in a home called sweet: relearning the basics of entering heaven

Some people would imagine this place as an airport. On your right is the departure area and on your left is the pre-departure area and right in the middle of these, where we are at the moment, is probably the pre-departure lounge. I don’t know how to make of this joke – a joke which hits us quite satirically, something funny but also something true and factual. Reality bites they say and this kind of joke makes the bite quite ticklish. As for me I like the joke, not because it is too funny, which it is not, but because I like reality presented this way – we face it squarely in good humor.


You are young and I’m older. We view life differently. We view life differently not just because you are the sons of another culture and upbringing unlike mine, but because also of age, of experience and whatever life has already brought us. For most of you, Lemuel’s sickness and death was a first experience, or probably a second or a third. As for me, I started counting when I was in College and abandoned the count when I was 2nd year in the priesthood – counting the significant persons who slowly faded away. Every year during my yearly trek to the cemetery in my hometown, my mother would guide me to an ever increasing number of tombs to be blessed. I abandoned counting them all because probably I got tired of counting or more probably because I just lost count.
When I was young like you (and I am not that old), I used to go to this place. There were at least 5 priests here. One was a regular confessor of seminarians, so I tried him once. He told me to get out of the seminary and for my penance, one via crucis. I could not remember now what I confessed to him that day but I am sure I did not murder anybody.
There was another priest here, a monsignor. He was a powerful man in his time. He was then physically big, they say, which fitted his stature as the right hand man of Archbishop Cuenco. He was also purportedly a candidate to become bishop. When I was here, he was so thin and so helpless. He could not even change his pajamas which was reeking with urine.
There was another priest here who came out of his room to greet a visitor only to realize, when he was already at the lobby, that he has nothing from hips down.
There were also two old priests here who celebrated mass together one morning. One priest irked the celebrant in the middle of the mass, and during communion got back on him and decided not to give him his share of the bread for holy communion, which led to a squabble. I cannot remember now how they ended the mass but I guess it was something not to be missed.
When I was young we laughed at them and told and retold their stories in the refectory, in the patio, feasting on these wild stories coming from a home called sweet. Now that I’m older and probably less humorous, at a time when philosophy and philosophizing become more of a habit rather than a subject, I begin to ask why. Why lead us to senility, why lead us to utter helplessness and vulnerability, why lead us to old age, to a time of powerlessness when we could not control even just our bladders. Gone are the days when we were in full control, full of power, when we took our place with the best and the brightest. Gone are the days when we have others at our beck and call, when people bow their heads to us and treat us with every respect. Gone were those days when we were held high, when calling us reverend father really and actually meant revered which actually means feared father. Why lead us to a home called sweet to await death’s knock? Frankly I don’t know exactly. I don’t have definite answers. After all, God is God and he is totally other.
But I would just like to say that this is not just a departure area. This is the place where we have to look back and recite our Magnificats for the marvelous things God has done for us and through us. It is also a time to look back and assess reciting our acts of contrition for what we have done and what we have failed to do.
This place is part of the school of life, the last curriculum which teaches us subjects we missed in life and subjects we need for death. Back subjects would have to be learned here - things we missed, things we overlooked as we hurried through life.
Here in this place, the gait would be measured, the waiting longer, the walking slower, the reflection deeper, the silence stiller still. Here, men of power will learn powerlessness and vulnerability. In this place men who took control will have to learn to lose control on anything and everything. Here, men of strength will have to be helped and have to learn to ask for help again. In this place, men of greatness will relearn to be insignificant and little. In this place, men who fought the world’s pain and suffering will learn to accept and embrace them in their lives. Here, men who were dependable will relearn to be dependent again. Here, an adult will learn to be child-like yet again. In this place we priests have to relearn once again the basics of entering heaven, the basics of relating to God.
I believe this is not a dreadful place after all. This is our home and this is our school. Right across us is the place where everything started. And right here is the place where we will see it end.
You are young and probably you could not totally grasp the import and the giftedness of this place in the life of a priest. But I believe it is in this place that God will teach us priests the last lessons we need to learn before we come to meet him face to face.