Christmas Eve 2008

This morning I decided to turn to my computer and search for something spiritual online since I am not able to go the dawn mass much as I would like to. I stumbled upon the Philippine Jesuits’ website and the advent recollection online created by Fr. Johnny Go, SJ. The recollection is all about St. Joseph and his dreams and how his dreams are related to the seasons of our lives.

I intend to write about St. Joseph later, but what struck me from the recollection initially is what Fr. Go said in his introduction:

“We never say that we go to Christmas. We always say that Christmas comes. And so we wait for Christmas to touch our lives again. We wait in patient expectation. But we don't just sit idly and twiddle our thumbs. We actively prepare ourselves for the Lord's birth. We wait and at the same time work to hasten the coming of that which we wait for.”

In my previous post titled “Waiting at Christmastime” I said that this year I am waiting not for Christmas itself, but more than anything else, for the day when I can walk and move around without pain.

Come to think of it now, I have been waiting for Christmas after all, for the coming of Christmas is the coming of Christ “to touch my life again”, to heal me physically as well as spiritually. For that is the reason for His coming. I just realized that this is the true meaning of Advent, of waiting for Christmas. It is not just counting the days before Christmas so I can go to our family reunion, go on a vacation, or open my gifts.

In a few hours, my waiting for Christmas will be done. Jesus will come and touch my life. Whether I will be healed from my physical ailment is no longer important. He has already healed me more than I can imagine.

Today, I pray that Jesus may come to you too to touch your lives and grant your heart’s wishes not only this Christmas but in the coming year.

Blessings!

A Pearl Anniversary Celebration

Celebrating 30 years of shared lifetime

Almost 30 years ago, on December 23, 1978 to be exact, I took what I considered to be my second leap to a lifetime, my take two from God at happiness. I committed myself before God in marriage to Thelma whom I vowed to love and to hold, in sickness and in health, until death. The wedding was the start of a shared lifetime that persists strongly to this day, anchored on a deep love for God and for each other, and based on the belief that God destined us for one another.

I do not remember now how the whole thing began. I was 36 while Thelma was 27. I had a stable job at The Medical City as Human Resources Manager while Thelma was already at De La Salle as College Instructor. But I do not remember how I proposed to Thelma.

A neophyte in the ways of the world then, perhaps I did not know any better. There were no flowers, no diamond ring and there was no prepared act as marriage proposals usually go today. Maybe, I nervously just blurted out one day: “O ano, pakasal na tayo?” And Thelma must have answered: “Ikaw, eh.” And that was it! Then I remember towing along my Inang, my Kuyang and my Dikong later to Thelma’s house to make the traditional “pamanhikan” and to meet Thelma’s family.

Like the proposal, the wedding itself was lacking in drama and flourish. And for a traditionalist like me, my wedding was very non-traditional. Blame it all on the restrictions that the Roman Catholic Church has put on the marriages of persons like me!

The two-page document of my Papal dispensation from the Office of the Sacred Congregation of Faith in Vatican is all in Latin! (I do not know whether it is in English already. It is probably better for it to stay in Latin, for reading it is like reading the terms and conditions of a convict upon his release from imprisonment!) But I still can understand the part where it says, among many other exhortations, that should I decide to marry, I must take extra care to do it “sine quacumque pompa”. That is, without any pomp or lavish preparations whatsoever, with only two witnesses and before a highly regarded priest of the Church. All because the Church does not want my marriage to cause what they term a “scandalum” (translated as, a cause to weaken the faith of others) among its faithful!

And so I was not allowed, even if I could afford it, to come up with a dreamy garden wedding, (no matter how solemn) at the beautiful lawn of a high-end Country Club, with all the works on food and drinks and an all day program, and with all our friends and relatives in attendance! Because that would have been a scandalum in the eyes of Church authorities who consider themselves the guardians of our faith. But don’t ask me why.

