural to adolescence.  At the end of my first year, I was tagged conditional--I was accepted for the second year provided I met certain conditions-- because of what was perceived as inadequacy on my part to behave as a teenage man and related accordingly.  Oh how hurtful that episode was!  I thought God and I were OK--yes, we were, but some people around me seemed not.  Thanks to the intervention of people who loved me, foremost among them my family, and then a few of my classmates and formators, I satisfied the condition and went on to finish secondary.

Through those years, I have also come to a deeper appreciation of Mary.  I have to admit, I’m really “Mama’s boy” (although I rarely use that to describe myself, since it seems to me all of us in the family are “Mama’s kids”), and what helped sustain me through those challenges and the other usual make-up of high school-cum-seminary life was a personal relationship with the Mother who Jesus Himself shared with us.  I looked forward to her feast days; praying the rosary with the community every night, while at times I admit I felt dragging, was often something that soothed me, rocked me to peace as it were; singing her songs gave me delight, as much as I hoped gave her, too.  The Blessed Mother led me through this phase of formation--formation not only in the sense of seminary language but of “life”; she brought me to a deeper relationship with her Son, to call on the Spirit who worked wonders in her, to place my trust in the Father who only has plans for my welfare.

Which now brings me to my moving on to major seminary.  At the end of high school, I made the choice to continue my seminary formation in college.  Those were years where I was further strengthened in the different areas of my personhood: in study, in the capacity to work, in relationships, in dealing with authority, in my life with God and in my faith.  The end of that period found me tending to decide to postpone novitiate and even to leave the formation process altogether.  This time found me in prayer as personal as can be.  I was calling on the Lord, reminding Him, “Uhm, Lord, You brought me here.  You brought us this far.  If you are leading me elsewhere, if there is a new phase in Your plan for me, then, just assure me it is You who lead, that this is all part of Your plan.”

I left the seminary by the end of my postulancy, days before my college graduation.  I delivered the salutatory address and welcomed too, as it were, this new phase in my life, particularly with God.  This first year unfolded with me taking on a one-year contract for teaching along with adjusting to life outside the seminary, outside study, as well as hearing from people about their surprise at my decision (with various intentions, I guess).  Towards the end of this first year, when I felt I was lost in relation to God’s will, where I found myself asking, “What’s next, Lord?  I left the seminary because I know You have a plan.  What’s the plan now?”, I vividly recall having received from a Salesian sister a stampita with that familiar, assuring verse 11 from Jeremiah 29 written along:

My Child,
Cease your struggle, know that I am in charge.
For I know well the plans I have for you...
plans for your welfare not for your woe,
plans to bring you a future full of hope.
If you come to Me, if you seek Me, you shall find Me.

That was the year 2000.  The Year of the Great Jubilee.  My Catholic faith tells me it is an extraordinary year of grace, commemorating 2,000 years of God becoming human like us, of God not only becoming like us, but being with us, flesh and blood.  I clung to that belief, so much so that I did not renew my teaching contract since it meant not being able to join the Jubilee of Youth in Rome, which was also known as the World Youth Day.  Ah, yes, I dared to prepare myself to be able to join this international gathering of young people like me in Rome, capital of Christendom, where countless people, among them youth like me, have testified to the ultimate goodness which cannot be overcome by fear or cruelty or evil.  And yes, the dare became flesh.

It was in that World Youth Day (the theme of which was “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”), particularly in the Youth Vigil with the Pope, where I received a confirmation of sorts to the budding realization inside of me.  One of the delegates, who was part of the Philippine delegation choir of which I was appointed conductor by the Episcopal Commission on Youth, observed of me and of how I dealt with them, “Stephen, youth minister ka talaga! (...you truly are a youth minister!)”  I did not become a professed Salesian; I was trained in education and exposed to youth-related training; inside me was planted the seed of youth ministry, thanks to my parish and the Salesians there--all these, and others, led me to discover the plan.  Coming back to the Philippines, someone from the ECY called me to ask if I was still looking for employment, and if yes, if I was open to working with them.  Since then, I am working fulltime in youth ministry, convinced this is the plan.  Amen, there is a plan, a beautiful plan, a fulfilling one, after all.  And amen again, behind, all through, and within this plan, is the Planner, the Coach, the Challenger, the Provider, the Brother, the Master.

These experiences testify to a God who is truly Emmanuel.  The hope that has sustained, and still sustains me, leads me to believe in Him who is equally Beyond: preparing for me a plan that is--yes, out of this world--full of hope beyond all telling (and yes, even beyond any blog).