NO, it is not as if San Pedro Calungsod
is calling a press conference to read a prepared statement. It is rather you
and I being challenged to read his statement from what words don’t provide:
namely, his acts that led him to a violent death and to a martyr’s crown. These
acts also lead us to glimpses of his character, the kind of life he represents
and the response we are asked to make.
To
me the following are among the volumes his acts speak.
What is done
for God’s Kingdom is timeless
First, we ask
the question: How come it took more than three centuries for the Church and the
world to recognize the heroism of one Filipino young man named Pedro Calungsod?
The answer is that his cause was effectively shelved when the cause of Blessed
Diego Luis de San Vitores, the Jesuit missionary priest whom he accompanied
even in death was also shelved shortly after they were violently murdered. It
is beyond us to determine what factors were behind the centuries-old delay. But
it goes without saying that being recognized by the Church on earth and the
believing world then or now matters only insofar as it helps believers and non-believers
come to know, give due honor to and emulate an authentic witness to Jesus
Christ.
It seems to me
that San Pedro Calungsod’s testimony may have greater weight now than in his
own time if only because our young today are ever constantly challenged to be
true to their Christian faith. The one truth that rings with greater clarity is
that it matters little if he or his companions were not recognized at the altar
of the Church sooner; his act of self-giving and martyrdom neither grows old
nor irrelevant. The reason is that the Kingdom of God in Jesus Christ that he
proclaimed by his life and death is timeless. Here the axiom applies: “Age
doesn’t matter because the matter doesn’t age.”
No one is too
young to be a witness to Jesus Christ
Filipino parents,
as a rule, are very protective of their children. In fact, even after marriage
many of them live close to their parents, if not in the same roof with them and
under their protective care. It is the poor who are mostly compelled to
sometimes give up family proximity, for example today, because either the
parents have to leave the country to find decent work or when able children
themselves leave home to do their own share in the family’s survival and upkeep
through a job thousands of miles away. Whether or not San Pedro came from a
poor or well-to-do family is not established; no documents are on hand to
provide that information. But it would not be surprising at all if, given the
conditions and circumstances obtaining in his time, he did not come from a family
of landowners or the moneyed elite. It would not have been easy for a Jesuit
missionary to recruit for the missions a companion from among the natives’
elite families but a lot less harder to do so from poorer families who would
have regarded it a great honor and privilege.
A willing young
man, like Pedro, not without the lure of adventure possibly also at the back of
his mind, would have likely come from such families. This consideration should
not, however, detract from the fact that San Pedro Calungsod, whatever his
social background was, proved himself a true witness to Jesus Christ in life
and especially in death. I see in this a twofold challenge for today’s Pinoys:
To the older ones among us, to not allow the opportunity of evangelizing the young
to pass us by; to the young, to never delay evangelizing because of youth.
The missionary
is a person of sacrifice
Today countless
Filipinos continue to leave the country to look for opportunities to a better
life. But at the time of San Pedro Calungsod this was not so. Leaving the
country was mostly a choice for the moneyed elite, the criminal or the
missionary among the native Filipinos. For the moneyed elite, it was mainly to
seek better European education; for the criminal, for the obvious reason of
being able to evade not only the responsibility for his actions but also a
justice system tilted against him; for the missionary, to follow a vocation, a
spiritual calling to leave everything for the sake of Jesus Christ and his
Gospel.
In a word, San
Pedro’s departure was to a life of sacrifice, not to greener pastures, except
when the greener pastures referred to the other life. For San Pedro it was not
been easy. He was young, he was a lay person who had to live like a religious
detached from everything and everyone familiar. More than this, he had to
embrace a life of uncertainty and danger, of provisions not sure of arriving
regularly, of constant prayer and self-giving, of being with people teaching,
catechizing or organizing them as Christian (Catholic) communities. San Pedro
was a sacristan; part of his work was to carry a rather heavy altar stone
everywhere Padre Diego Luis would go to, especially on extended periods where
the Eucharist would have been celebrated periodically. Yet to all this he said
yes and out of all this he even found cheer and contentment.
