By Amparo Batutay

The author is a Misyon promoter. Here she shares her struggle to grow into the post-Vatican II way of living our faith.

An old song says, ‘It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ These words have significance in my life.

Before I started my formal schooling at the age of 7, I had already received my First Communion, studied the basic Spanish alphabet and memorized the old little booklet of the catechism. Though born in Cebu City, I was raised in Boljo-on, a sleepy, quiet romantic town in the southeast of Cebu, with verdant mountains majestically towering over white sandy beaches where bathers stretch lazily and enjoy the lapis lazuli sky over a shimmering azure sea.

The way things were

Our parish priest at that time was Father Moran, a Spanish Augustinian friar and a very strict disciplinarian. Every Sunday after High Mass we preschool children were gathered in the parochial school to study the Spanish alphabet and the Doctrina Cristiana. We were made to memorize the whole booklet. When we passed the teacher’s oral examination, our parents were informed in order to prepare for our internship before First Holy Communion. We stayed at the school, the girls occupying the second floor and the boys the ground floor. Our parents brought our food at mealtimes. Our house was just across the road but we weren’t allowed out.

Our daily routine

We were taught the basic Christian prayers, learned the Rosary, memorized all the questions and answers in the booklet and strictly followed the rules and regulations. At 6am we had morning praise and the Angelus, then washed and prepared for the day’s activities that began after breakfast –– study, prayer, singing, play, rest and sleep. After lunch at 12 we rested and resumed at 2:00. We had our snack at 3:00, then play and more study till late afternoon. We prayed the Angelus at 6:00, ate supper and prayed the Rosary at 8:00, followed by evening prayer and sleep.

Sometimes we helped cut the hosts with a round cookie cutter in the small bakery at the back of the convent. We were kept in the school for two or three weeks, depending on the learning capacity of the group. We were also taught how to go to confession and how to receive Communion. Respect for elders was strongly inculcated in us and we were told that it was a great sin to talk back to them. We looked up to the priest as second to God.

In other words, we were molded and brought up in a very rigid and religious atmosphere, following strictly the teaching of the Church. When we were ready, we were brought in front of the priest for the final oral examination. This was an ordeal. Once you answered his questions, such as ‘How many gods?’ ‘What are the Ten Commandments?’ and so on, you were ready for first confession and First Holy Communion. Then our parents were told to prepare the white dress and veil for the memorable occasion.

After the Mass there was a joyful celebration. We were treated to a sumptuous breakfast of thick chocolate, puto, suman andbroas cookies, delicacies of our place. After we kissed the hands of the priest, we gathered our belongings and went home with our parents.

Before and after Vatican II

Though our pre-Vatican II, Spanish-style religious training was rigid, it was clear and simple. It emphasized the individual’s ‘vertical’ relationship with God. For many years I happily lived my faith as I had learned it. Perhaps that was why I was so affected by the drastic change in the Church’s way of thinking after the Second Vatican Council, 1962 to 1965. It now emphasized our ‘horizontal’ relationships with one another and our common ‘vertical’ relationship with God.

It took several months of arguing and debating with the Redemptorist mission team that came to our parish after the Council and who took pains in helping me become what I am now. Sometimes we continued our discussions into the wee hours. Through the slow process of assimilation I woke up. It was a tremendous realization that the sign of Christianity, the CROSS, with its vertical and horizontal beams, symbolizes and unites the traditional way of living the faith that I grew up with and the new way. I can’t forget those people who worked hard to transform my outlook on life. I had been molded to think that salvation was only between the individual and God.

Faces of Christ

Then I came to realize, as Fr Martin Ryan CSsR once said, ‘There are so many Christs at the baybay without food, clothing and shelter.’ I came to understand the words of Jesus, ‘What you have done to the least of my brothers and sisters you have done to me.’ How true these words are! Salvation cannot be achieved by accumulating calluses on your knees by kneeling and praying for salvation while ignoring your poor brother’s plea for food, clothing and shelter, and much more, his pleas for justice. Salvation only comes from liberating others from the bondage of their misery. Mind you, it’s also self-fulfillment and self-liberation.

Savage gods

Many of us are enslaved by our greed: greed for power, wealth and prestige, so that these become little gods that control us. So we are chained by these vices that lead us to perdition. It is only in liberating yourself from these gods that you will be able to liberate others. And in doing so, you can be truly happy, contented and fulfilled individual. You will be free.

Going back to the lyric from the song, ‘It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,’ I have no regrets at losing my traditional vertical way of Christian thinking because otherwise I could not have experienced my conversion to the true Christian way of thinking. There’s no comparison. I value much the realization that I can forget myself when others need me. Faith really does move mountains.