My Heart

It is exactly a year ago today (Sunday, April 20) when my heart underwent surgery for a quintuple by-pass (see my post My Open Heart Surgery). The surgery prolonged my life and gave me a “new” heart.

Call it coincidence or not, but I just finished reading a book last night. The book is by my new favorite author, Richard Paul Evans of The Christmas Box fame. Titled The Gift, it is a story of a boy’s gift of healing. In his Epilogue, Evans speaks about a prolonged life and a new heart:

“What good is a life prolonged if it only extends the season of cowardice and sin? What good is a new heart if it’s only to be filled with hate or regret…? These are questions we must all ask ourselves.”

Truly, God speaks to us through the experience He writes in our lives. You see, I believe now that my heart ailment is all tied up with my having kept the story of being a laicized priest, a skeleton in my closet for so long.

Allow me to elaborate what I am trying to say.

Surprise is probably the most common reaction of friends, family and even my doctors to my open-heart surgery last year. They enumerate all the known or popular symptoms of a likely candidate for by-pass operation which I did not have. “You are not overweight. You neither smoke nor drink. Your diet is mostly fish and vegetables with hardly any oil or fat. You control your hypertension and cholesterol with maintenance medicines. You exercise. How come?”

I knew the answer even then but I just could not accept it. The culprit is stress -- stress that comes from my living a lie and constantly evading an issue about my true person (being a laicized priest). This in turn breeds anger, fear, resentment, shame, ill-feelings, self-pity, hopelessness, despair, sadness, useless worrying and depression -- negative emotions that have silently been eating me up and my heart for over 30 years ending in that open-heart surgery for blocked arteries in Honolulu, Hawaii on April 20 last year.

After my operation and a three-week recovery period in Honolulu, I came home to Manila in May 2007. I left Hawaii disappointed that I was not able to complete the CPE program that I had taken in order to pursue a ministry as a lay hospital chaplain. I was happy to be back home with my wife and daughters, but deep inside my heart grieved over a shattered dream. I moved on knowing in faith that God has another plan for me after “disrupting” what I thought would be a second career for me. I just needed to be ready to listen all the time, not only during time of prayer but in the ordinary events of my life.

And just a few months later in September last year, a very dear priest-friend from my seminary and priestly ministry days, Fr. Al Carino, OMI, passed away in Cotabato (Mindanao, Philippines). I was not planning to go to the funeral at first, although I found myself anxiously toying with the prospect of finally going back to Cotabato (the scene of my priestly ministry) after 30 years or so. I prayed for a sign. Two days before the funeral while in prayer at mass, I felt a very strong urge to go as if Al was asking me to come and see him for the last time. I thought that was it. It was time to go back on a healing journey…

The Cotabato trip turned out indeed to be a healing one! To my pleasant surprise, I was received like a long-lost friend, son, or brother. At the cemetery, I got to pay my last respects not only to a dear and exemplary priest-friend, but also to the others who had already long passed away and had touched my life. I also was able to meet friends who I thought I had wronged or who have wronged me. I felt forgiven by the former and I extended my own forgiveness to the latter from the depths of my heart. I visited old familiar places where painful memories were healed and hope restored anew… I flew back home with a light and joyful heart. I felt that I was ready to tell my story and thus end my living a lie.

Finally, in early January this year came an opportunity. I decided to tell my story (see my last post Who I Am, Part 2) and rid my heart of all the heartaches that had accumulated there.

And so today, a year after I received a “new” heart and a prolonged life and after I have finally told my story, I am trying to live my life to the full and to have a heart that is now filled only with joy, love, hope, and forgiveness.

Come to think of it now, even Jesus in today’s Gospel wants us to take care of our hearts: “Let not your hearts be troubled”, He said. (Do not be anxious. Be not afraid.) “Trust in God. Trust also in me.” (John, 14,1)

God bless and take care of your heart!