A lie is kin
to death
Padre Diego Luis
de San Vitores and Pedro Calungsod were killed because of a lie. It was one
whose source was a Chinese merchant, exiled from Manila for having committed a
crime. His name was Choco who spread the rumor that the water being used by the
missionaries to baptize the children of the native Guamanians was poisonous and
that this was the reason why some of them died shortly after baptism. A father
named Matapang whose child was baptized by Padre Diego, with the assistance of
Pedro, became murderously furious, as he took Choco’s lie hook, line and
sinker. He had a partner named Hirao who initially refused but later joined
Matapang after being called a coward by the latter. They killed Pedro first and
then Padre Diego Luis.
The
circumstances were uncanny. They seem reminiscent of the death and murder of
Jesus himself: of the lie authored by Jewish and Roman authorities that he was
an impostor, that he deceived people by his declaration that he is God’s Son
and by his promise of eternal life. Incidentally they also remind us of real
lies in our day and age that are just as deadly: for instance, that we can make
life better without God and without the constraints of faith’s moral values,
that promoting contraception and abortion are essential to human progress and
development, that money and winning are everything, even at the expense of
suppressing the voice of conscience and the demands of justice.
It takes courage
to proclaim Christ in a hostile environment
San Pedro
Calungsod and Blessed Padre Diego Luis de San Vitores had to face a group of
people led by Matapang and Hirao that could only be described kindly as
unfriendly. Of course, the better representatives of the Marianas’ populace
could have been more numerous; unfortunately they did not rule the day.
Historians point out that Pedro and Padre Diego could just have left the
Marianas and returned to the Philippines or proceeded to more welcoming
territories to proclaim Christ and the gospel. But they chose to stay and,
without question, to offer their lives for the sake of the mission.
Their courage
and generosity should not escape us. Courage because they did not run from
their mission even if they could; generosity
because, in choosing not to fight even in self-defense, they made themselves
ready for the ultimate sacrifice. For these reasons alone they deserve to be
recognized even as human heroes. But having taken those actions for Jesus
Christ and his kingdom especially makes them heroes of the faith.
Loyalty to
Jesus Christ means loyalty to my brother or sister in faith
From hindsight
students of San Pedro’s life and times, with ample support from historians,
point out that, being young and strong, San Pedro Calungsod could have ably
defended himself and even defeated his killers, Matapang or Hirao. He could
have easily fled to safety and Padre Diego Luis would have understood, or been
happier about, his action.
But the
unshakable point is, San Pedro chose not to. He chose to stay with Padre Diego
Luis and at some point used his own body to shield the priest. At that point
Hirao struck him on the chest and, sensing an opportunity, went to strike him
on the head as well, leading to the saint’s death. San Pedro’s action is often
extolled for its depiction of the Filipino loyalty to friends and superiors.
But in this specific case, something even higher was at stake: He was a
catechist and a sacristan standing by a spiritual friend and pastor (Padre
Diego) right to the bitter end. That is, and it is worth repeating, we see
someone dying out of a sense of loyalty to Jesus Christ; to San Pedro loyalty
to Jesus Christ and loyalty to a brother was inseparable. San Pedro Calungsod, in a word, was an icon
of the gospel.
The reality at
work always and everywhere: love of God in Christ Jesus
There is always
a veil of mystery when we are confronted with extraordinary heroism. Who would
not marvel, for example, over a twelve-year-old St. Maria Goretti being able to
resist a rapist, preferring instead to die rather than sin in his hands? Or who
would not be in awe at the ability of a St. Maximilian Kolbe to courageously
volunteer to die in place of a condemned married man and be the last to
actually expire after helping his fellow condemned prisoners to face death
under God’s grace? In the case of San Pedro Calungsod, who would not admire his
choice to ignore his own personal safety and to sacrifice a whole future to
stay and die with a friend and pastor? The event happened so fast and so was
his fateful decision. But San Pedro did not hesitate.
I submit that
this is because in all of these instances we witness the same reality at work
in diverse ways and forms—God’s love. It is this love that we see in the
most sublime way shining in Jesus Christ’s own sacrifice. And we see it
continually shining in those who, like San Pedro Calungsod, are moved by the
Spirit in certain graced circumstances, to follow Jesus Christ unhesitatingly
on life’s many pathways to Calvary and the Resurrection.
