I'd like to do him homage though with a reprint of a short story I penned in 1993 for Inter Nos, the official publication of the Theological Society of UST. And may he, wherever he may now be, look down kindly on his former protege.
I DIED THE DAY I WAS BORN
It was June 4, my birthday. It was the day that I was expected to report to the seminary. It was the day that I died.
It was a fine sunny day. The sun, up above a sky that was all blue and tremendous, shone brightly as if determined to shed light on everything under the heavens. The bus, of which I was a passenger, was moving swiftly, gently pushing itself against the road. The throbbing engine machine and its unending roar would only make me conscious of the beatings within my breast which would become faster and louder as I came closer to my destination. The thought of what I left behind and what would probably await me would from time to time shake my armchair complacency.
For a moment, I allowed myself to be occupied by isolated flashes of memories. Fr. Mariano, his words – images of him jostled each other in my brain. Soon, I became acutely sensitive to the thoughts which flowed through me. My family, my ambitions, my life in the seminary, the demands of the vocation – all these my mind never missed; all these became more real to me as though I was shook up like a man startled out of his sleep.
Then, all of a sudden, the thought shook me. It reverberated in my mind, disturbed my soul as would an earthquake disturb the earth, and enveloped my whole being. It was haunting as a shepherd’s flute, alarming as a coming danger, fearful as an impending death. And when my mind could no longer contain the thought’s reverberations, it escaped through my tongue and found echo in my voice. Softly and forcefully, I muttered: “Why should I become a priest?”
Again, I remembered Fr. Mariano and his words came rushing through the tympanum of my ears: “Priesthood is becoming a nobody. It is a negation of both being and becoming. Hence, if you want to become somebody, don’t ever become a priest! A priest goes into the bush, the frontiers. He has to die to himself, to his ambitions, his way of thinking. He experiences deprivation, persecution and loneliness. He empties himself, goes out of himself to reach out to others, creates a void within himself for the purpose of assuming another identity. He leaves aside his identity and the prerogatives that go with it and putting on the clothes of a new identity, he follows the way of denial, humility and suffering. He humbles himself as a servant, as a suffering servant, as a dead servant!”
I’m not too clear about the next thing that transpired although I’ve thought about it often. Perhaps the light-and-hurried breakfast and long drive had finally taken their toll. I felt dizzy and my vision seemed to shift out of focus, as if a silhouette glass had been put before my eyes. Everything seemed diffused. Then, I saw Fr. Mariano’s face before me, as if a spook lined by a wafer-thin shimmer of light. A strange tremor shook my body as I tried to fix the apparition before me.
Soon, I found myself looking up into an amazing face, gaunt, heavily lined, set with large brown eyes. The eyes were slightly filmy, the hair thick, the face mottled and somewhat swollen. Fr. Mariano was about seventy years old and at that age, you could say he had a certain something, that extra something that separates the men from the boys and marked him out like a tossing Arab stallion. The man had suffered a lot, you could see that. You also realized he had wrestled death several times and was still alive. Those eyes of his that would oftentimes roll heavenward were twin wounds that mirrored the sufferings that he injured. But he could take pain, livid and excruciating pain.
I have known him since I was a child. Whenever I would retreat to early youth when the present would disturb or repel me like the ugly tummy of a turtle, I would see myself in the company of Fr. Mariano. We would hike to far-flung barrios with his motorcycle and he would say masses to the people and I would be his altar-server. He was my guide when the man in me started to come out of the boy; he was no privy when little hairs began to emerge above my upper lip, the desire for the opposite sex became keener, when muscles began to harden and bulge. He was a father to me, this Fr. Mariano.
Now, as I looked at him, it seemed I was looking directly at the face of death, that I was playing primary witness to a process of existential decomposition. He was sick and was literally glued to his bed. It seemed that the sorrowing earth pulled at his body, at his shoulders that once bore the weights of the world’s affliction. Immediately, I felt my heart ached for him, this poor old man.
“Fr. Mariano,” I called out, my voice sounded strange and muffled in the deadening silence. He looked at me and the deep furrows around his eyes and mouth arched into a warmest and most gentle smile.
“Anak,” he said as he usually addressed me and all those persons close to him. His response, in his usual deep-throated voice seemed to reverberate off the surrounding walls. “Come and sit beside me,” he summoned, glancing at the old wooden chair beside his bed. I followed, wondering why to me his voice sounded like Gabriel’s horn, much like the peeling of the bell.
“How are you doing Father?” I asked.
“Well, as you can see, I’m bedridden, just preparing for my last battle. I guess God has deemed it best for me to hold my last breath on bed.”
I was taken aback. His answer came as a juggernaut that made me feel the nakedness and stupidity of my question. That was not what I meant, I wanted to tell him. Perhaps I asked the wrong and silliest question, perhaps my question was irresponsible but I knew it wasn’t just a question. I knew I only wanted him to feel that I cared for him, for whatever he felt. I wanted to explain myself to him. But his voice had already made me feel like a timid choir boy. I neither had the strength nor the desire to dispute his words.
