The Chapters of My Journey to the Priestly Ordination

May 2005

Very often, newly ordained priests are asked: “How does it feel? How did you manage to survive?” These questions make one think that ordination is like an awarding ceremony of a marathon that one has just finished. Or that formation is an amazing race-type of contest in which the winner brings home a cash prize, but also the cuts and the bruises he sustained along the way. But ordination is not like any of these. It is not a prize for the winners or a booty for the survivors. Rather, it is a gift, purely undeserved, given perhaps to the most unworthy of people, like me.

I have been trying to figure out a starting point in narrating my story, and I thought I could start with May 30, 1994, when I entered the Jesuit novitiate in Novaliches, Quezon City. I was merely a youth of 18 years old then, brought to the doors of the novitiate by a sincere desire to offer my life to the service of the Christ and the Church. Or was it simply to be a Jesuit in the mold of my Jesuit idols back in Ateneo de Naga: Frs. Jack Phelan, Frank Dolan, Johnny Sanz, and Rolly Bonoan? Immediately as the steel doors of the novitiate were shut, so strong as if to emphasize the burning of bridges between the novitiate and the world that outside of it, the journey to my ordination day began.

I could write an entire book just describing the details of that journey. But simply put, it was a journey towards authenticity. It was a journey towards a fuller knowledge and understanding of myself. And while I was knowing myself more and more fully, I came to know God more and more intimately. I came to accept my strengths as well as my weaknesses. I learned how to deal with my hurts and pains, but also to rejoice in my gifts and talents. All throughout the process, God revealed Himself as a God who knows me and searches me. He alone knows me truly and fully, for as Augustine says, God is closer to us than we are to ourselves.

However, it was not simply an inward journey, but an outward journey too. And here is the “fun” part because it literally brought me to places I’ve never been before: Palawan, Davao, Macau, China. I met many people, some of whom became close friends who have supported me from the day we met until the present. They are my brother Jesuits, former students and fellow teachers in Ateneo de Davao, parishioners of Sapang Palay and Payatas, diocesan seminarians in Manila and China, and many others. To them I owe much. They are truly part of my vocation story for without their friendship, it would have been doubly hard for me to persevere until ordination day.

On second thought, I think I should begin with June 5, 1981, when I started prep school in Naga Parochial School (NPS) or with June 13, 1988, when I began first year high school in Ateneo de Naga, now a university (AdeNU). It was in NPS that I learned how to read and write the alphabet, how to memorize the multiplication table and do basic arithmetic, how to deliver a declamation and elocution piece, how to deliver a campaign speech in a student council election.

In Ateneo, I built on the basics that I learned in NPS, but the most important lesson that I learned in Ateneo de Naga was precisely its motto: Primum Regum Dei, First the Kingdom of God. While in Ateneo, I continued to be a knight of the altar in Naga Cathedral. At the same time, I was also serving in Calabanga when Fr. Lorenzo delos Santos was parish priest there. Couldn’t it be God’s design that he was to be transferred to Magarao where my family lives? And there I also served as his acolyte. As Knights of the Altar, we went to Lingap Center for streetchildren where Fr. Sanz or Fr. Belardo would say Mass and our beloved, the late Ms. Febes Cedo would teach catechism after the Mass. We brought food to the inmates of the City Jail on St. Ignatius Feastday and on the day of Penafrancia Fiesta. Yes, First the Kingdom of God, and that meant sefless and cheerful service to the poor, the front row honorees of that Kingdom.

Hence, I owe much to my teachers from both NPS and AdeNU. They were my second parents. They were my earlier formators. I am grateful, too, to my classmates who have become my friends because we grew up together, being classmates from Grade 1 all the way to 4th year high school. Looking back, I think, cumulatively, we spent more time with each other that with our own siblings at home. Thus, until now, we have kept contact, meeting to celebrate each other’s birthdays. And I, now a priest, looking forward to assisting in their weddings and baptizing their babies.

This narration could be enough, but it could not be sufficient. Therefore, I think I should push the starting point back to July 12, 1975. I leave it to my parents and those who lent a hand to recall the details, often remembered emotionally, of those months when I had to be brough to Manila for a major operation in the head because of a blood clot. Then they say I was brought to the far-flung barrio of Harobay, Calabanga so that an albularyo could attend to me. If you see a picture of me as a baby after those trips back and forth, you would think I was a hydrocephalous or had a swollen cheek, or in the words of those who teased me, always a had a big candy in my right cheek. Could it be God’s design to let a baby who was given up as hopeless survive such a difficult phase in his infant life?

My family is not the Holy Family of Nazareth. We are a family of humans, weak and sinful mortals, trying hard each day to be good, to be holy, but many times falling short of the ideals each of us dreams of reaching. Like any family, we are not spared of problems and trials, some of them pushing us to the edge of breaking apart. But what kept us together is the faith in God handed to us through the many religious traditions each of our families of origin has bequeathed to us. The faith has kept us. We have kept the faith. That faith has produced a priest. I am that priest.

Authenticity. Primum Regnum Dei. Faith in God. These are not abstract principles all lodged in the mind of one preparing for the priesthood, as if formation is simply a mental exercise, a mind over matter affair. No, it’s not all in the mind. It’s also in the heart. And these three are the gifts that God bestows on the man whom He has chosen to be the recipient of an oh so wonderful gift of the priesthood, a pure gift, truly undeserved, given to the most unworthy of people, like me.