Angelo
Giuseppe Roncalli or John XXIII was the Pope when I was born and on October 27,
celebration of the Divine Mercy Sunday, together with John Paul II, he will be
canonized saint by Francis I. By the way, John XXIII, John Paul II and Francis
I, all three of them became Time’s Magazines Persons of the Year. John XXIII was
featured in January 4, 1963, just 9 days away before my first birthday, but
before that, on January 3 1962, barely 20 days before I was born, Blessed John
XXIII ex-communicated Cuba’s Fidel Castro. John XXIII died June 3, 1963 due to
stomach cancer one year and five months after I gave my first baby cry inside a
house near the Pandurucan River. Pope John XXIII is best known for convening
the second ecumenical council at the Vatican, known as Vatican II.
Once
in my life I also dreamed of becoming priest. I passed the entrance examination
and been qualified in a certain seminary so my father and I went to Manila to
enroll me only to find out that we have no enough money to cover the expenses such
as school fees and board and lodging. I went back to San Jose aboard the Occidental Liner full of childish frustration. But later I realized that the priestly vocation
is not really for me. I became a vagabond and a truant, lazy college student
until I finally quit schooling. A became a bum and a street gang member. After 5
years or so, I moved to another school and decided to be more serious with my
studies. Right after I finished my tertiary education at Occidental Mindoro
National College (OMNC) in 1989, I joined a human rights NGO based in Laguna established
by activist nuns and priests and was initially tasked to initiate things
related to world peace and nuclear disarmament particularly the campaign
against the US Military Bases in the Philippines.
Well,
Blessed John XXIII, according to reports, made an unusual foray into
contemporary politics during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. With the United
States and the Soviet Union was on the brink of nuclear war, John had an
impassioned plea over the Vatican Radio: "We
beg all rulers not to be deaf to the cry of humanity." The Pope is a peace
advocate par excellence.
John
XXIII and John Paull II will be canonized on Sunday. The two soon-to-be saints
have certain things in common. They both traveled freely across the oceans
breaking a century-old tradition at the Vatican. They were both active in world
affairs and as I have told you a while ago, they both became beacons and voices
of restraint and reconciliation during the cold war and they both build bridges
to other religions, among other things.
It
is said that Roncalli was always present and accessible to his people and he's a very cheerful man. When a reporter asked how many people worked at the Vatican, he
replied, “Oh, no more than half of them.”
But when I was a kid, I once mistaken him, from a magazine picture, for my
favorite actor Telly Savalas AKA Kojak! Seriously, he chose the name John, by
the way, after John the Baptist and because it was his father’s name.
As
I age, the fire of aggressiveness, radicalism and militancy inside me have dwindled
a little bit but I assure you that the fire within will not lost its flame unlike
my childhood dream of becoming a priest. I look at things from both sides now,
to paraphrase the lyric of that hit song of the 60's. I am trying to be level-headed
in everything and be more objective in my views and opinions. Starting Sunday, John XXIII would be my personal patron saint as a blogger for he has
virtues and qualities that I admire and wish to develop for the rest/best of my
life.
And these words from him would be my guiding principle as a
social communicator: "See everything; overlook a great deal;
correct a little.”….
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(Photo: hicatholicmom.com)
