A Quadricentennial challenge for Catholic Philippines

Media

Part of The Carolinian

Title: A Quadricentennial challenge for Catholic Philippines
Creator: Santos, Corazon Ramirez
Language: English
Year: 1965
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Fulltext: (Continued from page 17) Cebu and Other Towns and The Centennial Celebration Surprisingly, the city and other towns of Cebu suddenly become aware of the magnanimity of the Fourth Centennial of the Christ ianization of the Philippines that everybody seems to have something to prepare for such occasion. Buildings and cleverly-designed edifices have suddenly sprang up like mushrooms in the city. The people have started to construct hotels, motels and lodging houses and office buildings to cope with an impending problem of housing pilgrims during the occasion. One such building worthy of no tice is the Lu Ym building. It is the tallest building in the Visayas and Mindanao and owned by the Lu Do brothers in Cebu. It was formerly the Lu Do building which was burned some years ago in a downtown fire. The newly-constructed hotels in Cebu are Ramirez hotel, Interna tional Hotel, Palm Lodge, Impala Village and several others. In the meantime, the Lapulapu City which is just across the chan nel is also busy expanding for the celebration. Danao City has assured its co operation for the celebration in cluding Toledo City. Everybody is preparing for the celebration. But what for is the occasion? Here are its objectives: 1) make the people aware and appreciative of the fact that the Philippines has been 400 years a Christian nation; 2) inspire the people to know their faith more fully and, to know to live their faith better; 3) encourage full par ticipation by the laity in the reli gious celebration of the Fourth Centennial; and d) to share the faith with non-Catholic countries through the Philippine Foreign Mission Society. Let us hope that we will all be worthy of the chance of being the host to this occasion (Cebu, I mean). And hope further that Ce bu will keep up its reputation of always being the FIRST. A Quadricentennial Challenge Cor Catholic Philippines By Corazon Ramirez Santos THE PHILIPPINES will celebrate the Fourth centenary of its Chris tianization on April 28, 1965. As we look back across the centuries and reflect on what we might have been spiritually, we can not help but feel deeply grateful to Divine Providence for bestowing on us the gift of Faith and to Spain, whose Catholic fervor was the instrument which made our Christianization possible. Why did the Spanish mis sionaries brave the perils of a long and hazardous voyage to an un known land that could be possible peopled with hostile natives? Ob viously it was in obedience to Christ’s parting command to His disciples: “Go, ye, therefore and preach ye the Gospel to all na tions .. For four centuries, we have thus been enjoying the blessings of the Catholic Faith. Yet, up to the pre sent, we still remain the only Cath olic country in the Fai' East. From an evangelical point of view, it is not something for us, Filipino Cath olics, to be proud of at all. It seems to faintly imply that we have not been living our faith as deeply as we should .. . that we have not taken our responsibilities serious ly .. . that we have not done all we could to share this precious gift of Faith with our brother Orientals. We could offhandedly attribute this omission on our part to cir cumstances existing under the Spanish and American regimes over which we had no control. But can we continue to justify our spir itual apathy and sluggish evangeli cal spirit, now that we are oui- own masters? There should be nothing to stop us now. All we need is something to push us “but hard!” on the way to conquering souls for Christ. Most of us wait for mo mentous or inspiring occasions on which to launch out important un dertakings or face new challenges. What better start is there than on this occasion of the quadricenten nial of our Christianization, when not only a sense of duty but also a sense of gratitude should impel us to act? Of course there is al ways the vital, everyday challenge of living a good and holy life, a bet ter life, which we should not over look. But special occasions require special offerings. In this instance, the offering of ourselves on a na tional scale, for the Christianiza tion of our brother Orientals could Page Eighteen THE CAROLINIAN March-April, 1965 CLARION CALL — Off to the Missions! very well contribute to the success ful solution not only of our per sonal spiritual problems, but as should logically follow, the spirit ual problems of our country as well. “FOR IT IS IN GIVING THAT WE RECEIVE. ..” The Philippines is surrounded on all sides by pagan countries. To the north are: Japan, Korea, China and Formosa; to the east are Thai land, Indochina and Malaya; down south is Indonesia. Here, in these neighboring countries teem mil lions who are still groping in the darkness of paganism .. millions who have not even heard of the Word — God .. millions who are hungry for the knowledge of this all-good, Almighty Father in heav en. Who is going to bring the light of God into their lives? What, as members of the only Catholic na tion in the East, are we going to do about it? Obviously, not all of us can march out of the Philippines and go about the task of bringing our pagan neighbors into the one true fold. Yet, it is really quite sim ple. One need not even make a single step beyond his door, nor move an inch from where he is. Let each one of us just start right at this very moment with a good will to obey Christ’s command by telling Him straight from the bottom of our heart: Oh my God, out of love for You and in thanksgiving for the countless benefits You have best owed on us, I shall do everything I can to help spread Thy gospel to all nations, specially those of the East.” Yes, all of us can be mis sionaries right in our own homes, offices, schools, or fields, through our prayers and sacrifices! Parents could help immeasurably not only by praying for vocations in the family, and gladly