By: Fr. Eduard Fugoso, SVD
A young Filipino priest struggle with the problem of division in a burgeoning Latin America City
Buenos Dias, Padrecito
I am four months in Guayaquil, Ecuador now I feel like a member of our parish community. In almost every block, adults and children would pause and greet me with their warm “Hola, Buenos Dias, Buenos tardes, Padrecito.” There have been times when I nearly fell into the wide street canal with my rickety bike while waving back at them.
Cholera
Ecuador was not spared by deadly cholera epidemic that hit South America. Fortunately, only four of our parishioners were affected last April and are now well. Nevertheless, our parish Youth Group staged house-to-house anti cholera campaign, distributing and explaining the information materials we got from the Ministry of Health. What is basic is to boil our drinking water. However, more basic to this even have this essential liquid. . Oftentimes, the tanqueros (water trunks) would not bring in the daily water ration. Ironically, the rich people who live in the North side of the city actually pay less for their adequate piped in supply of the water while we, poor inhabitants of the southern suburbs pay more money for less water.
Drinking Monkey’s Blood
Our parishioners are mostly factory workers, fishermen, small store owners, street vendors, housemaids and numerous vagos (unemployed). I usually do my house visitations in the morning paying special concern to the old and the sick. Last week, I visited a bedridden man sick with tuberculosis. Upon entering his room I noticed at once a very strong foul smell. I thought it could only happen in “Indiana Jones movies”, but I was surprised to know the special local treatment he was undergoing. This consist of killing a monkey right there inside the house, drinking the monkey’s blood (two cups) and placing over his back fresh peeled skin of the animals. It was started three days before my visits so you can imagine the terrible odor. I overcame my feelings of nausea. I forced myself to approached the bed and pray for the sick man.
Making Ends Meet
Aside from our parish responsibilities my parish priest and I have accepted extra jobs. The former works in the Archdiocesan Curia all mornings from Monday to Friday. He receives 40, 000 sucres ($40) monthly as honorarium. I myself receive 20,000 sucres ($20) monthly as a chaplain every Thursday in a nearby school. With these modest compensations plus the mass stipend we receive we are able to support our personal and pastoral activities.
Baker Saying Mass
The pastor in the neighboring parish supports himself by baking soya bread and making soya milk everyday. He starts his kitchen work at 5 a.m. and sells his wares at 7 a.m. along the streets of his parish. One time I asked this friendly priest, “How goes the business?” “Fine”, he said. But as it happened, one time a newly arrived member of the community brought bread from him in the morning, and seeing him inside the church in the afternoon exclaimed, “Look, the baker is celebrating the mass”
Overflowing City
As one of the fast growing metropolises in Latin America, Guayaquil is bursting at the seems as many desperate and unemployed migrants continuously flock in from the neighboring provinces. Thus, aside from the lack of jobs, mass transportation and garbage disposal have been regular headache for almost everybody. In order not to “curse the darkness” we organized last June two big “minggas” or parish community works with community works with the objectives of minimizing the cause of many diseases. We cleaned the streets and clogged canals. With the help of two big garbage trucks borrowed from the Departamento de Aseo de Calles we didn’t have much difficulty in collecting the gathered filth. So far, we have also pressured the municipal government to put drainage tubes in those wide and dangerous canals that are normally filled with foul water and garbage. Many times I have accompanied our parish representatives to different government offices and have experienced the harsh bureaucratic process. Normally, they would respond with an initial work but which is left in promises. That is also present pitiful case of our official request for more public buses to ply routs in this poor southern sector of the city.
Breaking Down Walls
But being involved in the struggle of our parishioners for better environment and better services, I can also notice the clear division among them. Some of the obvious factors are political affiliations, color of the skin and religion. As a missionary I had to initiate activities that can unite them or at least minimize their differences so that the words of the Acts of the Apostles can be fulfilled: “Now the Company of those who believed were of one heart and soul....” (Acts 4:32)
By: Jim Forest
Jean Goss has been to the Philippines many times. His seminars on active Non- violence influenced our Bishops in that fatal Pastoral Letter which sparked the last days of Marcos. In a later visit, he personally confronted General Fidel Ramos using an interpreter, to complain of certain activities of the Cafgus. He and his wife Hildegard gave a special retreat on Non-Violence to the Columban Sisters and Fathers. His powerful, strong presence is unforgettable. One of his great phrases: “Peace-building is not difficult, it is impossible...without the grace and help of Jesus Christ.”
