... from Fr. Alberic's office

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October 1-7, 2005 Fr. Fabian's Illness. Our brothers who are helping our Trappistine sisters in General Santos city informed us of the critical situation of Fr. Fabian the sister's chaplain. He is one of the founders of our community. Last month he had series of minor strokes & seizures that brought him to be fastened to bed half paralyzed. Believing that I might not be able to see him before he dies, I decided to go there on my way to Rome for the General Chapter of our Order.

Fr. Fabian doesn't eat anymore and refuses to have dextrose attach to him. Fortunately, Sr. Franka the infimarian, was able to convince him of the necessity of attaching dextrose in his vein. I was so touched by the tears of Fr. Fabian expressing his gratitude that I came. Fr. Fabian can still speak but it took him several minutes to finish a sentence. We spent one morning together and had concelebrated mass in his room with Fr. Bruno. During mass Fr. Fabian had another seizure which lasted for several minutes.

October 8, 2005 Departure for Rome. I left General Santos that morning for Manila. Since my flight to Rome was still in the evening, I spent most of my time at the airport's chapel and heard mass for the second time.

October 11-31, 2005 General Chapter of the Monks and Nuns of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Obsservance. Following the immemorial tradition of the Church, the General Chapter was opened with a Mass of the Holy Spirit to invoke His guidance in all the capitulants' deliberation. In his opening homily, our Abbot General said: "The Good News of the Lord that we have just herd is neither fortuitous nor coincidental. Rather, it is the fruit of Divine Providence, which makes use of human means to come to our help.

There were 96 superiors of the monks and 70 superiors of the nuns from the five continents, out of which 50 are new superiors who attended for the first time this General Chapter. All in all, there were more than 220, including the delegates for each region, interpreters, secretaries, translators, councilors of the Abbot General, and invited guests. For first timers, like me, this meeting is undoubtedly rich in its diversity and gratifying in its unity. Respectful silence, gentle demeanor, & gracious smile often fill up the limited language skills for some us which restrict our desire to engage in conversation with other nationalities. Others who are gifted with languages are like butterflies that are at ease with different kinds of people. This is apparent in the break time where they have the chance batting the breeze.

On the first several days report of each house occupies much attention in the plenary session. Later on, each house was studied by a Commission composed of 12 to 13 superiors both monks and nuns. There were 15 Commissions, 5 of which are English speaking regions, 6 French speaking regions, 3 Spanish speaking regions, 1 Dutch speaking region. There were 3 official languages, namely: English, French, and Spanish. Each Commission studied about 12 houses both monks & nuns. When this Commission studies a house, the superior of the house studied will be interviewed by all the members of this Commission. The thrust of this interview is more pastoral geared to help the superior and his community by offering concrete steps to deal with some issues the house is facing.

There were 3 procedures for moving the agenda of the Chapter. 1st, extraordinary procedure in which a question was studied by all the Commissions. 2nd, ordinary procedure in which a question was studied by two Commissions, and 3rd, simplified procedure in which the points are immediately put to vote without preliminary study in the Commissions and without debate in the plenary session. Several topics were treated in the plenary session such as: Monastic Solitude, The Difficulty of Finding Superiors, & Superiors who are Not Priests. There were lively debates in the plenary assembly, especially on the question of "Superiors who are not Priests." Although the General Chapter of 1977 voted (48-Yes; 24-No) on the 'possibility' of non-priest superiors in the future, but until now there seem to be a strong reservation on the part of some superiors to have lay superiors. By way of exemption, the Holy See has allowed some lay superiors in recent years. Almost all the votes were done by using a handset which made me feel like a scientist waiting for the final countdown of a space ship launce into the sky where the capitulants will just press the number which corresponds to Yes, No, & Abstain. Within 5 minutes the result was already displayed on the screen.

