What would you feel when you’ll be told that you’ll attend a nationwide convention in Manila, that you’re chosen among the many to represent not just the seminary, but the island of Mindanao as well? The word “Manila” gave me joy: “Pangalan pa lang ulam na!” The word “represent” led me to the usual feeling of unworthiness and fear: “What if I fail to gratify their expectations?” The word “Mindanao” led me to pride and excitement by the fact that “they’ll surely listen to what we’re going to say”. But, the word “research” initially led me to anxiety and inner objection: “Why me? This would be another task aside from my other offices. This will surely devour a large amount of my precious time and attention intended for compre reviews and synthesis paper. Indeed, many siestas and even sports schedules were sacrificed due to fast-approaching deadlines. I envied my fellow brothers seeing them freely enjoying the games and outings, chatting on patios, and enjoying early vacation during the semestral and Christmas breaks, while I struggled with articles and books inside my room. Much more when I learned that I would be reporting it in front of “brilliant” people, I grumbled all the more: “Ako ra man sige, aren’t we all trained here to become competent leaders!” Even the idea that we would be representing the seminary and Mindanao caused a difficult time for us to look and suggest for the most suitable theme and context for our paper. The evolution of ideas was never never easy; not just one draft but numerous drafts were assessed before we finally came up into what we considered a Spirit-inspired research paper. Now, with all these struggles, I could have surrendered, BUT something greater inside told me not to give up. What sustained me? Here’s the good news: My prayer life, first and foremost, my relationship with God. His patient embraces and tapping during my prayers lifted my head up high. With that, thanks to my SD. He even used my IC director to tell me that I should not complain but rather say, “Another task is given to me, thank you Lord for the opportunity!” And being chosen to head the team, God used my GA experience and transformed me into a person who controlled the situation rather than be overcome by the situation, especially during that time when the 3 of us were really on the point of giving up because we felt we couldn’t continue it anymore. He was the greater part who empowered each one of us, “Kaya nato ni!” Despite the nervousness, that empowering consciousness that “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me” enabled our trembling knees to withstand and face their questions during our paper presentation on the afternoon of January 13. At this moment, we would like to grab the opportunity to acknowledge the humble and even sleepless efforts of Fr. Frank, whose brilliance, generosity, creativity and patience made our paper gain an “international” standard. He really deserves a very warm round of applause from all of us. Thanks also to Eric, whose “magis” added more pride to our powerpoint presentation. And thanks to all of you for your prayers. This shows that we are not doing and could never do it by ourselves alone. The paper was a collective work; that was the seminary’s paper; we are your delegates; I am just your presenter. For sure, if I were not helped by the seminary formation; if I were not aware that it is God’s work not mine, if I were not aware of His presence, then I could have claimed this as my own.
My dear sister and brothers, the Holy Triune God was really present in our experience before, during, and after the conference; by the mere fact that He balanced our differences. Just imagine how our Lord balanced and harmonized Jay.2 who was conceived without original sin with Fr. Frank “na alam ang mga maliliwanag at madidilim na sulok ng Kamaynilaan.” Imagine how He was able to harmonize the diverse delegates composed of religious brothers and sisters, lay people, young seminarians, priests, Episcopalians, and bishops. Many rich insights had come out during the conference, but allow me to focus on this one learning experience that helped me understand what PCP II truly is, and that is, from par. 91 to 97: Equality in Dignity; Unity in Diversity. For, of course, aside from the religious sisters and women, we could no longer identify who among the men were priests or not. It was only our IDs that identified our titles as priests or bishops or religious superiors. Beyond our IDs were humble people. And I didn’t hear any complain or sense of authoritarianism from the delegates. Everybody shook hands with anyone. Dongkis related, conversed, and laughed with Fr. James Kroeger just naturally. We were treated equally, everyone acted as equals. Even the mood of the conferences, which we thought at first that it would be very very serious, turned out to be moments of laughter. Even the selection of speakers and their talks turned out to be a balance of doctrine and praxis; from ArchB Legaspi (the father of PCP2) to Rissa Singson-Kawpeng of Kerygma magazine. Truly, as one speaker exclaimed, “The Spirit of the Lord lives on!” It was as if the Lord was telling us that “these COMMUNION and DIALOGUE that you experienced are the values you should bring as you go home to your different seminaries and apostolates in order to keep the torch of PCP2 burning in our local Church. For how important DIALOGUE and COMMUNION are my dear brothers? The delegates’ expression of disunity, the no-dialogue and no-communion between the parish priest and parishioners seemed to be a broken record during the conference. Without dialogue and communion, the vision for a Church of the Poor will never sustain. So, allow me to present to you my learnings which we can bring and adapt to our four aspects of seminary formation:
1. Our pastoral life. A few lay people expressed during the open forum that the presentation of some bishops and priests during the talks were too high, too theological for the ordinary lay to grasp. So, in our apostolates, let us learn to use simple stories, simple translations that speak the language of the people we serve. Even the use of words, they have power, and sometimes we are not aware of it. For example, a speaker suggested the use of “have-more” and “have-less” than using the terms rich and poor, because as PCP2 affirms, tanan adunay mahatag; walay tawo nga wala. Even the use of 1st or 2nd class baptism be avoided, and many others. As Fr. Dexter Prudenciano said, “Hindi lang sana tayo bumabad (immerse) sa mga tao, pero mamuhay tayo (we live with them).” Fr. Daniel Pilario rightfully said, “The problem is not that Jesus is male (hindi na mababago yan). The problem is that the males today are not like Jesus.” A parishioner called our attention, she said, “Padre, samahan nyo kami sa BEC, sana wag kayong malayo sa amin.”
2. In our human-spiritual life. If I’m going to summarize the introduction I delivered a while ago, it was a struggle of LOW SELF-ESTEEM. We are aware that our issues hinder us to go beyond ourselves. So, my dear brothers, let us continue to be open to the seminary formation, let us continue to be open to God; nourish that relationship first and foremost! Trust in Him. And always remember, that we are doing God’s work, not our own, so we are not alone. As my t-shirt says, from Fr. Arrupe, “Stay in love, and it will decide everything!”
3. And lastly, in our academic life. This is very important, and we learned it there. During the conference, we were constantly reminded that we are not allowed to ask the complete copy of the speaker’s talk, only abstracts would be provided. This probably would connect to what our Fr. Rector mentioned about the weight of plagiarism. Let’s do something about it. Another one is the importance of our Propaedeutic classes. One of the causes of my worry before the conference was my not-so-smooth English skills in relating with people. “Maka-nose bleed ang mga tawo didto.” Brothers, let us nurture our English skills. In the future, as priests, we’ll not only be sent to far-flung barrios. Our faithfulness to learning the English language will surely be a helpful tool for us to confidently face any place in the world. And lastly, the importance of reading and incorporating the PCP2 documents into our academic curriculum. Bishop Teodoro Bacani proposed that every seminarian should read PCP2. Hindi natin pinapahalagahan ang sariling yaman. It’s up for the faculty to decide on this important matter.
Conclusion. As regards the research paper, yes, it was a contest and we don’t have the results yet. So, whether we win or not, we hope that the words you have heard from us tonight will enlighten all of us that we are truly not making it primarily for the contest but for the glory and proclamation of God’s kingdom and salvation of all peoples especially here in Mindanao. Let me end by quoting what Bp. Broderick Pabillo exhorted during his homily: “Now that you have heard all these things, harden not your hearts.”
