XVIII 02

Don Bosco Academy, Mabalacat, Pampanga (Junior & Senior High School Building)

August 2, 2016.  It is one year since I arrived in the Philippines, after 15 years in Japan. I have come up with 5 realizations about myself and the things I am thankful for today. 

1) I left Japan with a heavy burden in my heart.  It was a combination of frustrations, disappointments, discontentment, discouragements. When that ANA plane left Haneda Airport that morning, I felt something light descend upon my heart.  When it landed in Manila, I felt I was finally free from all that burden. No. I do not blame whatever and whomever I encountered in Japan.  Perhaps (hopefully, perhaps!) they did not mean any harm.  It was just that things did not fit anymore with personal expectations... things did not anymore serve to make me grow in my vocation as a Catholic, a Salesian and as a priest. I saw the worst in myself in those years, at the same time that many in Japan (both Japanese and non-Japanese) were thankful they saw what they regarded was my best. After a year, I still feel a great tendency in me to block off from my memory anything that I experienced in Japan, sort of like an unconscious tendency for a voluntary amnesia.  But I consciously refuse to do that, with some effort!  I admit I came back to the Philippines convinced I did not meet God in Japan. But now, I am getting more and more convinced I was actually encountering Him there. The mode of meeting Him was not as comfortable as I had expected.  And I resolve to be patient that I can, piece-by-piece, reconstruct the puzzle He wanted me to solve through those years.

2) A man of God should never make definite plans. Once a man of God becomes a man of God, he cannot anymore make plans for himself.  God takes over.  He becomes in-charge of his life.  A 15-year old priest like me should have known that even before. But I only came to realize that 15 years later! I already had a big plan when I came back to the Philippines. I was planning to study, too! The contact persons were all listed. The virtual schedule, enthusiastically lined up.  But all the circumstances for all these plans were not dancing with time. I was made to wait. I was made to stand and sit on the sidelines, living far from where I could have been. There were times I felt people looked at me suspiciously, like some fugitive-priest hesitantly given the least harmful faculty -- offering mass. I faced myself in the mirror and saw a "jobless" priest. I even had to reckon where I should live while waiting. I did not want to be a burden to anyone.  But God had other plans.

3) There will always be someone who will treasure you, respect you and value you. I felt really awkward seeing some of the people I encountered in Japan hold back their tears in the few, accidental, unplanned despedida moments for me. I felt grateful for this particular former student who came to the rescue and offered me his place for some days. I felt loved by my father's text message telling me that I "was always welcome" at home. I felt I was treated as a real brother by the Salesians who offered their places for any pastoral opportunity. I felt I was a treasure to be invited by the Rector of Batulao to stay for an indefinite time for prayer, silence and rest. And when I remember those days when you all gave me some words of welcome, encouragement, consolation and invitation, my eyes still fill up with tears of joy.

4) Take it easy. Be quiet. Let God do the talking. The first month in Batulao saw me literally not having any assigned work. It was the first time in my life when I was the one willing not to do anything at all... And Prayer was the best I could do.  I have opted to make the usual working hours of the Salesians and the personnel as my time of silence.  In those moments, the Scriptures paved the way for my silence to listen to this Caring God.  God does correct things in us if we have swayed from what we are supposed to be for Him.  There were years in Japan when I have lost the taste and longing to pray... a result of the unwilling mixture of stress, depression and discouragement.  But He does care: He gave me those many "free" moments to bring back that longing for prayer, to replant that urge to pray, and to let blossom the joy of fulfilling that time I have to give for God, as a man of God.

5) Don Bosco paved the way. "Bob, you're asking for a sign? Well. Don Bosco's 200 years old!", as my good friend (a Salesian priest) told me a day before St. John Bosco's 200th Birth Anniversary. I arrived at the school where he was because I was invited to be part of the instruments for the Holy Mass the next day. I, who opted to go away from Don Bosco's Congregation, was being invited to be part of this important event! In those days of confusion and sense of loss, the same Don Bosco (through his Salesians) was there to tell me that everything would be alright. It has been more than 10 years since I have played the trumpet. I cannot really say I flunked.  I knew I couldn't sustain those 2nd octave notes that long anymore. But this wonderful opportunity paved the way for many, many more Salesian things!... Hearing Confessions of the Caritas Don Bosco students (for almost a month), staying in Batulao and being made to feel that I was never an outsider, the warm and brotherly love of the Salesian Community of Batulao, the trust they gave me to teach the young over there, those confessions and masses for student-retreatants who came, the Salesian events I was given the opportunity to participate, the welcoming attitude of the Salesians I met (many of whom asked, "Are you coming back?", with those happy, expecting eyes -- some were even so direct to say, "Welcome back!", even when I wasn't even that determined and decided to come back yet.  And, of course, the highlight of those wonderful months: the coming of the Rector Major... Being so blessed to find myself staying in the same place where he stayed with the other General Councillors.  Our Blessed Mother had always been there, giving me hints and signs that the Salesian way was, truly, the best WAY for me.  The approval for me to enter the ad experimentum stage (and to be the Spiritual Moderator of Don Bosco Mabalacat) was given to me by Fr. Provincial on the day Mary, Help of Christians was re-enthroned in Manila Cathedral!

Don Bosco Batulao Community with the Rector Major (center)

All through the year that passed, it was like Don Bosco had always been there, waiting, ready to embrace me and tell me, "I had been waiting for you all these years. I am so happy to have you back!"
... Me, too, Don Bosco!  I am so happy to be back! ... I have never been this happy in life!

(Written during the late hours of August 1, while assisting and accompanying a section of our Grade 9 students of Don Bosco Mabalacat.)

with the loving Community of Don Bosco Mabalacat