too many dead
This is one week wherein I felt more like a mortician rather than a priest. There are just too many dead to attend to. And when I thought Wednesday would be a day of rest from these “deadly” concerns, a last minute reshuffling of the schedules assigned me to a funeral mass on that day too. So now I will be completing a whole week with a funeral from Monday to Saturday.
Fr. Ralph Siendo once called me an AE, not Alejandro Esperancilla but the Archdiocesan Embalmer. The moniker started when I was assigned to dress up Archbishop Piamonte when he died years back. They reasoned then that since I was the Master of Ceremonies in-charge of directing the liturgical celebrations presided over by the bishop and since I dressed him up for mass when he was yet alive, then logically I have to do it also when he died. It was a logical proposition and fired up by my loyalty and love for the bishop (which a young and idealistic priest is always full of) I did dress him up in full regalia myself – in my cassock and surplice. It was only when we arrived in Carmel (having ridden a hearse for the first time – in the front seat of course) that I noticed that I had in my clothes that pungent smell of formalin which I wore like a perfume. And I was thinking all the while that it was just the natural smell of a hearse!
When I got home that night after a very long shower I went to bed immediately though I cannot bring myself to sleep – I just could not believe what I just did inside that mortuary . . . not in my wildest imaginings.
Now I do it most of the time whenever a priest dies (which is one reason why priests never dare bother me with intrigues probably knowing that I’m going to dress them up when they die. Just one mistake and I’ll dress them up funny and they have yet to fully realize my creativity in these matters . . . ha ha ha joke!).
Last Friday Fr. Romulo Pana, parish priest of our neighboring parish, M.H. de Pilar, died. He was once the Director of the Pius XII Catechetical Institute, then the parish priest of San Jose, Lebas in Guimaras, then of Lawigan, San Joaquin and lately the parish priest of M.H. del Pilar. We will miss his gentle ways and his loving concern for all of us. It might have been a sudden death, and yet we thank God for giving him to us as His priest and for taking him from us still a priest. Tu es sacerdos in aeternum – you are a priest forever.
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This Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, the day we commemorate the descent of the Holy Spirit on our Lady and the Apostles, the day when according to the writings of Luke the Church was born, we will celebrate the Confirmation of 8 candidates who prepared themselves for this day since the first of May. Actually, like most, they could have opted to receive Confirmation given regularly on the first and third Thursday of the month wherein one is given a mere 40 minute seminar on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But our candidates today (though quite few) bore the burden of reporting to their catechists every week instead of just sitting it out for over an hour in our regular confirmation. This goes to show that there are still people who are in their right senses to study their faith and try to appreciate more deeply the sacrament of Confirmation before receiving them. I am glad there are those who still feel the need for it. It could not be denied that most of those who get confirmed on the first and third Thursday are more interested on having a Confirmation Certificate than receiving the Holy Spirit and His gifts. It could not be denied that most of those who come on these Thursdays do not really feel the need to be confirmed by the Spirit but have to do so because it is a requirement. Well at least these young men and women who will be confirmed on Sunday will show us that there is a better alternative, a more serious one where one opens oneself to the possibility of really growing and maturing in the faith.
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This week we have also finished making our yearly rounds to visit sick, the infirm, the dying and the old who could no longer go to church. We heard their confessions, gave them the sacrament of Anointing and the Eucharist as Viaticum. We are very thankful to our BAC coordinators with their Ministers of the Sick and the Urna members who went around listing down the names of those who need the sacrament, of bringing them to the chapel if they were still able, and of leading us to alleys and by-ways all over the barangays so that we can visit those who are bedridden in their own homes. We are thankful to the families who gathered in their homes as we came, praying with us and showing their concern and love for their weakest members. Well there were families who never really cared for the infirm and the sick among them. There were times when I and my companions were left on our own in assisting the sick. Their families were busy elsewhere. But there were also families who gathered together and when they do I usually invite them to lay their hands too on the sick. As I often said to those who attend to the sick and the old: Do not say that it is the sick who needs us. No, it is us who need them. We need them to grow in compassion, in patience, in humble service. We need them to learn pity, mercy, kindness, and even forgiveness. We need them to recover our humanity. We learn from them these human virtues which we often take for granted in this busy world where the race for money never ends. But these are the very virtues that make us human . . . and Christian. But above all our service to the sick covers a multitude of sins. We need them to go to heaven!