I obeyed but only to a certain extent. At the wedding rites we had three priests who concelebrated mass that included the present day’s Archbishop of Cotabato and two other priests close to Thelma and me. (There would have been more to concelebrate, but that would probably have been considered “pompa” and would have put me in trouble.) We only had some 30 attendees at the wedding mass, mostly family members and very close friends, cramped into the small chapel at the top of what was then the Manila Hilton Hotel. And so there was no bridal car. No grand entrance for the bride and groom! Instead, Thelma used the elevator from her hotel suite up to the chapel. I did the same. Reception was also at the hotel where guests swelled to about a hundred. In any case, I knew even then that my wedding did not cause a scandal among our sensitive Roman Catholic faithful!

This coming December 23, our marriage will complete its 30th year -- 30 years of journeying together, I must say, that was shared in joy as well as in pain, in good and happy as well as in hard and sad times.

I have been told this is our Pearl Wedding Anniversary. And as I begin to wonder what a pearl can bring to our marriage in the years to come, I remember reading somewhere that a pearl’s brilliance and luster develop as a result of years of irritation from a shelly substance in the water. Then it becomes a highly esteemed jewel comparable in value with precious stones.


The irritations in our marriage, like all other marriages I suppose, have been there all these years; the pearly jeweled years, I pray, should not be far behind.

Wating at Christmastime

The priest at mass this morning expounded, as usual, on the meaning of Advent as a time of waiting, of waiting for the coming of Christ, of waiting for Christmas. That is why we have all this fuss about the Christmas countdown, the food preparations, the decorations, and so forth.

I must confess that the only waiting I am concerned about right now is my waiting for the day when I can stand and walk without pain… I must admit too that the process has not been easy for me… I have never been at my lowest point of depression and even despair, anger, frustration, negativity, and bitterness to the point that I did not want to see people other than my family.

Thanks to Thelma and my children, I am once more slowly coming out of the pit. I feel that I have gone down to my lowest point, I have no way now to go but up. I now live by the day doing what needs to be done like taking my medicines and doing my exercises without minding the future, without looking at when will I finally get up and walk again without pain.

I have also been inspired lately by two people whom I have never met but who have turned their “waiting” into something that went beyond anything they could have imagined. The two are Randy Pausch, an American and Juan “Dikoy” Magdaraog, a Filipino. Both were waiting for their deaths.

Dikoy has been confined to his wheel chair for 15 years and breathes through a bi-pap machine 24/7. He is afflicted with a rare disease called Pompe disease. He was diagnosed at age 10 with muscular dystrophy. In a visit to the United States 5 years later, it was accurately diagnosed as Pompe Disease, a disorder that slowly deteriorates the body’s muscular system. He was also told that he would never reach his 30th birthday.

This condition would have been an excuse for others just to sit and wait. But not Dikoy. He went on with his regular studies and finished college at De La Salle’s College of St Benilde with a degree in Industrial Design. From there he worked in their family enterprise and then for Ayala Corporation as Web Designer. He finally started his own company doing web designs.

Today at 31, Dikoy is still alive and very productive, passionate about Macs and Ferrarris, but still sitting on a wheelchair and breathing through a bi-pap machine.

Recently, Dikoy’s story was featured in Story Line, a program on ABS-CBN’s ANC featuring stories of ordinary people living extra-ordinary lives. Asked how he was able to do everything that he had done given his disability and certain death, Dikoy said: “I just try to live the best way I know how.”

After he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was told it was terminal, Randy Pausch, a computer professor at Carnegie Melon, went on to deliver what is called “The Last Lecture”. It was not a lecture on dying and Randy actually entitled it: “Really achieving your childhood dreams”. It was about how to live life fully and seizing every moment because “time is all you have and you may find someday that you have less than you think”. It is a summary of everything Randy had come to believe.

Randy died on July 25, 2008 but not before he put “The Last Lecture” into a book which, he says, is actually for his children. My son Nico gave me a copy of the book which I just finished reading leisurely recently.

Today, as I continue to wait for my own healing in this time of waiting for Christmas, I remember Randy Pausch’s words: “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”