A Faith that Wiped Away fear
When I was twenty five, the Second World War began. I listened to the mass media; they said Hitler was the devil- if we killed Hitler then everything would be ok. So I joined the French army to kill Hitler. And I killed every day and night for many weeks- but I never killed Hitler. I killed so well that I received medals. I was a war hero, but within myself I become more and more destroyed because I saw I was killing peasants and workers, sons, of families like my own, the people I wanted to defend....
Non-violence is a germinating seed, and you see nothing for a long time. I cry in the desert and see nothing move. To impose non-violence is literally non sensesical. People take time to be converted, that is to say, take the path of love.
-Jean Goss-Mayr
Jean Goss is Dead
Jean Goss is died only hours after packing his bags for a journey to Africa that was to start April 3, 1991. We will hear his passionate voice again in this life, nor feel his powerful embrace.
Urgent Compassion
Thanks to Jean, I can easily imagine what the apostles of Jesus were like after the courage and understanding given to them on Pentecost. Jean had in common with them a similar strength of conviction, the disciplined use of energies, a great hospitality to those around him, an urgent compassion for those who were victims of brutality, an at-homeness with plain people, and an inexhaustible eagerness to share with others, high and low, the truth God had given him, even if he risked being dismissed as a fool or risked being beaten or killed
Working at Fifteen
That Jean might one day become a renowned non- violent leader, and someone repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize for Peace, would surely have astonished him early in his life.
He was born in Lyon, France, in 1912 and raised in the rougher quarters in Paris. “Poverty forced me to start working young”, he re called. At the aged of 15, he was employed in the printing trades and became a union activist. “The union was the first organization I encountered, he explained, “which respected people”. At 16, I worked at a biscuit factory in 1937, he got a job at a French railway.
Croix de Guerre
In 1939, following Germany’s attacked on France, Jean enlisted into the military, rising quickly to become an artillery sergeant. His courage in combat won him the Croix de Guerre. He was lucky not to be killed on the battlefield. “My regiment was scarified,” he recalled, “given the task of covering the retreat to Dunkirk. We shot and killed as many Germans as we could. Those of us who were not killed were taken prisoner.”
Plan to Kill Hitler
It was during his five years as a prisoner that Jean was converted to Christianity and in the process, renounced killing as a method of social protection or changed.
“I went into the army”’ Jean often explained in subsequent years, “because I was convince that Hitler had to be killed. But I found that I could only kill ordinary people like myself.”
The Violent Person is Normal
Like Gandhi, Jean was convinced that only a violent person could become non-violent, and that the violent person is normal. “If I slap your face and you are normal,” he said, “you react, you want to hit back. You don’t want to get away with it. The question became for him not whether to respond but how to do it so that the response could provide a way out of the endless cycle of violence and counter- violence.
Torture in the Nazi Camp
Jean often said he had no attraction to heroism. Yet admitted there were moments when, nonetheless, he had done things that others would regard as heroic. “When I was a prisoner being tortured and humiliated,” he recalled,” I wasn’t afraid. It surprises me to think about it now. How did I live through all that? Yet I can assure you that since my meeting with Christ, I have never been afraid. I’ve been worried, but I have never really been afraid anymore. I know I would face up to the whole world. I am absolutely certain that God loves us more than we can dream, think know or believe, loves us beyond all our faults. That sort of faith wipes away every fear.
It was his willingness to talk about his faith even with those in prison that saves his lifetime and again. In one case, a German soldier lost his own life protecting Jean.
Jeans Meet Hildegard
The war was over, Jean returned to his work on the railway and his involvement in unions (in 1953), he was a leader of a General Strike in France. He also joined MIR-the movement de la Reconciliation, through which he took part international meetings in Budapest, Warsaw and Moscow. He was happy to discover through IFOR so many others who had similar commitment to active non- violence and became deeply involved. One of those he met was Hildegard Mayr, IFOR’s Traveling Secretary. She had a similar faith. Despite a difference in age of fifteen years, the two were drawn in each other and married in 1958, becoming partners in marriage, parenthood and service in IFOR.
Around The World
In their 32 years of teaching non-violence, they traveled around the world. Their extended stay in South America were crucial element in the development of Sevicio Paz y Justicia, the Latin American non-violent movement. In Eastern Europe they influenced many of the people ultimately responsible for the non-violent overthrow of tyrannic governments. In recent years they lead seminars on non-violence in the Philippines, Israel, Thailand, Hong Kong, South Korea, Bangladesh, and various European countries both east and west. On his own, Jean lead seminars in Lebanon and French speaking African countries, especially Zaire.
