DINAGAT DIARY: Postscript: Back to my Jack

January 9, 2022

It was late in the afternoon already when I left the Missionary Sisters of Mary (MSM)  convent in Butuan City. I had a restful sleep during the night and a long breakfast in the morning with the sisters, this time without their headdress.

They were my companions in Dinagat Islands for the last four days. We talked a lot about anything under the sun but whenever we go back to our experience in Dinagat, everyone is in high spirits as if it was a mystical experience.

I took time a bit later to buy some things for my travel back to my parish: packets of unconsecrated hosts and one sack of dog food, a present to my lab pet, Jack.

Dinagat experience was tiresome but fun. Our whole number of participants reached around 150 pax composed of Bishop and the clergy, nuns from different congregations, seminarians, volunteer laborers, carpenters and youth, medical practitioners, drivers and the food com.

The first to leave was the group of Bishop, then my companions in the Ro-Ro ship. Fr. Richard, my buddy-driver, joined Bishop’s group for he had a wedding to officiate the following day. Some were left behind to finish the loading and hopefully the distribution.

Upon docking at the Surigao Port, I was left with two sisters on our way to Butuan City. Yesterday on my way home, I was all alone already. I can’t deny I was nostalgic. Bishop Raul Dael used to say that “suffering would bring us closer together.” And exactly that’s what I felt then, the people that I encountered there became my new family.

When I was a young priest, I struggled to belong to the clergy or any community of my assignment. Without doubt, this day, I feel that I have a family, a family of God in the Church. I look forward even to go back to Cagdianao on their fiesta celebration because they now occupy a sacred space in my heart. Yes I was alone but never lonely. I got this “high” that I was never sleepy during the whole duration of the driving.

It was already dusk when I arrived in my parish assignment but using the parable of the Bishop, “the light has come already on those who recognized that the people they met are their brothers and sisters.”

Here in the quasi-parish, there is another group of people whom I’m serving. They are another challenge for me but Dinagat has enlarged my heart that it became ready to accommodate more. My experience has taught me that where there is greater pain, suffering or violence, there is the opportunity to love radically. I have risked my life loving the Lumads and I will continue to do so. But here is another call to love extraordinarily in the ordinariness of my ministry.

Finally in the morning, I celebrated mass again among the people who supported me on my journey to the Dinagat Islands. It was Sunday when I left last week and here I am again. I can almost overhear my Bishop who used to say, “everything flows from worship.”  Liturgy is the “source and summit” of our lives.

I would use the same cassock I wore in Dinagat. At the end of the mass, I read the letter of a parishioner in San Jose, Dinagat, who received help from the parish. I could not help crying while reading it. Everyone in the church cried too.

In this celebration of the Baptism of the Lord, we recognized that we truly became one family of God. We feel each other’s suffering and we support each other’s need. In my life as a priest, I have never done this, embarrassed in my feigned macho image but I cried not for the loss but for the joy of seeing the incarnated Christ among the people I am serving.

Finally, after the mass and before going to other masses in other barrios, I allowed Jack to come to me. He was hesitant at first but a little bit later he was lying over my feet already at breakfast. Jack is my only companion in the rectory. I gave him the treat he usually munches over in my absence.

Going back to the barrios has become more meaningful for me. In this journey, God finds ways to let His work be done amidst my own weaknesses and limitations.

As St. Augustine would say, “cor unum et anima una” – (one heart and one mind directed to God). May the Lord continue to direct my heart to Him and His people.

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews Fr. Raymond Montero Ambray heads the Ecology Desk of the Diocese of Tandag. He is a graduate of MA Anthropology at the Ateneo de Davao University, a member of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines and a founding member of Caraga Watch, an environmental watchdog. He is part of the think tank of the Bishop of Tandag on IP Apostolate, formation on Environment and the Historical Commission. This diary was first published on his FB page. MindaNews was granted permission to publish this)