“Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.” (Mt 10:8b) This was among the instructions that Jesus gave to his apostles, when sent them out on a mission. It is also our inspiration for the year 2021, which we declared as a “Year of Mission”, with the theme “Gifted to Give”, as we prepare to commemorate the 500th Year of the arrival of Christianity in the Philippines.
POPE FRANCIS’ MESSAGE
This could not have been expressed more beautifully than by the Holy Father himself when he addressed Filipino Catholics in Rome and around the world and said, “On this important anniversary of God’s holy people in the Philippines, I also want to urge you to persevere in the work of evangelization—not proselytism, which is something else. The Christian proclamation that you have received needs constantly to be brought to others…” He also expressed how this could be carried out more concretely by asking us, “to care for those who are hurting and living on the fringes of life.”
Reflecting on John 3:16, the Holy Father asked us to think of mission as oneness with the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ as the one who “so loves” and “gives”; and that the giving always proceeds from the loving. He therefore invites the Philippine Church to be “a Church that loves the world without judging, a Church that gives herself to the world.”
The Holy Father likewise warmed the hearts of our Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) when he said, “You received the joy of the Gospel… and this joy is evident in your people… in your eyes, on your faces, in your songs and in your prayers. In the joy with which you bring your faith to other lands.” He also humored us by referring to our OFWs as “smugglers of the faith” because, he said, “wherever they go to work, they sow the faith,” and he regards their “discreet and hardworking presence” as “a testimony of faith…through humble, hidden, courageous and persevering presence.”
For his part, our very own Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle affirmed the Holy Father’s message when he said, “We thank God for the bearers of the gift these 500 years.” Among them, he cited “the pioneering missionaries, the religious congregations, the clergy, the grandmothers and grandfathers, the mothers and fathers, the teachers, the catechists, the parishes, the schools, the hospitals, the orphanages, the farmers, the laborers, the artists, and the poor whose wealth is Jesus.”
THE BEARERS OF THE GIFT
There has never been, and will never be, a moment in Church history when the bearers of the gift entrusted to us by the Lord will not be both holy and sinful, noble and flawed, at the same time. Such was the case, for instance, with the first Christians who came to our blessed islands in 1521 and encountered our native ancestors for the first time. As in most situations in history, God did not seem to mind sowing the first seeds of the Gospel through flawed human beings like the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and the members of his crew in the 1521 expedition from Spain, who were all lay Christians, with the exception of one ordained priest in their company, Fr. Pedro de Valderrama, who was serving as their chaplain.
These men were mostly mercenaries. But they almost instantly turned into missionaries the moment they “discovered” the fertile soil of good will in the natives they had encountered in Samar, Leyte, and Cebu. They had come from distant Spain with a mandate—not to evangelize but to find an alternative route to the Moluccas. They had arrived like hapless strangers in dire need of shelter. They were sea-beaten, weary from the long and perilous journey through the South Pacific ocean, afraid of hostile natives, wary of pirates, hungry, thirsty and sick. Of the five ships that departed from Spain, only three made it; one got ship-wrecked, and one deserted them. They even had to deal with conflicts and mutinies among themselves while at sea.
THE GOLD THEY DISCOVERED
If they were in search of gold, these explorers knew they had found it, not underground or in treasure chests, but in the hearts of the nine simple fisherfolks who quickly disarmed their defensiveness with their childlike simplicity and friendliness. They were surprised by these natives who made them feel welcome, gave them food, fish, fruits and coconuts, who allowed them to pitch their tents on the island of Homonhon and later, Limasawa, helped them care for their sick, bury their dead, and worship their God.
They who thought of our ancestors as pagans, as godless people, were surprised to find God in the generous hearts of these natives, who opened their doors and treated these weary travelers with compassion. They also went out of their way to help them procure enough food provisions, to be able to reach the Moluccas and eventually return to Spain. So touched must Magellan have been by the spontaneous gestures of hospitality, friendship, and generosity that he had observed while in the company of these natives, that, from mercenary, he suddenly shifted to acting like a missionary in all his awkward and limited knowledge of the Christian faith.
THE FIRST MASS AND THE FIRST BAPTISMS
Pigafetta, the chronicler, could not contain his own emotions as he narrated how awed he was about the kindness of these gentle souls to them. He described in great detail how they had gone out of their way to build them a platform made of bamboos in Limasawa on which they could celebrate their first Mass on that Easter Sunday, March 31, 1521, and another one in Cebu when they celebrated the first Baptisms on the third Sunday of Easter, April 14, 1521. Magellan did not pressure them to do all of this at gunpoint. They did it in the plain spirit of panunuluyan, pagpapakatao, and pakikipagkapwa-tao, which are the genuine vessels of evangelization.
At the first Mass in Limasawa, Pigafetta describes how the families of Rajah Kolambu and his brother Rajah Siagu even volunteered to join them, how they too knelt at the consecration with them, how they offered them gifts of two slaughtered pigs and assisted them in planting the cross. The icon of the cross which means the whole world to us now, this symbol of God’s eternal love and the price the Son of God is willing to pay for love of humankind, this cross of our redemption, became the first Christian icon ever to be brought to the consciousness of our ancestors.
If Pigafetta had lived in our own times, he would probably be saying these natives put them to shame—they, who claimed to be Christians. They, who thought they were bringing us the Christian faith, must have felt like they had “discovered” it instead in the beautiful hearts of our ancestors, and the baptizing became practically a mere naming of what they had “discovered”—namely, God’s grace already at work in them.
So why should we be surprised about the swiftness in the process that led to the first baptisms in Cebu? The woman named Humamay, the wife of Rajah Humabon, whom they named Juana, was just acting out the childlike faith of these people when she chose the Santo Niño as gift. These natives had accepted them as friends, without malice, like little children who instinctively respond with trust, even to strangers, and express affection to them, no matter what other hidden motives they might have. And, as always, these hidden agenda eventually rear their ugly heads, since they are always Satan’s favorite strategies for “nipping in the bud” the seedlings that have sprouted from the seeds sown by God.
WEEDS AND WHEAT IN THE FIELD
As in the parable of the field planted with the good seeds of wheat (Mt 13:24-30), soon, Satan gets busy at sowing the seeds of ill will, hidden agenda, and wrong motives that have always served as a huge challenge in the work of evangelization. But the mystery of it all is that the Great Sower allows both the weeds and the wheat to grow together, and does the sifting only at harvest time.
In those 46 days (March 16 – May 1, 1521) that God got busy sowing the seeds of the Gospel on the soil of friendship and good will between Magellan’s company and the natives and their Chieftains, the devil also got busy sowing the seeds of hidden motives and political agenda that would lead to a whole string of treacherous acts on either side.
