I have something in my neck that I have been carrying around for quite some time but never got around to having it checked. Money always being so tight, I did not want to take away from my family what I did not have in the first place. And so I just try not to think so much about things that can only distract me from those that are truly important to me.
Then last Monday, I woke up to find my gaze transfixed on a picture of Saint John Paul II hanging from a nail on the wall, a remnant from an old calendar that Msgr. Roberto Alesna traditionally gives away every Christmas. Without meaning to, I started talking to Saint John Paul II in the silence of my thoughts. I began by telling him how I felt a real affinity for him for being the only saint who, when still alive, I have had the great privilege of having personally seen.
It was during his first visit to the Philippines in 1981 and I was just one in a huge crowd near the Mandaue-Mactan Bridge that waited for his motorcade to pass by from the Mactan airport. The glimpse I caught of him inside his pope mobile was fleeting, lasting no more than a few seconds. But the goosebumps I got from the experience stayed far longer on my skin.
Anyway, as I looked at his picture that Monday morning, I cannot help but ask the next logical thing -if he could do something for me. I reminded him of the miracle he performed on a Costa Rican woman whose brain aneurism completely vanished after praying for his intercession. I remembered the woman, since called the "living miracle," because I just saw on TV during the Holy Week a replay of his canonization. The woman was there at the rites, carrying a vial of his blood relic.
Not knowing any specific prayer for him, I ended my silent conversation with Saint John Paul II by saying the Our Father. Not really the very religious type, I naturally had lingering doubts about what might come out of our "conversation." In parting, I just asked Saint John Paul if he could give me a sign, any sign, that he would at least consider me, that everything will be all right. Then I got up, went out of the room, and as expected, quickly forgot about this little episode.
That night, however, as I was watching TV, my eldest daughter, who like most people younger than myself was engrossed on her cellphone, suddenly announced what she read in the internet -that a small vial of the blood relic of Saint John Paul II was coming to the Philippines as a donation to the Manila Cathedral. I nearly choked. I could not believe what my daughter was telling me, this stuff about Saint John Paul II, and a vial of his blood relic coming to the Philippines.
So I narrated to her what happened just that morning. My daughter, Carmel, who unlike me takes her faith very seriously, was beside herself with excitement. She began googling up Saint John Paul II to find out more about him. And what she found out really freaked me out. "Today is April 2, right?" she asked. I said yes, why? "Well, Saint John Paul II died on April 2, 2005. Today is his death anniversary," my daughter said.
I just couldn't help tears from welling up in my eyes. I don't know if this was the sign I had asked for. I don't even know if this meant Saint John Paul II would at least consider me. What it did, however, was give me the gift of belief. To believe in something is a great thing. With so many things no longer worthy of belief in this world, to be gifted with the ability to believe again can be a great source of strength and of hope. Sometimes that is all that anyone ever needs.