President Aquino was president in 1991 when I arrived to answer my calling to serve God’s people in the Philippines.
I first heard of her during the time of the assassination of her husband, Ninoy (to eliminate a strong threat to the Marcos dictatorship), and then I heard more when she led the EDSA revolution which ended the Marcos dictatorship. I remember watching that whole saga of a people on television in a far away land, never dreaming that I would be called to that very land as later.
I remember being in the crowd of hundreds of thousands several times when she attended events at the Quirino Grandstand.
My fondest memories of President Aquino were from my several visits to Malacañang while she was president, and she graciously entered into prayer with the prayer group I was a member of, and I will never forget her kneeling down and allowing us to pray over her and some of her cabinet members.
Then her death from colon cancer brought back memories of my colon cancer in 1993 a year after she humbly stepped down from the presidency and turned over the office to President Fidel Ramos. (Anther president I first met in church and got his autograph, and then met many times while he was president).
It reminded me that I have been a colon cancer survivor, by the grace of God, for 16 years. I know full well that cancer can return at any time. I have been reluctant to make the expenditure needed for a proper colon exam. Now I know that it requires anesthesia from the drug that they used to kill Michael Jackson. Pray for God’s will.
It reminded me that life is short and death is sure and the hour of death remains obscure. Cory was 76. God has given me 80 years and allowed me to continue serving the people who are often denied church services.
I was brought to tears as I heard speaker after speaker describe the virtues of Tita Cory, so loved, trusted, and admired by the people of the country she restored freedom to. Lord, I prayed, that I may learn from her example.
It reminded me that, I must continue to persevere in my mission to bring to our people freedom from moral slavery, that I must display the integrity and moral courage that will be an example to our people to recognize the truth of God’s unconditional love and turn to Jesus; turn away from anything that would separate them from God’s love and living in friendship with God and with each other.
I was reminded again of that prayer we prayed in the seminary when I was 13 years old, “A soul you have and only one; if that be lost all hope is gone; waste not your time while time shall last, for after death tis ever past.” At 13, death seemed so far away. At 80 it does not seem so elusive. But the same axiom urges me on: waste not your time.
The work must go on. I thank God for the great grace, the great gift of my calling, the privilege to announce the unfailing love of our God through the Son Jesus Christ, our Friend.
After 18 years in the Philippines, I had an opportunity to speak at the end of June for the MCC Baguio Gay and Lesbian Pride Mass. In my pride, a significant thing for me was that MCC Baguio is the third MCC in the Philippines to bring the message of God’s unconditional love to the Filipino LGBT people since I founded the first church on September 7, 1991 while Tita Cory was still president.
From left to right: Art Ventayen (MCC Manila), myself, Myke Sotero (MCC Baguio), and CJ Agbayani (MCC Quezon City)
Another point of pride for me was that all three pastors of the three MCC churches in the Philippines concelebrated the Pride Mass at which I brought the message (which was published here last month).
Another point of pride for me was that each of these three pastors has been in one way or another a protégé of mine over the years I have been here. After I published the previous blog, I received a photo of myself with the three pastors. I am posting that photo here.
From St. Aelred we learn that if God is Love, God is Friendship.
Thankful to Be a Priest
Father Richard R. Mickley, O.S.Ae., Ph.D., abbot of the St. Aelred Friendship Society, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of One Spirit. (Written in 2008)
Leaning on the threshold of my 80th birthday, I have been thinking of the things I am thankful for. Among many persons and things I am thankful for, I am thankful to be a priest in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church of Jesus Christ.
By the time I was 10 years old, I was sure God was calling me to be a priest. And by the grace of God, there was a sign. I wanted very much to be an altar boy, but in those days altar boys had to memorize a long list of Latin prayers. Memorizing was always a problem for me — and now in Latin! (Years later I became a Latin teacher, but at the age of 10, it was indeed a challenge.)
With the grace of God and the patience of the senior altar boy, who was assigned to teach me, Stewart Sidell (later Dr. Stewart Sidell, M.D.), I learned all those Latin prayers by heart — and we weren’t allowed to use cue cards. When the priest said in Latin, “I will go unto the altar of God,” it was my cue to respond in Latin, “Ad Deum Qui laetificat juventutem meam…to God who gives joy to my youth….”
I felt that joy then, and really forever after as God led me, guided me, directed me through a long, sometimes circuitous, sometimes road-blocked path to the day when I would say officially, “I go unto the altar of God…”
I praise and thank God for the calling and the joy of sharing in the priesthood of Jesus Christ. What an awesome responsibility — to have the children of God turn to one, not only for God’s blessing, but for guidance on the path to union with God.
