Burial ground brings priests, nuns together

ANGELES CITY—In life and in death, they look after each other.

Priests and nuns who have died are still cared for by their colleagues through Masses, prayers and upkeep of a common burial ground at the Holy Mary Memorial Park here.

“They’re together, forever. In life and in death, we belong to one another and to the Lord. It’s an expression of solidarity and community,” said Archbishop Paciano Aniceto, head of the Archdiocese of San Fernando in Pampanga. The dioceses of Bataan, Zambales, Tarlac and Nueva Ecija belong to the archdiocese.

“We, who have served the Lord in life, should also rest together from our labor in the same resting place,” he said, further explaining why Archbishop Oscar Cruz, in his stint as head of the San Fernando archdiocese, established the “Chapel of the Resurrection for the Clergy” on a plot at the cemetery in Barangay Cutcut here.

The place keeps the remains of 46 diocesan priests, three Dominican sisters and three Benedictine nuns.

The oldest remains buried there belonged to Msgr. Felix David who, according to his epitaph, was born in 1902.

Old acacia trees surround the gated cemetery, which was completed in 1983 and under the care of the Holy Rosary Parish in the city.

Vicariates take turns in celebrating Masses there every Monday at 9 a.m., a list showed. A circular altar with a hanging wooden figure of Christ is at the center of the chapel.

From the outside, the chapel looks like a 40-foot tall pyramid. But Aniceto said this isn’t the case.

“It’s not pyramidal. It’s heavenly, celestial [to connote] resurrection. It’s pointing heavenward, like the Transfiguration of Christ,” he said of the structure.

Not all dioceses in the Philippines have cemeteries for priests and nuns, said Pampanga Auxiliary Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, who also heads the Holy Rosary Parish.

David said some priests whose remains were previously buried elsewhere and later exhumed were transferred to the cemetery.

He said Cruz “wanted a common burial site for priests, in which priests who are still alive could look after [them] and say Mass for them in the chapel long after they are forgotten by their own blood families.”

“That way, priests could also be made to feel that their brother-priests are really their immediate family,” he added.

Every year, during All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day, the place is packed with priests, nuns and relatives of the dead. They pray in the chapel or under the shades of trees, making the place look more like a quiet picnic ground than a cemetery.