monet - death

Monet is the second classmate to die.  Si Paul Bacaling died last year after a bout with cancer.  This year it is Monet’s turn.  When a classmate dies one is also reminded of one’s mortality.  It is a reminder that I am not getting any younger.  (Actually there are already three - Lilen Peñasales was the first.) It is a reminder that things are not the way they used to be – ang akon panglakat, ang sarang ko madalagan, ang puede ko pa makaon kag ma-inom, ang sarang ko pa ma-obra kag ang mga bulong nga dapat ko na imnon.  Daw indi gid man ako sini mamag-o kay sa pagkamatuod indi gid man ini nga mga butang bag-o para sa akon.  Pero may isa gid ka butang nga para sa akon bag-o kag ako mismo daw nanimag-o. That as I grow older there are more and more significant people in my life who are now but memories of my past.  Matuod they still evoke nostalgia, they still evoke feelings, but as it is they are just memories now.

Monet has just been added to this list that becomes longer by the year.  After elementary, confined as I was in the seminary, I never had any contact with him.  I would hear him from time to time in stories of former classmates but I never had the chance to meet him.  Several significant meetings happened though.  First nagabantay ako jeep sa atubang sang St. Paul’s.  And lo and behold Monet saw me and convinced me to visit and pray for his mother who was confined in the hospital.  I did not bring my sautana, I was in t-shirt, I have to borrow the prayer book and the oil for anointing from the nurses’ station.  He was restless but we did our best to pray.

Then he would come from time to time and visit me at the seminary.  We would talk in stations.  We would talk at the visiting hall for an hour, then as I led him out we would talk at the seminary door for thirty minutes, then as I led him further out we would stop at the gate of the seminary and talk again for an hour.  Actually he did most of the talking and I did most of the listening.  Then after so several visits like that, it stopped as abruptly as it began and I never heard from him again.

The Monet I knew in school was still the same Monet I talked to several years ago – restless, too many dreams he wanted to do, with too little time, too little persistence, too little guts perhaps, too many mistakes, too many regrets, but just the same too many aspirations – good aspiration.  In those long winding talks he was probably asking for understanding, trying to explain things at length perhaps to seek sympathy if not acceptance.

We are all created good.  In fact God pronounced us very good.  It is a revelation of faith which we cannot dispute or argue to the contrary.  All of us without exemption are very good.  Monet was very good, in his own way, in his dreams, in his many aspirations – he tried to be good.

And yet many times like Thomas in our gospel today we also find ourselves saying time and again to the Lord:  Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?  Many of us will not have answers, clear answers the way Thomas had when he asked the Lord.  Many of us a left guessing as to the real way.  And many of us lose our way from time to time.  This is the dilemma of mortal life, this imperfect life.

And yet there is hope.  It will not be like this all the time.  We cannot be forever in a situation where we want to be the best that we could but end up a flop, a failure.  A time will come when God will do something to us to make us that which he intended us from the very start – to be very good. 

St. Paul in explaining to the Corinthians the resurrection of the dead contrasted our status now and what will become of us in the resurrection.  He said, “What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable.  It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.  It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. And then he said, Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed.” 

A time will come when we will all be changed, when this mortal flesh and it sinful inclinations will be transformed – when dishonor will become glory, when weakness becomes power, when the perishable becomes imperishable.  A time will come, assured St. Paul, when weakness will be vanquished and our original goodness will shine through again.    We will all be changed.  That’s a promise from God and it is our prayer that God in his mysterious and merciful ways will do so to Monet today, and to each one of us someday.