February 2, 2012
We rushed our breakfast this morning and immediately drove to an outlying village some thirty minutes away from the municipal capital of San Jose, Occidental Mindoro. We were headed for Barombong, a rustic village reachable only through rough and dusty roads wedged in vast rice fields on both sides. Thanks to the added shades of countryside green fields, the cruel rays of the morning sun turned out to be just the perfect backdrop against which we should throw into sharper focus today’s pastoral journey. One wonders though how an age-old squeaky car could manage to survive the rigors of long stretches of unpaved roads. One should, even more importantly, wonder how people here survive with little opportunities and with even lesser possibilities for government intervention.
With us were three catechists who for some extended period had painstakingly prepared the children of Barombong for their First Confession and First Communion. In a distance, we could now see the white cross ensconced atop the humble community chapel. But we still had to negotiate a few more difficult contours of rough roads both up and down the slopes before we could finally get to the chapel. Upon arrival we immediately noticed the agitation and restlessness of children.
“Normally restless,” I inaudibly muttered. They must have been waiting for us with anxiety and boredom, as they were a little noisy despite their parents’ intermittent prodding.
“But so too were their fathers,” I should add, judging from their cigarette sessions in between awkward gesticulations in idle conversation.
“Good morning, Father,” echoed their unanimous welcome. We unceremoniously buckled down for work; a catechist called out the names of children, another rehearsed the Mass songs, and the third catechist marshaled them to form a single file for their First Confession.
In between confessions, I glanced at the children, as I was rather amused with their formal attire, the girls donning their white veils and the boys wearing long-sleeved polo shirts, a rare sight of course in this farming community.
“Could I remove this polo?” I overheard a boy suggesting the idea to his father. The tight collar must have been strangulating him. Or, understandably, it must have been just a case of his not being accustomed to wearing it.
must have been too formal for their age, I flashed a smile at them, a suppressed laughter actually.
One could easily notice what children wore this day: off-white dresses and polo shirts, still creased and un-pressed, their white or black shoes, slightly worn-out and dusty, but hastily polished for the occasion. Everywhere you looked, you could smell poverty; from the callous working hands of parents to the wrinkled foreheads of both young and old mothers who were omnipresent in chapel activities. The village chapel was characteristically small, unadorned and decrepit. No windows. But the walls were made of decorative blocks with designed holes in them which served as windows just the same. No electricity either.
After the confessions of the candidates for First Communion, a catechist called out another set of names of children. They were candidates for Baptism. I asked why these children were baptized too late, as though we had to wait until they would reach ten or thirteen years old. One catechist apologetically explained that it was a long-revered policy here not to baptize infants of unmarried parents in order to discourage illegitimate unions. I instinctively felt that this policy was not a deterrent against illegitimate unions at all, at least judging from the way things are today. I later learned that the process of securing the necessary papers for marriage required the parties to go to the National Statistics Office (NSO) in Manila for the Certificate of No Marriage (CeNoMar), or from its satellite office in Calapan, Oriental Mindoro. For most of the poor, they would rather spend precious little money for daily food than for a trip to uncertainty in the jungles of Metro Manila where they have no place to lay their heads for a day or two, or in faraway Calapan. And to think we are now living in a digital age!
On the other hand, policy-makers just shrug off their shoulders and invoke the equally-revered dictum, “if there’s a will, there’s a way” which translates to “if they want to marry, then they have to secure the necessary documents.”
But poverty is the number one deterrent. And all that the “no wedding of parents, no baptism” policy does is to leave the poor unwed and unbaptized.
Suffer the children!
Un-baptized. Un-catechized. Un-evangelized. Un-churched!
But time is of the essence and the consequences are enormous. Unmarried parents would seldom or never go to church at all, because of some qualms of conscience thereby allowing their children to grow, in the long run, without having an experience of Church life or just a minimum of it.
Imagine children in their early teens not even knowing how to pray the “Our Father.” It’s ironic, if not downright scandalous, that these children could not say the “Our Father” yet, in fact, they are God’s children. In fact, too, they are so close to the Heart of Jesus: “Let the children come to me and do not despise any one of them.” So there I was in a remote village surrounded by, well, modern pagans. There I was–struggling to evangelize and baptize them!
Finally, the Mass on the Feast of Our Lord’s Presentation began. The children lighted their candles and held them slightly above their eyebrows. Then they walked in solemn procession from the chapel entrance to their assigned seats, this time, well-behaved. They sang the entrance hymn to the amused grins of their parents. And the proud parents joined the singing.
During the homily we centered on the importance of one’s union with Christ. Plants draw nutrients from the soil. We draw strength from Christ–the Way the Truth and the Life. The light of Christ shines through the darkness of sin. And we know the difference it makes. We should therefore prove to the world that Christianity matters, that our baptism matters, and that our Communion with Christ truly matters, even far beyond the ritual and the event, even closer and nearer to one’s heart and life.
The First Communion prayers of children were moving as these were uttered by pure hearts. After Mass there was a little sharing of food. We had a choice of either mashed bananas or mashed cassava. I politely begged off, because I remembered Blessed Teresa’s words about the poor’s willingness to give even the food they were already chewing. In their poverty, they were being generous. In my conscience, however, I was feeling guilty over the possibility of depriving a hungry mouth, should I ever take part of the light snacks. I wasn’t hungry after all.
A little later, we bade them goodbye and wished them well. Slowly we went downhill onto the rough roads of this idyllic Barombong.
Looking back, I saw the boy–who had earlier complained to his father about his tight clothes–finally take off his polo shirt, with the father’s approval this time, and then the father changed it with ordinary working clothes. Then both father and son started walking uphill, little by little disappearing in the dusty and windy road back home or, perhaps, back to the farm.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, the Kingdom of heaven is theirs.”
Humble people, simple people.
Looking back, I felt so small. God must have sent me there not so much to evangelize and baptize them, as to be evangelized and be baptized by them.
