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| My 'guest appearance' at the Collegio Filippino in Rome. |
Last Month, the Most
Rev. Jose S. Palma, D.D., the metropolitan archbishop of Cebu, of which my very
own Diocese of Maasin (Southern Leyte) is a suffragan, issued the pastoral
letter Live Christ, Share Christ: Looking Forward to Our Five Hundredth, on behalf of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, over
which he presides. In it, he spells out the tasks of an era of New Evangelization
in the archipelago poised to celebrate the fifth centenary of the arrival of
Christianity. This point in history is marked by the first Easter Mass on March 16, 1521 in the
island of “Mazaua,” which, as established by a great majority of historians, is
the present-day Limasawa.
It is, by no
means, sheer coincidence that I am an adopted son, by virtue of ecclesiastical
affiliation, of Southern Leyte, which was the place of my paternal grandfather’s
childhood just before World War II. (Later as an adult, he would return there
as an agrarian reform official and then, still much later, to witness my investiture
as a seminarian of the diocese on August 22, 2010.)
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| Formal reception by Bishop Precioso D. Cantillas, S.D.B. |
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| Donning the cassock for the first time, assisted by deacons (then). |
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| Standing next to "Tatay," my grandfather. |
While I still do
not yet speak either the Cebuano or
the Boholano dialect, the Visayan language variants dominant in Central
Philippines, it is an honor for me to have to trace my roots back to the very spot
where the seeds of the Christian faith were planted half a millennium ago. From
there, I hope to be a docile instrument, “fostering and fulfilling the ‘missio
ad gentes’,” wherever the Spirit bids me go.
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| The Monsignor and I: Maasinhons advancing the Jubilee! |
