visible rhetoric

By the time you read this diary you would have already put in the laundry your polka dotted dress and your red shirt, your thirteen round fruits would have been eaten or are rotting away in the basket and you would have already exhausted yourself talking and raging about somebody else’s child who lost a finger or two from firecrackers. It’s New Year, the earth is a year older and so are we.

Last week, support for the Kabalaka Project came in trickles, though they are very encouraging trickles nevertheless. We did our best to explain the program during the Aguinaldo Masses and the Misa sa Gab-i or the Mass of Waiting and some people did come forward and showed a lively excitement for the program. A birthday celebrant called her friends inviting them for a party and told them that in lieu of gifts she would accept donations for the Kabalaka Project. A young lady with a kid came, who wanted to remain anonymous even to me, brought with her 3 big alkansiyas full of coins for the project. The young people of our parish made pastries and sold them to mass goers in the Cathedral and in the barangay chapels of San Vicente and Bakhaw and people bought them (in most days, they ran out of stock) knowing that the proceeds will go to the Kabalaka Project. Young boys would go around after mass bringing with them plastic bottles with the Kabalaka Logo on them and people would drop w...

The Kabalaka Project has been launched. There is no turning back anymore. It would have been easier for us to retain the usual dole-outs that we did in the past, the usual limos. Now we have to go through the difficulties of running livelihood programs where we need to tap and develop the skills and potentials of people; we have to go through the intricacies of micro-finance and the usual problems that goes with it; we have to form in people the values needed to sustain the program and we have to worry about other people’s lives down to their minute details. It would have been easier to just simply dispense one kilo of rice and a few canned goods every now and then when the need arises and when we have the funds to do so. This time it’s going to be harder. Nevertheless we believe that this is the right thing to do and the right thing has to be done despite and in spite its difficulties.

On Wednesday (December 16) we will start the traditional Misa de Aguinaldo or the Misa de Gallo or what the Tagalogs call Simbang Gabi and what the Capiznons call Misa Dulom. Nobody really knows exactly how this Mass started. Most probably it started in Spain near the French border as a devotion to the Birhen de la O – the pregnant soon-to-give-birth Virgin (the “O” coming from the so called “O Antiphons”, antiphons which start with “O” 7 days before Christmas.; You will hear these antiphons said during the Alleluia). It found its way to the Philippines via Mexico. It is a privilege votive mass granted as an exemption by Rome (with a so called indult) because of a pastoral need (people flock to churches in large numbers). It was granted the exemption not because of the time for the mass but because of what is done during the mass. The vestments of the priests are white (contrary to the rule of violet), the Gloria is sung (contrary to the rule suppressing the Gloria for the seas...

Now I understand what Jesus meant when he said, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains but a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it will bear much fruit.” I wrote here in this column the many things that Nay Coroy left me to take care of – novenas galore and candles to be lighted at certain days of the year. As of this writing there have been many offers from our parishioners to lead the various novenas said in the parish and as of last count, at least four people offered to sponsor the 14 candles to be lighted on the altar of the Sacred Heart. Now that altar will not only have 14 lighted candles on a First Friday. It will have 42! I have also informed Nani (she has been substituting Nay Coroy in the novenas even when she was still alive) that I intend to distribute these to different people. That way the parish wouldn’t find it too difficult when such unavoidable transitions, such as death, occur in the future. I am in the process of filling up the list...

Last Thursday night I attended a birthday party in our BEC in Barangay Benedicto. It was the birthday of Amior. The most delicious “pata” cooked by the host herself, (as a matter of eating principle – I eat these cholesterol rich food only if they are worth dying for – literally!), was not the only come-on in that party. It was also the impromptu program. Well what do you expect from a program produced and casted by old women? Old songs, old songs and more old songs interspersed with the tune of the season – “nobody, nobody but you (clap, clap, clap)” to the delight of all. But what made me enjoy the program? What was it that made me sit it out? Was it because I’m getting old and wanted to hear the songs which the two channels of our black and white TV brought to our living rooms in my boyhood days? Was it because my sense of the beautiful is more inclined to old things and museum pieces?

On the feast of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, patroness of the Archdiocese we launched the Parish’s Kabalaka Project. What is this? You may have already noticed that we have stopped the usual dole-outs that we usually give during the feast of St. Elizabeth of Hungary – one thousand people getting the benefits of a ganta of rice, sardines, sugar and other food items. This year we decided not to. (To the elation of our Barangay Coordinators who always received the flak when things go wrong in the distribution – and they almost always do.) Added to the fact that this method has created more enemies than friends, we also came to realize that dole-outs do not really help people. The traditional “limos” does not address the problem of poverty in our parish. In fact it has created among us not only liars and pretenders (they pretend that they really have nothing when in fact they have) who want to take advantage of a free meal, but it also created dependency and took away individual initiat...

Unbeknown to me, I was being summoned to a death bed last Thursday, the 5th of November, not to officiate the viaticum to the dying but to be named an “heir,” (that is, if what was given to me can be considered an “inheritance”). It never crossed my mind, even while we were talking, that it was to be our last. And so I took my time, asked Fr. Philip and Fr. Peter and the office staff to go with me to cheer her up. When we prayed over her, we prayed for healing, a quick one, knowing that if she could not recover by the 8th of November I would have a problem looking for somebody to lead the novena to St. Elizabeth of Hungary. The communion I brought was not even intended as a viaticum. She would surely recover, I thought, and knowing her, she would be up and about in no time, leading the five o’clock in the morning novena, waking me up with her cracking, breath-catching song. (She runs out of breath, that is.) It was not to be.

Here are some facts and stories from behind the scenes regarding the ordination and the thanksgiving mass of Fr. Ron and Fr. Peter. It was the biggest ordination in recent memory! Ten new priests, a jam-packed church (and we’re talking about St. Clement’s Church here) with more or less 200 priests and exactly four bishops attending. It was also by far the longest – we started at exactly 2 in the afternoon and ended up at 5:30 P.M., that’s 3 hours and thirty minutes! And to think that some people were standing all the while! Some were already in church as early as 11 in the morning (that’s how excited people coming from Estancia were)! It took us two nights to prepare the church and we stayed until nine in the evening to gather everything we have brought with us.