Echoes: My Encounters with Basic Ecclesial Communities

I do not want to end like the old mariner grabbing people to listen to his story at the sunset of his life. I want it that at the end of the day I rest assured that I have rowed my river and handed on to my children the lessons I have learned in my journey upstream to the House of the Father. So I made, early on, a solemn vow, that I would immerse my four daughters into situations that allow them to know and love the God of Jesus of Nazareth. Sadly, like most promises, mine was halfheartedly kept.

I can justify why I kept on failing. I was trained and educated to find reasons to the things I do. I have a lot of excuses; all of them are sound and rational. Yet honestly, they are like wicker baskets—they hold stones and boulders but not water. The truth of the matter is although I was raised a Catholic, (I even had seven years of formation in the seminary) I am struggling with my faith given my entanglement with Sartrean Existentialism vis-à-vis the clash of orientations at the local church.  Every day I wake up confronted with the question of meaning and automatically finds myself forcing to pray to the God whose existence I keep on questioning. 

Perhaps, my former parish priest senses the civil war raging inside of me and the growing apathy deep within that he keeps on disturbing me in my complacency. Just the other day, when the family was preparing for the Angelus, Msgr. Pedro Frac came knocking at my door. He came bearing what he considered good news. He excitedly related that it appears the Division Office of the Department of Education is now adopting a policy concerning the 90-minute religious instruction per the 1997 Constitution. The move is supportive of his catechetical program in Batan (Aklan). 

The monsignor has pioneered in the Diocese of Kalibo a community-owned school-based catechetical program. The program, like a mustard seed, is silently thriving and gaining strong support among small communities in the whole municipality of Batan. Without wishing to, it is fast becoming part of the mainstream society that policy makers are giving it a second look. It started small. The parish priest and his coadjutors simply and consistently celebrated the Eucharist in the barrio chapels monthly. Then slowly, they encouraged parents and ordinary teachers to hear masses in schools too. Soon enough the team of three priests finds themselves busy saying masses and attending community and PTA meetings.  At present, each of them has more or less 13 masses a week, not to mention funeral and wedding masses and community meetings.

The communities became articulate. They demanded that the local schools afford their children their right to religious instruction as provided for in the Philippine Constitution. Equally, the ordinary government teachers heeded the call and volunteered themselves as instant catechists, despite their lack of training and to most, experience in catechesis. Thus begin the community-initiated school-based catechetical program that the Diocese is now gearing up to replicate in other parishes. Presently, the teachers who responded to the call number to about 200 more or less. They have received specialized trainings from the Institute of Religion of the University of Sto. Tomas (UST-IR) and had been certified by it as professional catechists. They catechized their pupils and students voluntarily as their token of gratitude to the communities that have supported them all along and as a response to the call they heard on the "Road to Damascus." Modules on New Catechism in Akeanon dialect are being developed with the assistance of the Diocesan Catechetical Ministry.

The multiplication of the bread is one ordinary yet wonderful miracle in Batan. One can note such reality in their breaking of bread whenever a communal affair takes place, say a seminar on catecheses or a Sunday Mass in their tiny chapel. A peninsular agro-fishing community harboring Batan Bay and facing the Sibuyan Sea, it prided itself of the richness not only of its natural resources but also of its history, heritage and culture. The Augustinian missionaries who interacted with the locals in 1600’s as narrated in Apuntes Historicos of Fray Juan Fernadez, OSA were impressed of their highly cultured and communitarian manner. He writes of this impression on Batangnons being:

“…the most noble in the Archipelago, a highly-cultured group

                                with well  built  beautiful  houses  and  many  well-organized

                                villages…” (p. 275)

