Rev. Romuald P. Zantua - 60! Random Lessons I Learned After 60

Copyright Fr. Romuald P. Zantua, D. S. 2008

First published in print by Zipress Publications 2008

Cover design by Ma. Veronica A. Lalata

Illustrations by Ma. Veronica A. Lalata and Nhong Arellano

ePub design and production by Flipside team

eISBN 978-971-9922-21-6

This e-book edition published 2011

by Flipside Digital Content Company, Inc.

Quezon City, Philippines

www.flipsidecontent.com

A NOTE TO THE READER

What is most personal and unique to us can also be the most common and universal to all.

May you find in these random lessons something you can relate to as we travel along the same journey in life.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to two retired bishops of the Philippines

Bishop Benjamin J. Almoneda,
Bishop Emeritus of Daet,
and
Bishop Jose C. Sorra,
Bishop Emeritus of Legazpi.

From them I have learned priestly humility and victimhood.

On Gifts, Time, and Being Filled with God

(Its) not only the ideal traveling souvenir after a trip, but also the best farewell gift...

The Ideal Traveling Souvenir

I f you happen to be a father of a community of about 30, what do you give them when you come home from a trip abroad, especially when, before you left, you heard this phrase, Please dont forget the souvenir, father? One answer is do not give anyone anything at all. Just give some valid excuse like you had no time to buy anything, or that you forgot, or to be honest, you were traveling on a shoe-string budget. But these are awful excuses!

I have seen many people in former trips, mostly fellow members of a pilgrimage group, whose foremost and most consuming thought during their entire trip was what souvenir to bring as gifts. They totally ignored the beauty and history of the places they or others paid so much to visit, but instead allowed themselves to be so obsessed by this one single thought buttressed constantly by the commercials slipping into their subliminal, and fed by their fellow pilgrims similarly obsessed, as though by a collective hypnosis. They spent 90% of their traveling time scouting for souvenirs in tourist and bargain shops, packing and repacking gifts for hours.

Being a Filipino by blood, I, too, sad to say, am infected, like original sin, by our common nature as gift-givers. But unlike the Trojans of old, I carefully choose only small gifts that can bring great joy to the child in every adult, as well as fit into my small suitcase and my small budget. So, when the critical problem of what to bring loomed on me just two days before I returned home, I sat down, carefully made a list of traveling souvenir recipients and without waiting for the sanction of the UN Logistical Council, I declared war on this consumerist enemy what to buy. Armed with my vow of poverty and the small royalty income I providentially still receive from a book I co-wrote 16 years ago, I went about my deliberate and well-planned attack.

After spending two hours checking the ridiculous prices of items like traditional key-chains, predictable chocolate bars and unimaginative mugs, I finally surrendered to a higher light. I remembered Pope John Paul II giving one beautiful gift to bishops on their Ad Limina Visits the Rosary.

Yes, the Rosary is the perfect prayer and the perfect gift! This I finally learned after several trips abroad especially during my last trip two years ago at the age of 62. Since the gift-shops I was in did not carry this most beautiful gift, I decided therefore to go home to my native place, a country once saved from foreign invasion by the Rosary, a land delivered from a bloody revolution by rosary-praying multitudes, a land beloved by the Mother of God. Here in the Philippines I obtained this handmade item. This valuable lesson I learned on what to bring home I heartily recommend to all travelers. Save your dollars. Help our local economy. Help those who make them. Buy rosaries and give them as gifts for any occasion. And most of all, pray the Rosary for global peace.

The rosary has many uses. Some hang them around the inside mirror of their cars. Others put them around their necks. I remember giving one to a 20-year old man whose story I can never forget. His real name was Antonio, an orphan and mentally retarded. His aunt, a church worker, asked me to prepare him for confirmation and, maybe, for first communion. Not knowing where to begin I decided to simply explain the meaning of the rosary beads which I brought out from my pocket during our first session in my office and placed on top of my desk. I used it as a catechetical visual aid. He was most curious about the small crucifix on it, and compared it with the large one hanging on my office wall. I spent the first session explaining to him the story of Jesus, starting with the joyful mysteries and ending with the glorious mysteries. He seemed to have understood everything, with the simplicity of a child. When he left I gave him my rosary which he proudly hung around his neck, promising to come back the following week.

When Antonio did not show up the following week, I went to his house to find out why. Antonios aunt told me that he was being detained in jail awaiting trial for murder. When I saw him there he was still wearing the rosary around his neck. Then and there I taught him how to use it. I believed him when he told me that he did not kill anybody. Publicly known as mentally retarded, he could easily have been used as a fall guy or a scapegoat. I suspected that somebody had planted the murder weapon among his things. I also naively thought that the area for visitors was private enough, and quietly told him that I would get him some legal help, and be back the next day. Most likely he was a victim of a frame-up. Before I left I asked him if he needed anything. He only asked for cigarettes. The next day I brought him his cigarettes and added a bar of soap, toothpaste, toothbrush and a small towel. But to my surprise I was told that Antonio was no longer there. He was killed in jail that night I visited him.

There was no investigation made. He had no lawyer, and he was poor. The crime of murder he was charged with was immediately closed. The dead are silent. But I will never forget Antonios face and how it glowed during our first session when I explained to him that Jesus, though innocent, died for love of us. He probably could not have memorized the Lords Prayer or the Hail Mary. But Im sure Mary, his mother, was with him, especially at the hour of his death. He was buried with the rosary I gave him.

The simple lesson I learned in my old age is that the rosary is not just an ideal traveling souvenir after a trip, but also the best farewell gift to a man making a first and a last time trip back home to his Father in heaven.

...The hearts vigor and capacity are measured by the length of time and effort in physical activity before one gives up...so also the wholeness and integrity of the inner self...

The Test of Time - The Test of the Heart

F our years before I turned 60, I was invited to go to Rome to give a spiritual retreat to two persons connected with the Philippine Embassy in Italy. But an emergency heart surgery for one of them made it into a one-on-one individual retreat. The place was the convent of the Rosminian Sisters, a healthy walk from the Collegio Filippino in Via Aurelia (because there was no room for us there at that time). After the retreat, I decided to visit the Vatican, and in the afternoon I planned to attend an anticipated Mass at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, because I was going back to the Philippines early the next day.