The privilege of standing at the altar and praying those words Jesus chose to make it possible for the priest to bring the very presence of Jesus on the altar and to be united with his friends. That privilege alone makes the priesthood an unbounded gift of God. Each of the thousands of times I have stood at the altar and prayed those words of Jesus, “This is My Body,” I have been filled with awe by the power of God acting through me.
And what a joy to officiate as a priest at Baptism, and to give assurance to God’s children that God forgives them when they confess their failings to God, and to bring the message of God’s unconditional love to all God’s people with no exceptions, and to be the one who anoints the hand and holds the hand of one who is about to depart this world and live forever in the eternal embrace of God’s friendship. And, yes, for me to experience over and over the joy of proclaiming God’s blessing for those who come together in love for a wedded and holy union. And the great privilege of passing on the holy priesthood in apostolic succession to God’s chosen priests.
Late in life, through the trust and kindness of Bishop James Burch, I was honored with the fullness of the priesthood by ordination with apostolic succession as a bishop in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church of Jesus Christ, and grateful as I am for that opportunity to serve God’s people, no privilege will ever surpass the privilege of offering one Mass as a priest of God.
Even as I strive conscientiously to assume the very personality of the ever-loving, ever-giving Jesus Christ whom I serve, I can never be sufficiently thankful for the most sacred trust and privilege and responsibility of being “another Christ.” To God I commend all those men, women, children, gay, lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual down through the years whom God has given me the privilege of serving in some way for well over a half a century.
Thanks be to God.
Another point of pride for me was that each of these three pastors has been in one way or another a protégé of mine over the years I have been here. After I published the previous blog, I received a photo of myself with the three pastors. I am posting that photo here.
From St. Aelred we learn that if God is Love, God is Friendship.
Thankful to Be a Priest
Father Richard R. Mickley, O.S.Ae., Ph.D., abbot of the St. Aelred Friendship Society, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of One Spirit. (Written in 2008)
Leaning on the threshold of my 80th birthday, I have been thinking of the things I am thankful for. Among many persons and things I am thankful for, I am thankful to be a priest in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church of Jesus Christ.
By the time I was 10 years old, I was sure God was calling me to be a priest. And by the grace of God, there was a sign. I wanted very much to be an altar boy, but in those days altar boys had to memorize a long list of Latin prayers. Memorizing was always a problem for me — and now in Latin! (Years later I became a Latin teacher, but at the age of 10, it was indeed a challenge.)
With the grace of God and the patience of the senior altar boy, who was assigned to teach me, Stewart Sidell (later Dr. Stewart Sidell, M.D.), I learned all those Latin prayers by heart — and we weren’t allowed to use cue cards. When the priest said in Latin, “I will go unto the altar of God,” it was my cue to respond in Latin, “Ad Deum Qui laetificat juventutem meam…to God who gives joy to my youth….”
I felt that joy then, and really forever after as God led me, guided me, directed me through a long, sometimes circuitous, sometimes road-blocked path to the day when I would say officially, “I go unto the altar of God…”
I praise and thank God for the calling and the joy of sharing in the priesthood of Jesus Christ. What an awesome responsibility — to have the children of God turn to one, not only for God’s blessing, but for guidance on the path to union with God.
The privilege of standing at the altar and praying those words Jesus chose to make it possible for the priest to bring the very presence of Jesus on the altar and to be united with his friends. That privilege alone makes the priesthood an unbounded gift of God. Each of the thousands of times I have stood at the altar and prayed those words of Jesus, “This is My Body,” I have been filled with awe by the power of God acting through me.
And what a joy to officiate as a priest at Baptism, and to give assurance to God’s children that God forgives them when they confess their failings to God, and to bring the message of God’s unconditional love to all God’s people with no exceptions, and to be the one who anoints the hand and holds the hand of one who is about to depart this world and live forever in the eternal embrace of God’s friendship. And, yes, for me to experience over and over the joy of proclaiming God’s blessing for those who come together in love for a wedded and holy union. And the great privilege of passing on the holy priesthood in apostolic succession to God’s chosen priests.
Late in life, through the trust and kindness of Bishop James Burch, I was honored with the fullness of the priesthood by ordination with apostolic succession as a bishop in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church of Jesus Christ, and grateful as I am for that opportunity to serve God’s people, no privilege will ever surpass the privilege of offering one Mass as a priest of God.
Even as I strive conscientiously to assume the very personality of the ever-loving, ever-giving Jesus Christ whom I serve, I can never be sufficiently thankful for the most sacred trust and privilege and responsibility of being “another Christ.” To God I commend all those men, women, children, gay, lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual down through the years whom God has given me the privilege of serving in some way for well over a half a century.
Thanks be to God.
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