(Eulogy delivered by Redemptorist Brother Karl Gaspar for Fr. Amado “Picx” Picardal, on the last night of his wake on 5 June 2024 at the Redemptorist Church in Cebu City)
Maayong gabii sa tanan nga miduyog sa pamilya ni Fr. Picx ug kanamong mga Redemptorista aning among dakung kasubo sa iyang pagpanaw ug sa pag—ampo nga makapahulay na siya sa dayon diha sa sabakan sa atong Ginoo. Usa ko sa gihangyo nga mohatag og Eulohiya karon ug angay mubo ra kuno. Busa akong gisulat akong Eulohiya aron sigurado nga dili kaayo motaas, ug ako kining basahon.
I have written it in English. And even if Fr. Picx has passed away, we believe he remains present among us here at this very moment. So this Eulogy will be from a first person to a third person, namely Fr. Picx.
Fr. Amado Picx Picardal,
I’ve known you as a brother and friend since my first profession in 1987. We’ve journeyed together for 37 long years. We were together in the very first Redemptorist community I joined as a professed CSsR when I got assigned as a member of the Redemptorist Mission Team conducting a mission in San Fernando, Bukidnon and you were also part of the last community to which you belonged here at the Holy Redeemer Provincial Center. These book-ends served as the markers of our journey together as brother Redemptorists.
Through these almost four decades of a shard sojourn, we journeyed together from Bukidnon to your days spent in the Bukid of Busay. While we were in San Fernando, where you showed a strong commitment to build and strengthen Gagmayng Kristohanong Katilingban while joining the peasants’ fight for human and climate justice to end the destructive logging operations that destroyed the forests. While you were in the University of California Berkeley (where we went to watch Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables and both of us deeply touched by the parallelism between the French Revolution and our own struggles for liberation). While you were in Rome where you did your PhD studies. While you were our Dean at St. Alphonsus Theologate and I served as one of the faculty members. And while you spent the last two years with us at HRPC until the end of your life journey.
Through this shared sojourn, I have experienced up close and personal your life lived to the fullest as a Redemptorist missionary deeply committed to your consecrated vows! St. Iraneus had said that “the Glory of God is a human being fully alive! You were truly fully alive in your wish to serve God and the people, especially the most abandoned, that most certainly you are now glorified by God! And yet, as I told you once, you are a person with contradictions.
On one hand, by trying to stay fit you wanted to live a long life and yet for years you’ve had a death wish. On one hand, you are a naturally shy person, and yet you couldn’t help but get into actions that made you stand out in a crowd. On one hand you were fastidiously committed to exercising, but on the other hand you could also allow your body to balloon so that you had to go on a diet. On one hand you opted to be a religious and live in community life, but on the other hand you sought to live alone in a hermitage all by your lonesome self. On one hand, you chose to be ordained a priest and be a cleric, and yet you also championed the role of laypeople especially in a Synodal church. On one hand you graduated in the most prestigious universities in key cities of the world and yet you wear the same simple clothes for days. On one hand, you have loved passionately seeking to experience intimacy, but on the other hand you are fully committed to a life of celibacy.
But beyond these seeming contradictions, there had been no dualism in your life. You were a person of integrity, with a core of your being fully formed in a way that made you a fully integrated person! This was your gift to your family, to our brotherhood and to your friends! We thank you for this rare gift even as we thank God that at one moment, we encountered each other on the road to our ultimate destination!
You were always thankful that your parents named you AMADO, meaning BELOVED, sa ato pa, PINANGGA. Time and again you embraced that name and felt deep pride in your name’s meaning so that you entitled your memoirs as THE BELOVED. But the fact of the matter dear Picx is that you are, indeed, beloved. Pinangga ka, Amado.
Pinangga ka sa imong mga ginikanan ug mga igsoon. Pinangga ka namong imong mga igsoon sa congregasyon. Pinangga ka sa katawhan nga imong gi-alagaran. Pinangga ka sa imong mga kahigalaan, ug labina na kadtong kansang lawon nga pagmahal maoy dugang nga midasig kanimo. Ug pinangga ka sa atong mahigugmaong Ginoo nga karon midawat kanimo sa iyang sabakan.
Kitang mga Redentorista gipasaligan ni San Alfonso nga kung magmatinud-anon hangtud sa katapusang gutlo sa atong kinabuhi, nga maghulat siya sa ganghaan sa Gingharian kay lagi iyang tang koronahan.
Wala koy pagduda nga kung tinuod man kini, duna ka nay korona karon sa imong ulo. Usa ray akong pangtana – bug-at ba nang maong korona?