allowing their children to follow the reli gious call, but also by making them mission-conscious and positively bringing them up in such a way as to prepare them for possible reli gious vocations. The rich could channel not only their prayers but also a good por tion of the wealth that God has entrusted to them to help the mis sion and finance vocations. How ever, the poor need not sigh for want of something to give. The of fering of one’s humble endurance of poverty in a royal manner must be most pleasing to God, Who Him self chose to be poor. In fact, the poor have a wealth of suffering and hardships to offer. It is hightime our Catholics cease to regard evangelization as neddling in somebody else’s business. Rich man, poor man. beggar man, doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief, it is every Catholic’s business to win souls for Christ. Not being equip ped with special training or apti tude to preach or teach is no hin drance to being a missionary. The Little flower of Jesus, just out of her teens, doing the humble chores of a Carmelite lay sister, never left the convent walls to teach, or preach. Yet, her prayers and sac rifices, numerous conversions have been attributed to her. There are those who hedge about by saying, “Oh, I am positively not the type to go in for flagellations, or horsehair-shirts, or fasting.” But who of us does not feel every now and then the drudgery, the mo notony of daily work, or the crush ing weight of one’s responsibili ties, whether you are in ordinary laborer, an office worker, a soldier, a housewife, teacher, storekeeper, or even an executive, whatever your work might be? There are moments when you get fed up with your duties, angry customers, pu pils, superiors, or fellow workers ... moments when you feel just like my dear fellow-Catholics, that this is your golden opportunity for going one step higher in the spirit ual echelon, and being a mission ary at the same time. You can of fer your desire to give in to your desire to give in to your sloth, your disgust, your anger, or your im patience, as a sacrifice, for the con version of souls, for the Chris tianization of Asia. You might be one of those ex traordinary mortals who never know anything but success, health, happiness, plus an ever resurging energy. If so, you could in humble gratitude offer all these heavenly gifts to God with the plea that he may bestow these blessings a hund redfold on the missionaries, labor iously tilling the distant pagan lands for a harvest of souls. Or better still, you could focus your extra energy on actual mission work. For centuries we have neglected our sick in more ways than one. Have, we, for instance, made them aware of the fact that they are also Christ’s chosen ones? That their being bedridden or their in ability to work with hand or feet need not mean that they are ab solutely useless in this world? (Continued on put/e 22) March-April, 1965 THE CAROLINIAN Page Nineteen mary, and Kindergarten School, 1298, making a grand total of 8,718. Any graduate from high school is eligible for admission to the col leges. No entrance examinations are held because of the scholastic differences between students com ing from cities like the City of Cebu and those from the mountain vil lages. Talented but poorly trained students are allowed one or two years to show their worth. Instruction is given according to traditional patterns consisting of lectures, seminars, laboratory work, with a limited amount of audio-visual helps such as movies and slides. FINANCE The University possesses no en dowment and is non-profit making. The operational finances come from students’ fees and tuition as well as the contribution of the non-salaried members of the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) and the Sister Servants of the Holy Ghost (S.Sp.S.) staff members. The of fice of the SVD Universities, 316 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Il linois, U.S.A., under the direction of Reverend Dr. Ralph, SVD, as well as the Generalate of the So ciety of the Divine Word contribute an annual grant for the develop ment and expansion of the univer sity. A Quadricentennial Every sick or suffering Catholic should be made to realize that he is a storehouse of vast potential spiritual wealth and energy. All that he has to do to release this power is to switch on his will and make it attune with Christ’s. Thus attuned and armed with his morn ing offering, he can each day scale spiritual heights. With his suf ferings united to those of Christ’s, he can have anybody’s good for the asking. With his sufferings, he can help to satiate, even by gulps, Christ’s unquenchable thirst for souls. Flat on his hospital bed, or tied to his wheel chair, he can rescue thousands of souls who, as one of the saints saw in a vision, every minute fall like autumn leaves into the abyss of eternal fire! Is this not spiritual romance and ad venture sufficient to rouse one’s soul into action? Let us therefore awaken our sick PUBLICATIONS Aside from student publications such as THE CAROLINIAN, a quarterly; the UNIVERSITY BULLETIN, a weekly and the SEMPER FIDELIS, an annual, the university issues two series of scientific publications; one in the field of natural sciences and the other in the field of humanities known as SAN CARLOS PUBLI CATIONS. EXPANSION AND STATISTICS The Coconut Foundation which concerns itself with coconut re search operates a Pilot Plant which extracts oil from fresh coconuts, hydrogenates the oil into fatty al cohols and sulfates the latter into detergents. With the aid of grants from the Central stelle of Aachen, Germany, the university construct ed (1963) a new and modern Teachers College as well as an In stitute of Technology (1963) which superseded the former College of Engineering. The Institute of Tech nology is closely associated with the Coconut Foundation. APPRAISAL The University, because of its Catholic moral traditions and prac tices, up-to-date equipment, compeent teaching staff and relatives high scholastic standards is regard ed as one of the leading universities