At last, a saint from Cebu!

Vatican has finally set the canonization of Blessed Pedro Calungsod on a specific date late this year. What a great news. At last, a saint from Cebu! Exactly 481 years from the time Magellan planted the Christian cross in this island one among its people has finally attained the highest state of holiness within the mantra of the Catholic church.

It was a long and difficult years for the country. For with the cross came sufferings – physical sufferings spawned by slavery and subjugation; spiritual sufferings brought about by greed and superficial piety. The word of God, it turned out, became the colonizer’s instrument of sadistic social control calculated to dehumanize and maim the spirit.

And yet, despite all these there were those who came to our shores with God-given drive to evangelize. Padre Diego Luis de San Vitores, a Jesuit missionary, was one of them and one of his catechists was Pedro Calungsod.

Since the Ladrones islands where Vitores and Calungsod met their martyrdom were part of the Diocese of Cebu, it was most likely that before they undertook the mission there they first worked among the ethnic tribes in the Visayas including Cebu. The enflowering of Christianity, particularly Catholism, in this part of the country can perhaps be partly attributed to Father Vitores and his team of catechists including Cebu’s forthcoming saint.

This possibility should encourage every Filipino Catholic, particularly every Cebuano, to reinvigorate his faith and to be true to the teaching and tradition of his church. To be sure, this is not easy to do in the contemporary society. Secularism propelled by the western ideas of crass materialism and relativism is on the upsurge, and one’s childhood faith is likely to be swept away unless it finds a strong anchorage in an awareness of God. Sadly however, a recent survey revealed, that many Filipino Catholic parents have embraced the use of artificial contraceptives to control birth. Certainly, this is an indication of popular disregard of Christianity’s doctrinal truths on the sanctity of human life. And those proponents of RH bill are the salient exemplars of this trend. Most of them, the lawmakers, the health workers, and even those in Malacañang and their spin doctors, are no doubt baptized Christians. But why are they championing anti-Christian ideas on family planning? Why are they encouraging abortion?

Dying for one’s faith is the message of Calungsod’s sainthood. When he ventured with Padre Vitores into that village in Guam he must have known already the danger lurking therein. Yet he disregarded fear and performed his job – teaching and baptizing the people. When one of the villagers turned violent and attacked the missionaries, young Calungsod, who was only 17, could have scampered to safety. But his loyalty to his companion priest, and surely to his faith itself, prevailed. He stayed – and a spear struck him where his heart was.

In the annals of Christianity martyrdom is not an unusual happening. Jesus himself had to undergo the most severe pain known to man in his crucifixion. And he said, “If you choose to save your life, you will lose it; and if you lose your life for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel, you will save it”.

Following these words, almost all of his twelve disciples died a martyr’s death. In fact, Peter himself was crucified upside down while the others suffered much before they gave up their ghosts. Many of the saints too shed their blood for the sake of their faith while others had to undergo torture and persecutions all in behalf of the Lord.

Thinking of this, one realizes that Christianity is not a walk in the park. Suffering is always part of the game, yet the Lord, as he promised, is never far away from the sufferer.

Now as the country starts to feel euphoric over the coming sainthood of Blessed Pedro Calungsod, we should ask ourselves, what kind of Christians are we?