I am Not Yet Non-violent
“Non-violence,” said Jean “is like the Gospel. It is not something so ideal that it is unlivable. When you idealize the Gospel or non-violence, you make it unlivable. You move it into outer space along with comets, completely out of reach. It is no good to us out there. You can’t breathe up there. Your ideas and your life need to be down to earth when you try and fail but you keep trying. I am not yet non –violent. I have hit my children, you can see what a failure I am. Peter denied Jesus three times-still he went on trying to be faithful. Jesus is, after all, the only one Who is non-violent, not us. His absolute respect for the life of each person is where we find the model for our own efforts. In Him we find the model for speaking truthfully. Just listen to the hard words He spoke to the political and religious authorities around Him. And so He suffered. Telling the truth about a system of violence always means suffering. But He was always concerned first of all with individuals. He approached every one He met with love and truth and in doing that He planted the seeds of liberation. He gives me the example I try to live by. Without Jesus I am a failure.
“With Him, I’m a poor man happy to be in my way, part of the non-violent, part of non-violent movement created from those first friends of Jesus, what we call the “Church.”
Dom Helder Camara and Jean
A devout Catholic, the fact that the Catholic as an institute was often far from espousing active non-violence compelled Jean spend much of his life helping the Church to recover its true identity. Perhaps nothing is more remarkable about Jean than his belief that even bishops at home with the world’s political and economic structures could be converted to authentic Christianity. Many Church leaders, including Dom Helder Camara, credit Jean and Hildegard with transforming their understanding of their faith and vocation.
Jean at Vatican II
With the backing of IFOR, Jean and Hildegard played a vital role assisting the Second Vatican Council, which at its final session issued a major statement (Gaudiam et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World), which recognized conscientious objection and non- violent methods of struggle for social change. Jean’s friendships with Cardinal Otavianni, head the Vatican Holy Office, was a crucial element in opening the Council for reflection on such long ignored topics.
Last Judgment
Christians, Jews and Moslem have strong belief in the Last Judgment: the gathering together at the end of time of everyone who has live, from St. Francis of Assisi to Adolf Hitler, from Stalin to Gandhi. Why is he weighing up of each life no longer has influence on what will happen next. It is a doctrine reminding us that what I do or fail to do has consequences for the rest of the history.
It gives me hope to think of all the good that will continue to come out of Jeans’ faithful, loving and courageous life.
By Fr. Bobby Sagra MSP
Mass under the Trees
I am assigned in one of the out – stations of the Catholic Mission her in Kerema, Papua new Guinea. The area is called Wanto and there are seven clusters of villages in the remote mountain range. The house for the priest is now under construction. There is no church building yet. During great liturgical celebrations like Christmas and Easter, we just hold our Mass right outside in the open air. The people here are called Camias, they speak their own “tok ples” or native language. so far, I can pick up only a few words like “Aoadi” which means “Thank you” “Aoena” means “morning” and Aoamongati” which means “beautiful”, right now it is rainy season here, and being thickly forested, we have rains everyday, especially in the afternoon and in the evening.
Walking in the Mountains
I consider my life here as a journey. First, it is a journey outside to relate to people by visiting their houses and eating with them. I also go on mission patrols to the different villages. The farthest village is Kakiva, and it is about five to six hour and a half walk. Walking to reach another village is not easy. It is sliding up and sown the mountains, tripping on roots of trees and rocks in the river. But not without pauses which refresh, like swimming in the rivers and showers under small waterfalls.
Adoration
Second, my life there is a journey inside myself, as I go back and spend prayerful moments in my room. Ate Lily, the helper of Munting Bukal, in Tagaytay gave me a monstrance with a wooden stand before I left the Philippines last November 5, 1990. I brought it with me up here in the hidden mountains and spend daily adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in my room, most especially during the night when the stillness is so penetrating. Whatever difficulty I encounter daily, external or internal, I render them to Jesus in time of personal prayer. With Him, always with me, I welcome with joy and gratitude, whatever challenges there are in my missionary life here.
Short-wave Radio
Recreation and creativity in my pilgrim life is indispensable. Every morning before I say my morning prayers, I listen first to the World News from the BBC or Voice of America. My bishop bought me a radio cassette recorder with sensitive radio antenna to pick up many radio stations around the world. I also brought tapes of instrumental and vocal music to fill up my spare moments.
Bark of Trees
I enjoy observing the unfamiliar” life rhythm of our indigenous people here, like their way of cooking in the bark of trees, their kind of food, they way they make their clothes using grass materials and bark of trees. I also do a lot of writing of little poems. Last Christmas, I finished my first volume of poems with 49 pieces. This Easter I am writing my second volume and this morning I just wrote down my 52nd poetic attempt.