of the Philippines. • • (Continued from page 19) and suffering Catholics to the fact that they are not as useless and miserable as most of them imagine themselves to be. The cheerful of fering of all the sufferings that they have to undergo can greatly lessen the heavy load of mission ary work. Let us harness the spir itual power that lie dormant among our poverty-stricken people. If all they have is poverty, they can still lovingly offer it together with all the hardships that poverty entails. None of us therefore can justly say that he can not help because he is handicapped, because with a good intention, even handicaps can be made meritorious. There are count less opportunities of making little sacrifices. All you have to do is to be willing to make them. And surely, it is not too much to ask every Catholic from Aparri to Jolo to offer a Hail Mary each day for (Continued on page 36) C-ke. .Santo J^ino (Continued from page 13) finding of that relic... A confra ternity of the Most Holy Name of ■Jesus teas then established with the same rules as that of St. Au gustine in the city of Mexico. The exigency of the situation would not have demanded perma nent structures so that the provi sionary church would have been of light native materials. This did not last long, no doubt, and more so after Legazpi transferred his colony to Panay to evade Portuguese at tacks. It was only in 1575, three years after the colony was re established by Legazpi, that the foundation for that first stone building was laid which took twenty-seven years to finish. Meanwhile, through unexplained reasons, the Santo Nino made its appearance in the home of Dona Catalina Jimenez, who is said to have belonged to one of the lead ing families of the time. This Lady is said to have taken reverent care of the image of the Holy Child which her husband, Captain D. Juan Rodriguez, one of the first colonizers of the island, gave to her. There is strong reason to be lieve, however, that the image of the Santo Nino was returned to the church sometime after this was finished in 1602 for when this church was burned to the ground twenty years later, it is said that only the Santo Nino was saved from the ruins. Church and convent were again rebuilt but on May 8, 1628, were once again reduced to ashes. The building were rebuilt once more during the priorship of Fray Juan de Medina. The present church and convent, now popularly known as San Agustin, rather than San tisimo Nombre de Jesus, were started about the year 1730. This took a decade to finish and it was not until January 16,1740 that the Santo Nino was finally enthroned in the new, and still extant, sanc tuary. The Spread of the Devotion to the Santo Nino of Cebu As the primary center from which the devotion to the Santo Nino was spread throughout the islands, Cebu had been chosen as the center of propagation of the Faith, already playing its role of missioner for almost half a cen(Continued on page 47) Page Twenty-two THE CAROLINIAN March-April, 1965 Stranger in the Cool of Summer Engineer and Mrs. Jesus Alcordo (Nee Yolanda Villon) They were married on March 17 in the Archbishop’s Palace chapel. Engineer Alcordo is graduate of the College of Engineering and is presently connected with the same college. Yolanda was a former Carolinian. The “C” prays to God to shower His divine blessings on them! by RICARDO I. TATALINJUG Night A Quadricentennial... (Continued from page 22) the success of the missions. In these days of preparation for an on the grace-laden days of the Congress itself, let us storm heav en with our prayers that we may be filled with the light and strength of the Holy Spirit, so that each and everyone of the 24,000,000 Cath olics of these fair isles may coura geously and generously rise up to the challenge of Catholic Action, not only in and for the Pearl of the Orient Seas, but for the entire Orient as well. $ .. . other testimony of summer nights. — T. S. ELIOT For Thine is Life is For Thine is the. — T. S. ELIOT SUDDENLY it was evening and the groan of the traffic stirred the dead heart of the soulless city and electrified the footsteps of the hapless victims of Twentieth Century Complexity. Their eyes looked ferocious and dry as they undulated like somnambulists in the macabre rhythm of the man-made hell. Monotony punctuated the march of darkness; cacophony accompanied the progress of time. The insolent breeze came to disseminate the odor of decay. In the sidewalk, a pious humanitarian sang his badly but boldly composed ditty: ‘Pray, Brothers, pray Before the stars fade, Before The Bomb flowers Over our heads!’ The hidden violence of his cogent voice struggled to be noticed, stirred the evening’s drooping wing, and invaded the sepulchres of the passersby’s nauseadrowned consciousness before it wound its way through the womb of the night. This was the night of summer nightmares and bloodthirsty dreams haunted the veins of the city and the collective consciousness of humanity. Somewhere, lovers lay in a motel with bullet holes in their temples. Somewhere in Vietnam, communists and non-communists were dying of bul let wounds; in China Mao was finishing China’s unfinished revolution; in Pen tagon a New Bomb was perfected; while in Indonesia, Indonesians were migrat ing to Mindanao like birds. Mr. and Mrs. Prolasio J. Solon, Jr. (Nee Angelita Gandionco) They were married on January 21. Both are Carolinians and graduated from the College of Commerce. The “C” wishes God’s choicest blessings on their new state of life. THUS he lay in bed. It was warm in the room. A block or two away the rumble of the city could be heard. But the room itself was quiet — quiet as a tomb. That morning all' the boys in the apartment bundled their few belongings to flee from the meaningless monotony of the city. Perhaps they were going to their respective provinces were the grass was green and the air was cool and gentle like a woman’s breath. In the womb of the summer night the tenement looked like a huge corpse sprawl ing unashamedly in the dead heart of the city. Page Thirty-six March-April, 1965