Austin’s exodus

Simon told his friend Austin that travel on Holy Thursday from the city was challenging.

To return to their home island, Simon and his father first had to ride a cramped bus and stand in it for two hours before disembarking at a port.

There, because his father prepurchased tickets, they found comfortable space in a boat that took them to their dwelling across the strait.

That barely consoled Simon. His heart bled for the other last-minute, homebound travelers vying for a ride.

Simon’s report reminded Austin about the exodus of Moses and the Israelites: Out of Egypt, into a desert trek to a land flowing with milk and honey.

Austin lifted up a soundless prayer for the safety of wayfarers. In doing so, he gladly realized later, he was echoing a Good Friday petition of the faithful that counted journeymen among “those in special need.”

Others among the needy flashed through Austin’s thoughts as he prayed the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary that day.

* * *

Austin hit the road at quarter to seven o’clock on Holy Thursday morning, while the sun shone gently on the city. For the first time, he joined bishops and the faithful in praying the Tenebrae in the 17th-century cathedral.

The Tenebrae, a ceremony held at sunrise on Holy Week’s last three days, was named after the Latin word for shadows. It is a funeral service for Jesus Christ.

Austin found the chanting of the office of readings and morning prayer sonorous in his native tongue. It was interspersed with the quenching of 15 candles that stood on a candelabra called a hearse.

He watched as a sacristan in coffee cassock and white cowl eventually took away the last flickering candle to symbolize Christ’s death.

The acolyte later re-presented it in the sanctuary—a symbol of the risen Savior atop the hearse.

Like a novice monk amid the deserts of ancient Alexandria, Austin picked and stored in his heart one “word of life” from the bishop’s brief sermon.

The kindly prelate, recasting the message of the candle in the dark, said, “Each time you do something good, you bring hope to the world.”

* * *

With time to spare before his next Holy Thursday engagement, Austin indulged an inspiration to visit seven churches before noon. He was set to join a four-day recollection up a mountain that started after lunch, so he could not go on a nocturnal Visita Iglesia.

He went to houses of worship in honor of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, Our Mother of Perpetual Help, the Sacred Heart, Blessed Pedro Calungsod, the Holy Child, Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Nicolas de Tolentino.

These saints and titles of the Blessed Virgin and the Savior were special to Austin. The first relics he encountered belonged to the Little Flower of Lisieux. His aunt worked at a church to Our Mother of Perpetual Succour. His sister was baptized in Sacred Heart.

Austin, who wrote about Blessed Pedro, finished elementary in a school named after the Holy Child. His parents were married in a church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and he was baptized in a church of Saint Nicolas.

In the churches, Austin joined the people who prayed in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Groups of friends and families went through the Stations of the Cross. Others decorated areas surrounding special tabernacles where the Blessed Sacrament would be placed in the night. The penitent confessed their sins. Men moved sacred statues to and from processional carriages.

As he walked the empty streets or rode an occasional jeepney from church to church, Austin contemplated the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. He tried to do this daily during Lent (except on Sundays, when he prayed the Glorious Mysteries).

He reflected on the Bible verses associated with the mysteries of the Passion like Jesus Christ’s “Let not my will but yours, [Father], be done,” in his Agony at the Garden.

Aided in part by Rosary prompts compiled by Blessed John XXIII in a booklet, Austin also remembered people in need at particular decades—like those who suffer depression in the Crowning with Thorns.

After the Rosary and the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Austin continued praying with his beads the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy, seeking God’s mercy on humanity for the sake of Christ’s sorrowful Passion.

* * *

At the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, a boy of 12 with a basin of water and towel in hand approached Austin.

He proceeded to wash Austin’s feet and wiped them clean with the white towel.

The tired Austin laughed.

In his heart he heard a voice say, “Thank you for walking with me today.”

“Help me walk with You in your endless today,” Austin replied, “in your everlasting road that flows with the milk of life and honey of love.”