My seminary class: looking back

Today is Saturday, July 25, 2009, the feast of St. James the Apostle, but I will always remember this day more as the birthday of my classmate in the seminary, the late Bishop Benjamin de Jesus, OMI, DD, the martyred bishop of Jolo, Sulu. As I prayed for him and to him at mass this morning, my mind went back to the years we spent together in the seminary from 1958 to 1968…

The school year 1958-59 ushered a new era in the history of Our Lady of Assumption Scholasticate (OLAS), in Quezon City. That year, 12 young men, all high school graduates, formed the biggest class to start their seminary studies at OLAS – six from Visayas and Mindanao, and another six from Luzon. The six from Luzon were Benjamin de Jesus from St. James Academy of Malabon; Ambrocio Cabildo, a transferee from the Minor Seminary of Vigan; Bernardo Tuazon of Quezon City; Rogelio Canete from Tanay, Rizal; Angelito Nepomuceno, Ben’s high school classmate also from Malabon and me. All of us were products of the First Oblate Vocation Workshop conducted that previous summer in Manila. The six from the South included Nelson Javellana who was recruited from La Salle Bacolod, and five others who were products of the Oblate Vocation Workshop in Midsayap, Cotabato that same summer – Domingo Tacardon, Rodolfo Limbaga, Enrique Gonzales, Leo Gutierrez, and Jose Enginco. Except for Cabildo who has had Latin studies at the Minor seminary in Vigan, the rest of us were enrolled in the two-year Special Latin Humanities course with the Jesuits at San Jose Seminary.

The twelve of us successfully hurdled the difficult first year, but only nine of us came back the following year (1959-60) to continue our studies at San Jose. Cabildo went back to Vigan to continue his studies and was later ordained a diocesan priest there, while Tuazon and Nepomuceno pursued college studies outside the seminary.

The following year (1960-61) only six of us made it to the OMI novitiate in Cotabato. Our class made history once more as the first Scholastic novices at the yet-to-be-completed novitiate in Tamontaka, Cotabato. The six were Gonzales, Javellana, de Jesus, Gutierrez, Enginco and myself. All six of us survived the very rigorous novitiate year and made our first vows as OMI’s on May 31, 1961.

Back at OLAS for school year 1961-62, we pursued our AB Philosophy studies at San Jose for three more years graduating in 1964, then on to four years of Theology at Loyola School of Theology.

It was while in Theology that the members of our class began to separate. After our first year in Theology, I went to Cotabato on sabbatical for health reasons. I spent the year in Makilala and Tacurong for pastoral work, and then at the novitiate for prayer and discernment. I went back the following year to OLAS and thus fell behind by a year from my original class. Nelson Javellana followed next. He decided to leave the seminary for family reasons. He went to Cotabato and taught Philosophy at Notre Dame University for sometime before going back to OLAS. He was ordained some years later after our original class had graduated. Four – Gonzales, de Jesus, Gutierrez and Enginco – went on as scheduled until Fourth Year Theology. However, only Gonzales, de Jesus, and Enginco were ordained in December 1967. Gutierrez unfortunately left before he could be ordained to the subdeaconate. I was ordained a year later in December 1968. So, out of the original twelve who started at OLAS and six Novices who pioneered at Tamontaka, five were ordained Oblate priests.

Of the five, two left the priestly ministry – Joe Enginco and myself. As for the three others who remained in the ministry, all have already passed away – two of them rather violently. Bishop Ben de Jesus was martyred in Jolo while Fr. Nelson Javellana was killed in an ambush at the height of the Muslim-Ilaga conflict in the early 70’s in Esperanza, Cotabato. Fr. Ike Gonzales, on the other hand, died of a rare disease some five years ago.

Today, I have resumed writing this two days after I started it because I did not know how to end it…

It is interesting to note that there is no more trace of our class among the Filipino Oblates at present, but I am certain our class spirit remains, especially our pioneering spirit in the pursuit of our vocation. But, no matter where we are now and no matter how contrasting our lives have been, I am sure we somehow have left an impact on people whose lives we have touched. And I am referring not only to those who have remained priests till the end like the gentle and humble Bishop Ben, the well-loved Fr. Nelson and the much-admired Fr. Ike. The same goes even to those like me who left the priestly ministry or to those who left the seminary along the way.

And come to think of it now, each one of us has a unique role in God’s plan of salvation; that no matter how we played the cards that had been dealt to us, just as He chose and loved the ones who stayed, God has also chosen and equally loved even those who have left. And that He loves them with the same unconditional love that He has for all, saints and sinners alike.