Thank you BAC Coordinators, Ministers of the Sick, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, thank you families of the sick. But above all we are grateful to you who are sick and the old among us. You have given us another chance to win heaven.
Fr. Ralph Siendo once called me an AE, not Alejandro Esperancilla but the Archdiocesan Embalmer. The moniker started when I was assigned to dress up Archbishop Piamonte when he died years back. They reasoned then that since I was the Master of Ceremonies in-charge of directing the liturgical celebrations presided over by the bishop and since I dressed him up for mass when he was yet alive, then logically I have to do it also when he died. It was a logical proposition and fired up by my loyalty and love for the bishop (which a young and idealistic priest is always full of) I did dress him up in full regalia myself – in my cassock and surplice. It was only when we arrived in Carmel (having ridden a hearse for the first time – in the front seat of course) that I noticed that I had in my clothes that pungent smell of formalin which I wore like a perfume. And I was thinking all the while that it was just the natural smell of a hearse!
When I got home that night after a very long shower I went to bed immediately though I cannot bring myself to sleep – I just could not believe what I just did inside that mortuary . . . not in my wildest imaginings.
Now I do it most of the time whenever a priest dies (which is one reason why priests never dare bother me with intrigues probably knowing that I’m going to dress them up when they die. Just one mistake and I’ll dress them up funny and they have yet to fully realize my creativity in these matters . . . ha ha ha joke!).
Last Friday Fr. Romulo Pana, parish priest of our neighboring parish, M.H. de Pilar, died. He was once the Director of the Pius XII Catechetical Institute, then the parish priest of San Jose, Lebas in Guimaras, then of Lawigan, San Joaquin and lately the parish priest of M.H. del Pilar. We will miss his gentle ways and his loving concern for all of us. It might have been a sudden death, and yet we thank God for giving him to us as His priest and for taking him from us still a priest. Tu es sacerdos in aeternum – you are a priest forever.
---------------------
This Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, the day we commemorate the descent of the Holy Spirit on our Lady and the Apostles, the day when according to the writings of Luke the Church was born, we will celebrate the Confirmation of 8 candidates who prepared themselves for this day since the first of May. Actually, like most, they could have opted to receive Confirmation given regularly on the first and third Thursday of the month wherein one is given a mere 40 minute seminar on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But our candidates today (though quite few) bore the burden of reporting to their catechists every week instead of just sitting it out for over an hour in our regular confirmation. This goes to show that there are still people who are in their right senses to study their faith and try to appreciate more deeply the sacrament of Confirmation before receiving them. I am glad there are those who still feel the need for it. It could not be denied that most of those who get confirmed on the first and third Thursday are more interested on having a Confirmation Certificate than receiving the Holy Spirit and His gifts. It could not be denied that most of those who come on these Thursdays do not really feel the need to be confirmed by the Spirit but have to do so because it is a requirement. Well at least these young men and women who will be confirmed on Sunday will show us that there is a better alternative, a more serious one where one opens oneself to the possibility of really growing and maturing in the faith.
______________
This week we have also finished making our yearly rounds to visit sick, the infirm, the dying and the old who could no longer go to church. We heard their confessions, gave them the sacrament of Anointing and the Eucharist as Viaticum. We are very thankful to our BAC coordinators with their Ministers of the Sick and the Urna members who went around listing down the names of those who need the sacrament, of bringing them to the chapel if they were still able, and of leading us to alleys and by-ways all over the barangays so that we can visit those who are bedridden in their own homes. We are thankful to the families who gathered in their homes as we came, praying with us and showing their concern and love for their weakest members. Well there were families who never really cared for the infirm and the sick among them. There were times when I and my companions were left on our own in assisting the sick. Their families were busy elsewhere. But there were also families who gathered together and when they do I usually invite them to lay their hands too on the sick. As I often said to those who attend to the sick and the old: Do not say that it is the sick who needs us. No, it is us who need them. We need them to grow in compassion, in patience, in humble service. We need them to learn pity, mercy, kindness, and even forgiveness. We need them to recover our humanity. We learn from them these human virtues which we often take for granted in this busy world where the race for money never ends. But these are the very virtues that make us human . . . and Christian. But above all our service to the sick covers a multitude of sins. We need them to go to heaven!
Thank you BAC Coordinators, Ministers of the Sick, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, thank you families of the sick. But above all we are grateful to you who are sick and the old among us. You have given us another chance to win heaven.
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