“I’ve learned that you’re coming back to the seminary,” he finally said after a brief but deafening silence.
“Yes, I am,” I answered, quite relieved of the sick feeling that my question and his response had caused.
“And are you ready to die to yourself, to your dreams and ambitions? Are you ready to die a thousand deaths?”
I knew Fr. Mariano was always unpredictable and would always ask the most unexpected question. But still, his question again caught me off-guard. “What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“Anak, he spoke haltingly, then begged off for a while to relieve his throat. Then he went on: “Priesthood is a lonely life. To be a priest is to suffer and die several times. It is to be poor, deprived, needy, impoverished and bedraggled. It is to live on alms, on the love, affection and generosity of the people, to take the ultimate sacrifice – serve God’s people.”
I wanted to react. I wanted to tell him that he’s wrong. The priest after all lives the most comfortable life there is in this world. He does not bear the usual problems of the world. He commands respect from the community. Oftentimes, his word is even considered as the law. I wanted to tell him that priestly life is an easy life. But then it seemed that some undesirable stuffs have been clogged in my throat. I found myself unable to express my thoughts.
“Let me tell you who the priest is,” he continued, his face appearing like a musical instrument, the notes ringing our loud and clear. “The priest is someone who spends so much time, effort and money to be ordained to serve God by serving the people, crystallizing this unconditional commitment through vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to his superiors. But to support his physical needs, to be able to eat at least three times a day, he tries to beg for money and what-have-yous from the people he promised to serve who in turn accuse and label him as money-faced, a gold-digger, an opportunist, a person who is identified only with Sunday collections, contributions, stipends – yes, with money.”
I was somewhat shattered. The man was throwing thunderbolt instead of his usual piddling pebble from a slingshot. The measured voice came out as if it were of a politician making a point, a lawyer deftly nailing a quodlibet and a spider spinning an intricate web. His face, it seemed Fr. Mariano’s face in that seemingly split-visage scene remains one of the most eloquent spectacles of the human drama ever captured by my eyes.
Then he went on: “The priest lives alone in a place where he finds himself needy – both materially and emotionally – impecunious, impoverished, bedraggled and living on alms. Sooner or later, he finds himself stricken with loneliness, deprivation and even persecution. He asks himself: “What’s the use of doing this or that when the people don’t really care about what I do or feel? They expect me to produce and deliver, but do they really value the thousand and one things that I have already accomplished? He feels so alone in his anguish. He feels pressured, manipulated, misunderstood and bypassed. But he has to live with all that for he promised to be dead to himself.”
“Uhurm,” I wanted to interrupt. But as in the past, I found myself unable to speak, as if I have been hypnotized to play the role of his captive audience.
“In his moments of loneliness and solitary struggle,” he continued, “he cannot but sometimes wonder what it is like to have a lifetime partner who will share with his emotional, aye, physical needs. He cannot but sometimes wonder what it feels to physically express a particular love and concern to a particular lady, to share his bed with a love one at night. And oftentimes, too, he cannot but wonder what it feels to father a child. Needless to say, the effect of this to his psychological disposition is tremendous. Without the right and proper direction, it can be very harmful and dangerous, both emotionally and psychologically. It can become an unbearable burden, sometimes a psychological torture even. And as you know, many priests have failed or are failing in this.
“And so, as he becomes older, he also sometimes becomes insecure. He sometimes becomes unpredictable and conscious of his security. Sometimes, too, he becomes desirous for some material possessions. But gaining more years and weakened now by years of service to the people, he finds himself being advised to retire. He is then thrown into a home for the aged where he finds himself completely helpless and useless. He settles for a self-service lifestyle until his death. He has to fend for himself and take care of himself even until the time when he could no longer lift a finger.
“Finally, he dies and is buried in a place where his memory is lost and forgotten forever, and where his tomb is not even cleaned or decorated during the All Souls’ Day observance.
“This, Anak, if I may end is the priest.”
And Fr. Mariano spoke no further while I, convinced of the veracity of his words and piqued at having shown some emotion, also lapsed into silence.
The sky was dark, threatening with a heavy downpour when I reached the seminary. I saw the porter busily ushering in the arriving seminarians, completely unmindful of the coming weather disturbance. A large ‘welcome’ sign was posted at the huge and heavy door that led to the inside of the ‘hallowed’ walls of the seminary. I approached the porter, exchanged a few topics, asked for my room key and proceeded inside. And as I closed the heavy door, I also closed my eyes and prayed: “Pater, in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum.” Then, I recalled a passage in the novel “The Thorn Birds” by Colleen McCullough and softly and slowly recited it to myself:
“…singing among the savage branches, (the thorn bird) impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And dying, it rises above its own agony to outcarol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price… For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain… Or so says the legend.”
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