Rain

The rainy season is here. While some people, like the farmers, usually welcome the rains with relief after a long dry spell, and while we also generally breathe a sigh of thanks for the sudden downpour during a hot summer day, rains can also mean distressing news to many people for whom rain is considered a bane rather than a blessing.

For children, rains simply mean that they won’t be able to go out and play and are content, like my granddaughter Nicole, with just reciting the old nursery rhyme:

“Rain, rain, go away
Come again another day
Little children want to play.”

In the old days of my childhood, however, we went out and played in the rain! Or if that were not possible, for some reason or another, we reluctantly stayed inside, made paper boats out of old newspapers or used sheets of paper from school, and raced them in rain-filled canals beside our house. Today, staying inside the house due to the rains is no longer unbearable for children due to the coming of computer games, TV, and the internet.

We are all too familiar with the worries and anxieties of people planning parties outdoors, such as a garden wedding, that it not be rained out. Thus emerged the ritual here in the Philippines of offering something (usually eggs) at the St. Claire Sisters’ monastery for the nuns to pray for a “dry” celebration of the event.

There is the well-planned parade or any outside gathering, that could result into a big let down for organizers should the rains come down on it! Thus, the famous American expression: “Don’t rain on my parade!”

And in the States where the game of baseball is played outdoors during the Summer and into early Fall, an important game is considered a disaster of great magnitude should it be rained out. A rained out game has given birth to the American expression: “taking a rain check”.

Personality experts tell us that, like the Winter season, rain especially when it goes non-stop for days, can cause depression and loneliness on some people.

As I sit here while it rains outside, I remember a niece who says that she cries during those grey rainy days when there seems to be no let up, no end in sight. Thinking about her (I dedicate this piece to her) made me recall a poem by Longfellow that I memorized long ago in one of our Humanities class. I think the title is “Rainy Day” and it goes:

“THE day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary.”

I also remember one line from the poem that became the title of a song by Ella Fitzgerald: “Into each life some rain must fall.” Here is that song’s lyrics:

Into each life some rain must fall
But too much is falling in mine
Into each heart some tears must fall
But some day the sun will shine
Some folks can lose the blues in their hearts
But when I think of you another shower starts
Into each life some rain must fall
But too much is falling in mine

“But some day the sun will shine.” That is the message of hope for everyone that I'd like to end these random notes about rain with. It is also elicited in the last paragraph of Longfellow”s poem:

"Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary."

Sudoku

I am an addict! I have become addicted to Sudoku, the mind-challenging game that is now a craze among millions all over the world.

There are conflicting versions of how it all began. But at least everyone agrees that the Japanese have the trademark rights to the name Sudoku which means “a number in a single place”. There are now many versions of the game but the most common is the 9X9 grid of 9 small squares within each 9 bigger squares making an 81-square universe that I am familiar with. The basic rule of the game is to fill in one of each numeral from 1-9 in each small square, each row, and each column, without ever duplicating or omitting a numeral from each square, row or column. Some of the squares are already filled in, to give one a head start. The number of squares filled in varies in every puzzle; the easy puzzles having more numbers than the difficult ones.

Why Sudoku? In my case, I just do it to exercise my brain as I grow older. And I enjoy it. For others, they say because it makes short work of a long haul. For a traveler, it can kill the boredom of sitting in a literally long haul flight. For the short-tempered, it can ease the unpleasantness in a long queue while waiting for his turn. For the patient or their loved ones in a hospital room, it can heal the pain of expectation of the unknown.

In fact, it was in a hospital setting where a chaplain-colleague of mine introduced me to Sudoku while I was doing my CPE residency in Honolulu some two years ago. At first, we used it as a conversational piece while visiting patients during our hospital rounds. Soon patients and even their visiting families started doing the puzzles themselves. Sudoku helped them ease their pain and anxiety, they told us. Sudoku, I realized even then, is a therapeutic tool!

Today it has become a therapy for me too and not just a means to while my time away to await the day’s end.

Therapy or not, I have often asked myself whether Sudoku has not just wasted my time. Come to think of it, it has not.

First, I need the starting numbers to be in the right place; otherwise I can’t solve the puzzle. Like in life, I need foundations to live righteously. I need the pillar of values I hold dear to be there to hold me up for the rest of the life I am trying to live.

Second, Sudoku as a whole is a mini image of the divine order in nature and the universe. I mess up with it and I am in trouble. I can solve the puzzle only by following the rules.

Third, I must learn to be patient, to explore and analyze all dimensions of the grid – the nine individual squares, the horizontal columns as well as the vertical ones – to find the answer to the blanks in the puzzle that I have likened to the blanks and the unknowns in my life.

At the end of the day, I feel that my Sudoku addiction has served me well!