“It is important to have an adult itinerary of faith, so that believers, with the grace of God, step by step, find that path of salvation, where one can proclaim with joy, even amid all trials, ‘The Redeemer lives!’”
I write this column not to praise a man but to give witness to the truthfulness of St. Teresa of Avila’s words: “God writes straight with crooked lines.”
Gilbert Son, as he himself said, was a most unlikely candidate to be called by God. But by his exemplary life, Gilbert might as well be speaking when St. Paul said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
Gilbert did not only keep the Catholic faith. He proclaimed it to thousands and nurtured dozens of communities in that faith.
It is important to have an adult itinerary of faith, so that believers, with the grace of God, step by step, find that path of salvation, where one can proclaim with joy, even amid all trials, “The Redeemer lives!”
One such itinerary is that of the Neo-catechumenal Way, an itinerary of Christian formation within the Catholic Church that was begun in the Palomeras slums of Madrid, Spain in 1962 by its co-initiators Kiko Arguello and Carmen Hernandez, who was later joined by Fr. Mario Pezzi.
Carmen died on July 19, 2016 in Madrid at age 85, and recently the cause of her beatification and canonization was opened.
From Rome, since 1968, and from where there are Neocatechumenal communities, thousands of lay missionaries, priests, and families would be sent to evangelize throughout the world.
The first parish that accepted the way in the Philippines was the Jesuit parish of Mary the Queen in Greenhills, San Juan. It was a Jesuit, Fr. Juan Andechaga S.J, who opened and accepted The Way, an association of Christian faithful within the Catholic Church.
Later on, Fr. Andechaga would himself become an itinerant priest catechizing communities in the Visayas.
My wife and I walked in the second community of Mary the Queen and this was where we first met Gilbert, who was the Responsible, with his wife Donna, of the First Community of that Parish.
Gilbert, who succumbed to cardiac arrest last July 23, graduated Valedictorian from Xavier School and Management Engineering from Ateneo de Manila University. He could have been anything and could have accumulated money and power. But Gilbert experienced the love of God and his life changed.
Gilbert loved our Lord Jesus Christ with all his heart, mind, body, and soul. And he loved the Catholic Church and said yes to the mission entrusted to him through the Neocatechumenal Way.
In an autobiographical essay published by his alma mater, one is truly amazed by how God used this humble man as instrument to draw people closer to Him.
Gilbert came from well-to-do Filipino Chinese family. He could have chosen to follow in his father’s footsteps as a successful businessman but God had other plans.
Gilbert’s father died when he was still in college. Being the eldest, the responsibility to earn a living to support his mother and siblings fell on his shoulders.
In moments of despair and weakness with the passing of his father and the weight of responsibilities, he began to question God . . . until one day Fr. Andechaga invited him to join The Way.
Being young and ambitious, Gilbert said he “loved the nightlife.”
He put off the invitation to join The Way for years but eventually decided to join The Way and became himself a catechist with his wife Donna.
Their team would evangelize in Metro Manila, Cavite, and Batangas. His mission brought him to different parts of the country including Dagami, Leyte in 2013, after Typhoon Yolanda devastated the region and the Lumad of Bukidnon in 2016, among other places.
Last July 31, 2022, in the mass celebrating the feast of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the homilist Fr. Daniel Huang SJ, who is based in Rome, challenged the faithful to become missionaries of hope.
Quoting a Dominican author, he described hope as not optimism but courage – to face harsh reality but also to believe in a God that promises not quick fixes but faithful presence, a God of surprises who in raising Jesus from the dead shows us He is greater than our possibilities and imagination.
Hope is the courage to continue loving and serving; love alone is eternal, according to Fr. Danny, and no single act of love is ever wasted or fruitless.
I cried listening to the homily of Fr Danny, inspired by it to hope even in this very challenging world we live in. I cried also because I know one messenger of hope—Gilbert Son, my brother in the Neocatechumenal Way.
I thank Gilbert and his family—Donna, Andrew, and Genevieve, his in-laws and extended family.
I have observed them through the years; clearly they manifest the Holy Family of Nazareth, living in humility, simplicity, and praise, a witness of faith to all of us whose lives they touched.
We will miss Gilbert terribly but we will see his family among us and will continue to be graced by their presence. Every Easter, we will definitely feel Gilbert’s presence not as a memory but as a sign.
Gilbert Son was laid to rest last Thursday, after a funeral mass presided over by Mary the Queen parish priest Fr. Guy Guibelonde SJ. How appropriate our recessional song in that mass: “Take me to heaven, take me to heaven. Oh Lord! Because to die is certainly better, to stay with you, to be with you.”
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