TIDBITS: Remnants of Cebu and My Augustinian Journey

One of my dreams came true last summer, when I and Jason (Sanchez, a former brother at Dominican Laity) visited Cebu. It was not really a planned journey, and there were obstacles especially when we prepared our finances, but the last week of April came and we were able to push through with our summer getaway.

While at Cebu, we had many encounters with the revered image of Santo Niño de Cebu. Since we stayed at Patria de Cebu (the hotel in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral), we managed to wake up early in the morning, to walk towards the Basilica (which is two blocks away) and venerate the image for quite some time. We did this all throughout our stay at Cebu; we saw it as indeed a blessing since not everyone has the opportunity to visit Cebu.

Cebu has an important place in the heart of Catholic Philippines. Here, the faith started to blossom forth from the image of the Child Jesus. The Santo Niño serves as the image of the Filipino faith: young, humble, cheerful. Five hundred years have passed and the trust of the nation in God remains steadfast despite the tests of time, and the challenges of the generations.

Who may have known that after a few weeks, I would enter the Religious Order which promoted the devotion to the image for hundreds of years? From Cebu, the love for Jesus spread throughout our country and to other places through the Augustinians. And we keep it alive until the present through our continuous prayer before the sacred image of Santo Niño every Friday.

Their footsteps, we long to follow now. We don't know what lies ahead, yet we seek his face in greater strides.

ANG GULO MO NAMAN, WEWE!

So what happened to everything I left?

Simple answer: I left them behind. All of them.

I have written somewhere in this blog before that my life has been a roller coaster, being in one place now and moving on later. True enough, life has been a long journey for me so far, and with all the journeys I undertook, decisions made and everything else. But this decision - leaving everything behind for the Seminary - has been one of the biggest decisions I had undertaken, a new YES to God who never left me alone all these time.

But how about everything I had before? Ganun na lang ba lahat?

After five years of life with the Dominicans, I entered the life of the Augustinians. After four years of working as a teacher, I now try to reach my dreams as a Priest of Jesus. And these two were never easy.

It's really painful to let go. But we all know that it's all a part of the process of leaving the things you love for the greatest thing in life. I don't know what lies ahead of me. I mean it. 

You see, entering a seminary is a no-joke. You study things of higher level, you tend to live in a community of people you don't know, some won't be friends with you pa. You wake up at a uncomfortable time just to fulfill seminary schedule. We enter a new reality, far from our ideas before, from our comfort zones. In this reality, you do not depend on what you think might make you happy; you only depend on the greatest good. You search for it, not on material things, but deep inside you, in the spirit. You carefully - and sometimes, painfully - leave your old self to wear the new person.

It certainly takes time and lots of effort, but it will never be without God's help. Everything's impossible without complete trust in his Will. On this thought I depend as I embark on this journey. Yung gulong ito, magiging maayos rin sa awa ng Panginoon. God will take care of this. 

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I plan to revive Ur Dose if time allows me. I don't know how this could be but in any case, this blog would still be regularly updated. Thanks for the continual support and prayers.

OWY @ 10: THE STORY CONTINUES

Yes. It's been ten years since I first wrote my very first post on this domain. Time flies very fast. A lot of things have changed since I first did that. Aside from reminding me the reality that I'm getting old (and fatter... duhh), this blog would always take me back to those carefree days when I am free to write on anything and everything that comes out of my mind. 

I was 15 then, too young for someone to write (back then. Perhaps not now, since technology advanced that far since the very first day I wrote, and many youngsters started making their kilig novels.) Now, I'm 25, and unlike before, thoughts become too complex to be written in a simple note like this, aside from the time constraint that my job and other sorts gave me, lessening the opportunities for me to write many things in the liberty of my time.

True enough, much has changed. But the blog is still here, frequented by people from every part of the world, just to read posts related to faith and travel, whatever. I planned to have a week-long celebration of posts like what I had in 2011, but things suddenly changed, because of a big decision I made which changed my life. 

It's been a while since I responded to God's call to become his priest, and I have to admit, the journey I had after I tried (and failed) with the Rogationists in 2006 formed me made me realize that it is not easy to go away from the things I love and, eventually, that call to follow him. In the years that followed, I saw myself not drawing away from the religious life, as an altar server in our parish in Navotas, to a Mukha Ader and Dominican Lay in Santo Domingo, intertwined with the many achievements I had as an educator, photographer, and everything else.

Despite the challenges and failures I encountered along the way, God did not change, and his love remained. For this, just recently, I reconsidered the tiny whisper to follow Jesus again, and enter the religious life as an Augustinian. It was a big decision, since I need to leave everything behind, for something better than life has for me. 

Of course, like other seminarians, the first month of life "inside" is full of adjustments. That includes detachment from the life I and my other aspirant-seminarians used to have outside, and imbuing of the life we've chosen, a life of community and love, of prayer and study. And for someone active like me, who spent almost half his teenage life being aligaga, it is not easy, but certainly doable as long as we place ourselves in the hands of God, and entrust our life to the Heart of Jesus.

This is just the start of a new chapter of the story which this blog would continue to cover as long as possible. So, as I write this post on the Tenth Anniversary of this blog, I would like to ask for your prayers that we may persevere in this new journey I am about to take. Or better yet, let us pray for each other that God may always bless us every step of the way.  

YES. THE STORY CONTINUES. :)