The friars further noted that they were neither wild nor refractory. The memory of the race perhaps remains intact in the consciousness of the present generation that they positively responded to the initiative of their parish priest and readily regarded the program as their own and give it their all-out support.  Personally, I believe God is working wonderfully on the openness and generosity of these people most of whom had long been “unchurched” and marginalized by the mainstream society that typically represented the institutional church.  I had witnessed the transformation from their being indifferent Catholics to what are now budding witnesses and active members of Basic Ecclesial Communities. I am neighbor to them. By parentage, I am Batangnon too. As a child, I used to roam around the fishpond on my grandfather in Sitio Pinamunitan, Barangay Lalab and had known the saga of Kagiyaw along the meandering waters of the Jal-o and the legend of how Lalab got its name.  Precisely that I always take it as an opportunity to be of service—though in my own little way—to the Batangnon communities everytime Msgr. Frac asked me to write something related to his pastoral works. I consider it my role being part of the One Body of Christ made manifest in Batan BECs. To me, I am merely a follower of Christ Jesus and a servant of God. What I have had accomplished are my duties and for that I expect neither a reward nor gratitude.  The outpouring of help coming from the members of the community every time an event takes place either in the Parish or in the schools or chapels are manifestations of this understanding that each faithful is merely doing her/his duty in this brotherhood of ours in Christ Jesus. They are one with the whole Body of Christ. They see themselves as the Church.

            The multiplication of bread in Batan is one miracle that calls on me to reach out my left hand and thrust it on the bleeding wounds of the risen Jesus. But the fact that in Batan there are small communities regarding themselves as the Church despite their poverty is one miracle that tells me that God has pitched his tent in their midst to dwell with them. Indeed, as St. Ireneus used to say, their very existence is joy, A MIRACLE OF GOD!  

            The presence of my former parish priest in my house is an encounter rich with meaning and graces not only for me but most importantly for my family. I pray therefore that he may keep on disturbing us in our complacency that we may always be restless until we rest on the bosom of our Father in a New Heaven and a New Earth. 

(See related article on this new approach pioneered by Msgr. Frac of this link: http://a-river-called-jal-o.blogspot.com/2013/08/towards-new-evangelization.html)

Seduced to be God

Pope Francis' commentary on Mark 9:38-40 last Wednesday, May 22, 2013 during the Feast of St. Rita de Casia, OSA, the patron of impossible things, draws much attention in a society that is fast becoming secular. His words were headlines and the next most shared item in social media. Why is that? Sermo humilis? 

The other day, he was talking about the possibility of all men of goodwill entering the Kingdom of God, and he means, "all" including even those who refuse to believe in the existence of God. Yes, my friend! Even if you're an atheist or an agnostic, you can inherit New Heaven and New Earth. The proviso is simple. Do good works. Be good and shun evil. 

Now, this reminds me of a youthful desire brought by an "entanglement" with Sartrean Existentialism. Human reality desires to be God. To Sartre, this is bad faith. Man is deluded to believe that he can be happy in the afterlife. He refused to accept the fact that he is thrown into a world bereft of meaning. Ours, Sartre asserted, is an absurd world, and our existence a nauseating facticity. 

Sartre's Ontological Dilemma

Man is invited to return to freedom. He is asked to be responsible for himself, not to desire to be God but to accept that he is his own god. He must be honest to see things as they are. They are nauseating because they are "de trop", superfluous and meaningless.When, after undergoing "existential psychoanalysis", he starts his journey as a forlorn being-for-itself, man gains lucidity and assume a "positive existence". He now creates meaning where originally there was none. He begins to be responsible for himself, for his actions. He begins to be good, to be his god. 

Such was the seduction Sartre was offering man as an alternative. Yet as a young man, how can he carry the responsibility of being his own god? How can he endure the loneliness of worshiping himself without a community to belong to? How can he meet others and start doing good together? 

The Possibility of Good in Sartrean Philosophy

Atheism is always a lonely path, reserved for the strong and the courageous who care less to be deviant. The believers on the other hand are the lowly, the weak, the fearful, the marginalized, the humble, the contrite of heart, the common man who choose to walk along with his fellowman in the hope of returning home together to the House of the Father. Redemption is indeed offered to all at the cost of the blood of the Lamb. But even then, each and all is asked to choose to inherit Heaven or to be condemned into Hell, be it existential or otherwise. By our standards, this seems impossible. Precisely that Pope Francis prays for the impossible things to happen:

"Today is [the feast of] Santa Rita, Patron Saint of impossible things – but this seems impossible: let us ask of her this grace, this grace that all, all, all people would do good and that we would encounter one another in this work, which is a work of creation, like the creation of the Father. A work of the family, because we are all children of God, all of us, all of us! And God loves us, all of us! May Santa Rita grant us this grace, which seems almost impossible. Amen.”