Christi Simus Non Nostri, Let us be of Christ not of ourselves

By Churchill Aguilar

The author, who lives in Cagayan de Oro, was a Columban seminarian during his college years. He contributes regularly to the Mindanao Gold Star Daily, where this article first appeared. He wrote about his late sister in Remembering Ate Bem in the September-October 2012 issue of Misyon.

My last project left me so exhausted that I could not even write an evaluation report two days after it culminated. So I decided to grab the strongest coffee at my favorite coffee shop in Centrio Mall. Coincidentally, I met two missionary priests who were once my brothers in the Columbans. The bond we had brought me back to my seminary years. Let me share with you my vocation story.

Fifteen years ago, Fr Bernard Steed, an Irish Columban, visited my high school with his ‘magic bag’. From it he took lots of stuff, with each piece of which he shared stories of young men who crossed boundaries to experience the adventure of their lives. I couldn’t help but be drawn to the spirit in him as he passionately narrated how his friends broke the boundaries of language and culture and found happiness in far flung areas of the world.

A few months later, the experience shook me enough to change the career plans that I had prepared for years, to my Dad’s disappointment. I left my family to join Father Bernard’s group, the Missionary Society of St Columban. There I saw and experienced what he had shared in his stories; I had a good run.

Once a week for a year I worked with patients in the psychiatric ward of Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center, Cebu City. (We Columban seminarians were studying at the University of San Carlos). I was dead scared when I started. I thought any patient there could choke me to death or knock me down with single blow; things like that can happen there. To top this, I had nothing to offer them other than making more crowded their already overcrowded ward. Yet as weeks passed, I gained friends with whom I got to talk in their lucid moments.

There was also a year where I worked with street children. In Cebu City, the city government does not like children wandering around the streets because it is not good for tourism. Well, of course, no kid really belongs on the streets; not only that, it’s dangerous, and they’re supposed to be with their families. Anyway, I would meet them at a drop-in center in Pari-an. Again, I really had nothing to give them other than my time, which I spent mostly in playing basketball. I can still remember going home so dirty and so stinky; but the smiles of those kids were just priceless.

My most challenging year was when I worked with the Deaf community. There I was silenced. A simple ‘How are you?’ would take me five minutes to respond to. While everybody else could understand each other, I was always ‘lost in translation’. What moved me was their patience in teaching me their language and their eagerness to make me part of their world.

I also worked in a squatters’ area in Barrio Luz. I got into a den of thieves and drug-pushers. Every time I walked those narrow alleyways people would stare at me with much suspicion. For them I was either a buyer or a policeman. They were understandably paranoid knowing that raids were conducted in the area almost on a monthly basis. Eventually when I became a familiar face I got their smiles.

In my last year with the Society, I worked in a dumpsite in Tayuman taking care of the dying and the destitute. Then I decided to leave the seminary for good.

In those five years I barely had anything in my pocket, yet I experienced life to the full. I witnessed life in its purest sense, a life worthy of celebration. Yes, I had nothing, and somehow it was more than enough. I look back on my experience with fond memories. And every time I am asked whether I regretted joining the Society or leaving it, I say ‘Why would I?’ It taught me the essence of life and prepared me for a higher calling.

Our Society’s patron saint is St Columban, an Irish missionary who said, ‘Christi simus non nostri’, ‘Let us be of Christ, not of ourselves’.

You may email the author at chrchl@yahoo.com and find him on Facebook.