Evening prayer

The priest began his night journey as he always did, with a cup of coffee and a prayer. Neneng made his coffee and it was perfect as always. He took it black, without sugar. He told Neneng to go home as it was already late. As she turned to go he asked her if she could see the creature under his seat. Neneng replied as she always did reassuring him it was only a dark brown cat.

He composed his prayer all by himself addressing his God as if He were in the room with him just like the sigbin. His prayer was always a confession, a plea for forgiveness not just for sins he was aware of but also for those he might commit without knowing. Like this “dark brown cat,” which followed him everywhere he went. He knew it was central to his secret ability to go anywhere he wanted. To make this night journey to the city, all he needed to do was to close his eyes and the next thing he knew, he and his cat would be there—always, in the shadows so no one could see his arrival. And, of course, he wondered if his power was ungodly.

Yet every time he wondered this, he could not help but also wonder why he should worry. Are all things dark and shadowy also necessarily evil? Perhaps it is only a fear of the dark, a fear of all things we cannot fully understand. After all, Padre Pio was said to have the ability to be in two places at one time. Perhaps, this gift that he had was something like that, although he was certain he was no saint. But time and again, this gift had been helpful in his mission with the people.

This thought reassured him. For there had been times in the past when he came close to convincing his flock to take up arms against their enemies. This night he thanked his God he never went over that edge. Not the least because, he imagined, they would have lost anyway. He had this power at least. And he will always use it to help. And the poor had nothing, not even authentic goodwill from those those who were better off than they. All that they ever got was charity.
Even the priest was guilty of this sin once. He grew up in a gated subdivision, had gone to the best Catholic schools, got the best education from the best seminary only to find out eventually how insufficient his education had been. He had little preparation for what was out here. All that theology and science and liberal arts did not describe to him the contradictions he would encounter. He would have to learn them all by himself and few were reconcilable. They were contradictions enough to fully test his faith. In the face of so much poverty and oppression, what was the Mother Church’s answer? Charity.

He knew exactly how insufficient that was. He prayed for the Mother Church to ask itself, When was its best time in Philippine history? When was the time it was closest to the hearts of its people, not just Catholics but everyone of all persuasions? He prayed they would have the same answer as him. He prayed they would answer: The days of Edsa when Jaime Cardinal Sin called on the faithful to free themselves from tyranny and bondage. Those were the golden days of the Mother Church. Whenever he wondered about his church, whenever he seemed almost to lose faith, he always contemplated those days and his love for his church would be strengthened. He could feel hope. When he remembered those days he always wondered why he felt that way about them. He recalled those days in his head over and over again hoping to derive one more lesson, one more clue about the paradox of being a child both of Jesus Christ and Dr. Jose Rizal.

Yet a few years after the event at Edsa, the Mother Church seemed to him as if she had forgotten entirely. Or perhaps, She never realized that lesson of history narrated in very clear terms by Rizal: The church was an instrument of oppression in colonial times. It should be asked: When did the Mother Church cease to be that instrument? If we cannot clearly identify that time of transformation, then we would have to logically wonder if it still is that instrument of oppression. Yet how should the Mother Church know that is has stopped being that? For the priest the answer was simple. She can never tell unless she were perpetually engaged in actively freeing the poor and the oppressed in the country. It is Her atonement, Her forgiveness. It is how She may be reconciled with the children of Dr. Jose Rizal and Jesus Christ. Without this reconciliation, She can only continue her old colonial role.

As a Catholic he had been trained all his life to see the paramount importance of the act of reconciliation. This reconciliation was only possible if we came to atone for and to forgive our historical sins. Rizal explained what those sins were. In his heart, the priest knew exactly what he needed to do for himself. Only by freeing others can he free himself. In this he felt at one with his people. With that prayer he crossed himself and disappeared into the night.