A letter from Father De Brabandere, Trinidad, Benguet

Title

Language

Spanish

Year

1924

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

84 A LETTER from father ~ 6rabandere, Trinidad, Bengud t Chunh and Com·ent of Tl'inidad, Benyuet. F-;1 RINI DAD! A nice name, Chrislm:ts, giving to God a housP = hr' N eh? But a nice mis;;ion too, when H>OO .rt•ai·s ago He chom;e a H ~ H indeed. Not only do we stable for His birthplaee (if I could b=:ci!l attend ihe well known only receive some 'f 400 morf' to valley near Baguio, but Father Del- finish the chapel). daele and myself visit thf' whole You ought to see these new Chriseastern part of the Benguet Province. tians, how they c .. nsider it a point You know Tublay, 15.Kilometers of honor to attend Mass regularly, from here, with its 2000 inhabitants. which we offer now and then in one Last year a wave of conversions pass- of the biggest shacks of the town. ed over the place. Actually 168, How seriously they pray not only at nearly all adults, have been baptiz- Mass, but also in their regular Suned, and believe me: they are good day-meetings, when the priest does christians. Providence is with us. not visit them. What faith they We have received some help from have in God's goodness. Of course here and there, and we have started the devil shows his tail as much as the building of a nice chapel. No possible. He will not give· up the doubt we shall inaugurate it next place without a fight. But I hope in God's help and grace and before very long Tublay will be or.e of the finest mission places of Trinidad, and of the whole Beni:uet province. Even Trinidad, where old Christians dwell among neophytes and unbaptized, deserves this year a special applause. More and more people come to Mass on Sundays. 248 made their Easter-duty this year. The few Ilocanos of the place have constituted a society approved hy the Bishop of the dioeese and called: the Defenders of Liberty. Of the 30 llocano families 63 persons are active members. Only 5 heads of families until now have not been initiated, but they have sent in their application, so this makes Trinidad count more members of the named society than even towns in the lowlands with 10,000 and more Catholics. Of course we had to celebrate this success. On the first of July we had a High Mass and a solemn procession to commemorate the anniversary of the establishment of the Defenders' society. The whole feast was set on foot mostly by Mr. Doroteo Flores K. o. C. and Mr. Vic<:mte Sales, the president of the society, together with the board of Directors. After the ''Te Deum'' the feast was closed by a meeting in which mutual support as well as our Holy Religion found the warmest defenders among the several speakers. This example of the Catholics of Trinidad will greatly help in the c1mversion of the Pagans of this valley_ of Trinidad. 85 About 30 Kilometers from here, at Atok, we suffered a temporal reveNe, lately, due to the attacks of some Scientists. People h!td been told that the religi(}n of the Scientists would cure all their sicknesses and even prevent them from dying. But the opposite results have stopped further progress of Scientism. Scientists die as other people: so the deceived have opened their eyes. Each time I visit Atok I hear of more and more who have forsaken Scientism and come back to the Church they had abandoned for a while. Our catholic school at Atok is full to its utmost. Never did so many attend it as this year. At my last visit, the most important people of the place asked me for one more teacher. "Well, I said, it is very easy to find you one more teacher, but to pay him ... I can not ... can you?" And the old people kept silence for a while. Then one of the eldest looked at me and said: "Father, perhaps you can not pay one teacher more, perhaps you can". "How is that, my friend?" "See Father, we believe you do all you can and more and we know you have not got the means to pay one teacher more. But we are the brothers of the Catholic rich Filipinos of our country. They send their children to Catholic schools. These Catholic schools and colleges might perhaps help you to pay for one teacher more, just to help their ignorant brothers and sisters of Atok. You Father, you can write. Ask the Catholic schools and colleges to 86 keep together to help you. A little offering from each child would make a big sum every month, more than enough to give us one extra teacher. And then our children would study one year longer, and more of them will become Catholics". A general approval followed the impromptu speech. Sur,J:l nobody among my old friends in the audience doubted the truth of their leader. I said to myseif: shoulrl I doubt"? fa not his speech an inspiration from Provideuce"? Anyway I will try "The Little Apostle" and so it came I wrote this long letter. The next time I visit Atok I will tell my people whether they can have or not one teacher more, but of course my answer lies with ... well read once again IV hat the old man said and ... well ... make a prophet of him. Maurice De Brnbandere. Note: Father De Brabandere has just reCPived from the Cnited :;tates a i:-ift of ilC-0. Thus P200 more. and he has enoui:h to complete his chapel at Tublay. Receipts of the Propagation of Faith from different Countries in 192:! EUROPE Lira ASIA Lira Albany 75.00 Divers 45,687.90 Austria : 9,000,000 crowns AFRICA Belgium . 868,690.50 Bulgaria. 820.00 DiYers ii,632.85 Tcheco-Slovaquia 24,085.40 AMERICA Denmark 3,359.10 Canada 224,248.55 France 5,144,263.95 Mexico 282,595.iO Germany: 14,528.093 marks United States. . 10,496;766.00 Greece 810.30 Tierra del Fuego 10,670.10 England 1,663,359.40 West Indies ll,436.45 Ireland 521,268.40 Central America 47,052.75 Italy 871,178.95 Argentina 1,040,955.35 Y ougo-Sla via 580.00 Bolivia 15,231.15 Luxemburg 41,10 Brazil lll,083.85 Monaco 6,165.00 Chile. 152,654.55 Norway. 1,651.05 Colombia 24,316.10 Holland. 580,000.00 Ecuador. 274.00 Poland 9,458.45 Guiana 356.20 Portugal 8,340.70 Paraguay 2, l53.25 Russia 61.00 Peru 26,322.15 Spain. 603,08"2.45 Uruguay. 94,532.25 Sweden 137.00 Switzerland 493,667.55 AUSTRALIA Turkey 4,554.10 Divers 129,661.95 Hungary 1,500.00

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