Paternalism
In the seminary I lived in the cloud of idealism. Now I am faced with reality. At times, I feel powerless and I grope in the dark when I have an idea I want to express, but I don’t know the local language well enough. As a newcomer I am also extra careful not to hurt the feelings of other people like the middle aged local catechist who has been serving here for the last six years and is recognized as the people’s spiritual leader.
The traditional destructive approach of “Paternalism” or giving some thins big or small to people for nothing, practiced by the early missionaries here is still in the mentally of the people. As a result, I find it difficult o encourage the people to give their priest some financial help for the running of the mission station during Sunday Mass Collection.
Paying for the Bride
Regarding the use of money, I found out after talking with the Headmaster of the community school here that the people have money but they are keeping it for certain important events in their life according toothier traditional customs. They keep their money for two things: bride price and compensation. Bride price is the amount of money given to the family of the girl whom the man is marrying. Compensation is the amount of money paid for a damage done to one’s village, property, or people. The people use some of their money to buy clothing and food such as tinned fish and salt. If you ask them to contribute something for the mission station, they will take out the least valuable of their coins. If no basket is passed around during the Mass they will not make any move to offer their coins.
First Missionary
I think one of the values that a missionary has to cultivate is tolerance. In John 3:7, Jesus the First Missionary from the Father said to Nicodemus, “Don’t be surprised when I say, you must be born again above”. If a missionary operates only on the level of the “below” which is the complex plain of old structures and values, chances are he will feel frustrated and cannot stay long at his post. But, if he lives with life “from above” which is the life of the Spirit entering the hearts of men and women, children of any place were he is with tolerance, understanding and compassion, then nobody can prevent his light from shining.
2 Poems
by Father Bobby Sagra, MSP
1. Tryst of Love
Out of darkness
...night
Out of heavy rains
...storm
Out of my little heart
...song
Out to my poor soul
...flower
The gracious God
...paused
He looked at me
...tenderly
I raised my eyes
...hope
One Holy God
...love
2. A Spring in Hidden Valley
Fresh delight flows this morning,
Unstirred by the yawning village folk.
Gentle, sparklesweet crystals waters:
Natural embrace of the living spring.
Here am I, pilgrim, trekking afoot,
Thirsty from mountain climbing, softening the nerves in the hidden valley
Sprinkling my parched throat with the cooling moistures.
Seven handcups of blessed waters
Grace these aching muscles with my new life,
Reviving my strength, my very frame
Readying my spirit to journey on.
A spring in the valley, continual flow,
With me there to pause, freshen,
Bid leave to this wellspring
For another such passersby as I.
By: Fr. Frank Connon CSsR
Father Frank, Connon, CSsR is in-charge of the Justice and Peace Disk of the Redemptorist Fathers in Cebu City
Father Nerilito Satur, 30 years old, was ambushed and killed in Valencia, Bukidnon, on October 14th. The killing took place on the lonely dirt road about 18 kilometers from the town. The priest celebrated Mass for the people in Sitio Tambalan, Guinoyoran, Valencia.
The motive of killing was clear to everyone. The young priest was slain because of his active participation in the anti-logging stand and campaign of the Diocese of Bukidnon. This work of the Diocese is carried out in cooperation with the department of Environment of Natural Resources (DENR).
Fulgencio Factoran, Secretary of the DENR, had deputized five priest and deacons in the diocese as officers of DENR in September 1990. By virtue of the deputation , they were authorized “to seize/confiscate the forest products cut, gathered or removed by the offenders in the process of committing the offense”.
Father Satur, together with the Police Department in Valencia, had confiscated some 6,000 board feet timber worth several thousands dollars.
Bishops Gaudencio Rosales said in his sermon at the funeral mass, “Father Nery took up the local Church’s vision and defended the integrity of the little remaining forest within his parish. That was part of his service to his people, most whom are farmers in the province that had been declared a Total Log Ban area.
Some 100 priest and religious and over 2,000 faithful from the parishes in the diocese attended the funeral rites.
The bishops asked the question: “Will the selfish and the greedy and the violent ever stop the Church from preaching the Good News? Or from freeing people from unjust attitudes and selfish values ultimately -in Jesus- liberating them from sin, the root cause of human misfortune? The answer to that, the bishops said, ”is No!”
The Church is committed to preach the Gospel of Freedom in Jesus. And each priest is sworn and ordained precisely to bring Jesus as Savior to men and women of all times and longings. It is actually today, while others are asking for miracles and wonders, others for money, still many more are grooming for power, that the Father Nery and the rest of us in the local church of Bukidnon are giving the people, Christ and Him crucified (1Cor. 1:23).