It was truly a “descent into hell” – few years ago, real fire ended up our Lola’s ancestral home into ashes. “Why Lord! What have we done wrong?! You know that I always go to Church everyday!”, Lola grieved despite Mama’s persistent consolations. For sure, Mama is just one of the millions who would affirm that this part is one of the most difficult roles.
BALTHASAR’s (as well as Moltmann’s) presentation led me to reflect upon the “Triumph of the Cross”. My first impression towards it sensed an irony. For how can a cross, which is shame and death, be triumphant? How could Lola feel LOVE in abandonment? How could there’ll be HOPE in the cross which is death and separation? This also brought me to question (during the first few class sessions) how the Holy Spirit united in undying love the greatest separation of the Father and the Son during that Holy Saturday moment. My first impression again led me to the same irony. “Where’s the love in separation? Where’s the Holy Spirit there?”
Then, suddenly, upon hearing the words: “Kun gaantos ang anak, mas gaantos ang ginikanan” as simplified by our professor, my ‘asthma-descent-into-hell” years flashed into my memory. Then and there, the Holy Spirit led me to understand how He was present during the separation, as well as, during my bedridden moments. For during those successive mornings in the hospital whenever I badly gasped for air, Mama (human as she was, with her limitations) could not help but simply cry beside me and caress my back. Where, then, can I find and connect the Holy Spirit’s undying love in that very moment of helplessness? There was more than the nebulizer. It was the tears of Mama and her gentle hand that connected and united her and me in undying love! From here, let me go out to express what the world needs to do today: Mama’s tears and gentle hand = PRESENCE! BEING THERE! If only the Church will continue to become an agent of social involvement and not just on spirituality and mere words… If only the priest would continue to spend time after Mass with the people in the barrios; I was once a patient and I know how consoling it is to be listened to. If only the society’s government and NGOs would continue to step on the same ground with poor communities without superficiality and selfish intentions… If only the seminarians would continue to be dedicated, zealous and punctual during apostolate, then a brimming degree of presence would be much felt by the people.
I was once assigned on a community of squatters. Yes, I was with them, but my presence did not and will not alleviate them from poverty. Tomorrow, they’ll be struggling again; in fact, their houses were demolished a month since we left. But with Christ who once in his loving grandeur, chose to be born in the lowest state just to make himself be present even with the lowliest ones; and consequently, had left the mark of his presence in all hearts of all ages through the Holy Spirit. Thus, we too are assured that the Trinity through the Spirit has ever continued to unite in undying love the separation of the squatter people and the missionaries through indelibly marking in the formers’ hearts the memories of the presence of people who lived and ate and slept the way they lived, ate, and slept. From there, HOPE and DIGNITY flows in the midst of their sufferings. After the missionaries’ presence, their kahig and tuka still continues. Yes, they’re only a minute number among the millions of poor around the world, but I firmly believe that the PRESENCE of zealous people from Christ had planted, in their hearts, a difference.
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