July 15, 2024
Abbey of Transfiguration
Malaybalay, Bukidnon
I never devoted specific moment before to analyze where the ardent attraction to my faith comes from. It has never occurred to me to examine the sources of such attraction and how I came to appreciate my Catholic faith with a deep and profound reverence. But reading the short sketch of Merton’s life, I resonate with his way to conversion through various ways - he came to know Christ and decided to convert to the Catholic faith through his intellect, through art, through his emotional life, and through the example of the few Catholics he knew.
I am not a convert like Merton. I grew up Catholic in a household that put primacy on piety and service in the parish. I remember the afternoons when my Amma would gather us siblings and cousins to pray the Angelus and to say the Rosary. We knew better than to hurry back home from playing after the first stars appear in the sky. Whoever is late in the orasyon will earn an earful. Looking back, it was my first exposure to the faith my Amma would hold so dear until the very end of her life.
But I grew up and became more critical of things around me. At the very young age, I know I will not be satisfied by simply obeying. I have to know why and I had the itch to find out for myself what is this living a certain faith must be like. I joined Bible studies or bukluran where I would always be the youngest attendee carrying the biggest Bible. I can find the correct verse rapidly. I knew all the songs. My reflections were very adult. Everyone in the neighborhood would want that their children would be just like me. But it wasn’t simply enough. So I found myself getting active in the parish as an altar boy. Then a lector. Then a member of the youth ministry. Then a close aid of the parish priest. Those years serving in the Nativity of Our Lady Parish were the most formative of my life. I learned to love the human aspect of my Catholic faith. I learned that gossip and friendship can come hand in hand, that friends and foes can have common grounds, that parish life is exciting and thrilling if you have the knack for it. My friends come from both poor streets and gated villages of the parish. I never felt different from the other teens my age and we all treated each other despite knowing some of us are effeminate. Old people would suspect and talk in hushed voices but among those of my age and those who knew better, our sexuality was never a hindrance in our participation in the parish life. Despite all its imperfections, I found my parish life a strong foundation for a deep sense of who I am. In God’s eyes, I was made as fearfully and wonderfully like the others.
As I finish high school, I developed a deeper sense of social involvement. I had classmates in Quirino High School who often get into trouble with the admin for organizing students and attending rallies. Two of them, Carlo and Hiyas Laya, were some of the most eloquent speakers I ever encountered. They had passion in their speech and even greater passion in their deeds. Add to the fact that they are extremely intelligent students, going to class is never their priority but can always catch up quickly. They never recruited me to join the movement, but they opened my eyes to look at life in the eyes of the oppressed and disadvantaged. Later on, I would come to know that Hiyas and her cousin went to the countryside and joined the armed struggle. I don’t know if she is still alive these days. When my first year in the Oblate seminary came to an end after a year, the same summer my mother died, I was suddenly a grown up. Everything turned messy at home from then on. Even when we are used to poverty, it was different this time because my mother seemed to make everything around her light and now she has gone. At seventeen years old, I left home and took the courage to raise myself. I faked my birth certificate so I can work in a call center company. I shared a room with several officemates and random strangers I met online, tried my best to be an adult despite all the evidences that I am just a child. After few years, I enrolled in the University of the Philippines. It was there that fate would allow me to meet a new set of friends - a collection of artistic, courageous, and joyful souls. Leroy (who is my classmate originally in Oblate seminary), and Jerome became my constants along with a series and parade of film and music majors, activists of every kind of causes, lovers, hookups, mentors, and villains - mostly gays and lesbians of all sorts.
My early twenties was a time of intellectual awakening for me. But it is as if somehow I looked for God in everything, I had an awareness of everything I consumed during those years as a faith experience. What I read, what I watch, what I devote much of my thinking, are done in the lense of my Catholic faith. Thanks to my teenage years, I looked and participated into the world of artistic freedom, existential crises, countless booze and cigarettes, perennial hunger, and revolutionary angst with my senses sensitive to anything that can mean spiritual. “There is mercy here somewhere, if I look hard enough.” I even approached relationships as an experience of finding God. Or at the very least, a learning experience. I always liked the words from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables: “To love another person is to see the face of God.” I saw God too in my emotional and sexual encounters. I cannot help but spiritualize my experiences such that even these days, I look at every experience of my life - good and bad, carnal and sacred, mundane and profound - as God’s gentle and ever loving presence.
When I decided to quit college indefinitely to focus on building a career in development, my faith took another turn. I was a secretly a very proud young man then because I knew I am smart and capable of many things. I built my professional credential by making my way up the ladder in many non-profits and development agencies until I saw myself taking leadership and representative roles, seating on the table with people much older than myself. Despite my pride, I always find myself attracted to working with Catholic and faith-based organizations. The best spiritual and professional formation I had was with the Good Shepherd Sisters. I don’t know what they saw in me but I flourished in wisdom and in faith because of the trust they gave to me to participate in their mission. Whenever I have the opportunity to slip it into conversations, I would always declare that I am raised well by the Good Shepherd Sisters.
Even when I was no longer active in the parish, I would see to it to attend Mass and spend quiet time in front of the Blessed Sacrament wherever I find myself assigned. And even when I was in a relationship with other men, faith always precedes everything. All my exes could sense there is something deeply wired in me that despite what many calls an abomination or contrary to faith, I never had difficulty navigating through my emotional life and that of my faith. This God of mine permeates everything and I am not afraid that He will stop loving me for something I did or just being my authentic self.
The image of a water lily comes into mind. Despite how dirty the water around it, the lily plant produces the whitest flower undefiled. The lily knows its nature, purpose, and design - to give glory to God despite the harshness and impossibility of the situation.
The lily’s white flower is a silent revolt to the world around it. A dissent to everyone saying it cannot be done. I like that imagery very much.
