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Philippines
Friday, March 29, 2024

A homily

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I delivered this homily at the Mass that the Graduate School of Law of San Beda College celebrated last Saturday, January 31, at the Abbey Church:

To be Church is to be community, and to be a community we must bear each other’s burdens, comfort each other in sorrow and be a solace to one another.  That is the reason for our Eucharistic Celebration this afternoon. This may be a small assembly, and none may even take notice of it.  And that is exactly where its promise lies for God assures us of our prayers especially when no fanfare attends our piety and our supplication.

Forty-four men lost their lives in a terrible tragedy, and a Catholic college like San Beda College cannot consign this national pain to the brevity of human memory and recollection, for while there is wide-spread weeping now, we know that tears dry all too quickly and soon the national attention is diverted to other scandals of which this blighted nation never seems to be lacking.

The survivor of this bloody slaughter was a former seminarian, my student at San Pablo Seminary.  I have not been able to talk to him since, but I listened to his ANC interview.  Only a hopelessly callous person will not be moved by his narration of the final moments of his comrades.  Some of them asked him to convey to their loved ones their final messages.  One asked him to assist him with accessing the pictures stored in his cell-phone so that as his eyes closed in death, they would be gazing for one last time on his loved ones.  The story of his escape is also a story of the gallantry of a comrade.  His fellow-soldier knew that the injury he had sustained was mortal, and so he urged my former student: Run, and I will take fire for you to divert their attention from you.  And as this gallant policeman stood, he was fired on, but he advanced towards his assailant so that his comrade could make his escape.  A second volley of fire finally felled him, but my former student was then on the road to safety.

It is even more painful when we hear government blame them for their deaths by claiming that they should have coordinated with the MILF, for aside from having received the deadly attacks of foes, they must also accept the blame for what has been infelicitously called a ‘mis-encounter’.

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It is better to trust in the Lord than to trust in princes.  This is the wisdom of Scripture—and it is our comfort now.  We turn to the Lord, and though what we do for them may never be known to their relatives, our prayers are nonetheless sincere, earnest and ardent.  Grant them Lord the rest that they wanted our country to enjoy by their service.  Comfort their families with the assurance that those who mourn, you call blessed.  When all comfort and solace that the world can give fail, show those who suffer now in the depths of their grief your Face, O Lord.

While now the colors dip and the drums roll and the bugle sounds its mournful tune to honor the fallen, grant them, Loving Father, what they may never have received on earth, but what they now so richly deserve—the applause not of earth that so soon fades from fleeting memory, but the applause of heaven that is as eternal as You are Eternal.  No plaque of merit nor citation of empty and belated laudation will fill the void in the hearts of those they have left behind, but let them hear the words that you alone, Sovereign Judge, can utter: “Well done, good and faithful servants.  Enter into your Master’s Rest.”  And grant us all the holy comfort that no matter the thoughtlessness and callousness of those who now rule us, your Kingdom bestows what no eye has seen, no ear has heard on those who love and serve you.

 

rannie_aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph

rannie_aquino@csu.edu.ph

rannie_aquino@yahoo.com

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