October 17, 2005 Bishop Rodé, Prefect o the Congregation for Institute of Consecrated Life, came to Assisi as the Pope's representative. We have our mass at St. Mary of the Angels. In his homily Bishop Rodé said: "Your vocation is holiness, the lively affirmation of the primacy of God and the transcendent destiny of the human person. The search for the Absolute, the passionate longing toward sanctity, the desire to live a life in conformity to the Gospel - this is your essential task, the effort to pursue this day after day without respite. This is the core, the essence of the consecrated life, of your vocation. This witness to the primacy of the spiritual, you bear it at a time when people are losing their way and men and women seem disoriented and uncertain. Pope John Paul II spoke of Europe as a 'silent apostasy.' The most remarkable fact today is no longer an aggressive negation of God, militant atheism, but rather apathy, indifference, the blasé acceptance of a pagan mentality and life style, enclosing oneself with purely earthly horizons. On the other hand, thanks be to God, there is also a new spiritual restlessness, a passionate search for meaning, the will to leave this 'materialistic prison' (Paul Clauded), the aspiration toward true freedom and joy. In this situation of waiting for a new holy creation, a new Christian presence is emerging. The condition of this new presence is the interior renewal of the Church and first in this renewal are religious men and women. We must recover our spiritual strength with a more firm rootedness in Christ and revive the sense of responsibility for being witnesses and bearers of his word forever new. In short, to aspire ardently to holiness. Holiness is to give oneself to God without reserve. It is to die to self every day to be reborn with more life and richness. 'Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit' (Jn. 12:24). There it is: to consent to die in order to bear much fruit. What counts in the end if not to bear fruit in this short season of our life! A fruit that will last. We do not have the right to ruin our life by egoism and laziness. Holiness is to lose one's life. 'Whoever would save his/her life will lose it, but whoever would lose his/her life for my sake and the Gospel's, will save it' (Mk. 8:35). We must dare to lose ourselves, to lose our foothold and let ourselves be carried away by the love of God, when so many things hold us back. To do this there must be a kind of audacity. Jesus even spoke of violence: 'The kingdom of God has been subjected to violence and the violent are taking it by storm' (Mt. 11:12). To die like the grain of wheat, to die to oneself, to give oneself to God is basically to find one's true self, it is to find one's truth; it is to find one's self. Also we can say, to become holy is to find one's true image, beyond deceitful appearances and false illusions. It is to be in the truth. The most authentic men and women are the saints. The way to get there is, according to the Cistercian tradition, cenobitic solitude. In this perspective, the normal way to attain the ideal holiness is the cenobitic community (koinonia-life in community). Also the Trappist or Trappistine enjoys peace and solitude, without lacking the consolation of a loving and holy community, where nothing is preferred to Christ. You are surrounded by many brothers or sisters and nevertheless you do not live in the midst of turmoil. What is important then, is 'solitude of heart' (St. Bernard). This is the condition for an intimate exchange of love and joy with the Lord. It is in solitude of heart and interior silence that the soul listens to God. This balance between solitude of heart and community life has its price: one must love one's brothers/sisters and allow oneself to be loved by them, to be kind and friendly, supporting with great presence their physical and moral weakness (St. Benedict). Solitude of heart is totally different from the pride of the solitary who scorns the common life and encloses himself/herself in singularity. The life of the one who does not love the brothers/sisters with whom one lives would not make sense. Now, the love of God cannot come to maturity if it is not nourished by and does not grow in the love of neighbor. Who does not understand the timelessness of the Cistercian tradition as to prayer and mystical union with God? Secularization can also penetrate our dialogue with God. Surely, religious communities continue to pray, some with much regularity, others with a certain relaxation. But it is often a prayer without silence. I am thinking o interior silence, or recollection, of the solitude of heart of St. Bernard. Today, this silence is terribly threatened by the noise of the world, by the numerous obsessive images that penetrate our spirit through television, magazines, advertising, through the sounds transmitted by radio, the telephone and other means of social communication such as internet, etc. How to pray seriously in the midst of all this uproar? Yes, silence, recollection and solitude of heart are necessary if we want to have a real relationship with God, if we want to truly listen to God's Word. St. John of the Cross gave this counsel to one of his penitents: 'The Father pronounces one Word which is the Son and it is always spoken in eternal silence and in silence it is heard by the soul.' In 1924, the young theologian Romano Guardini, recently named to the Catholic Weltauschannung Chair at the University of Berlin wrote: 'If we remain on the level we are today, we will not resolve the problems of our civilization. These problems will not be resolved unless they are confronted by new people with a purer regard, a freer soul and a stronger hand. People who live at a deeper level of being, who act with soul energy, character, fidelity, sacrifice, spirit energy, unconditionally, with the energies of the Divine. Briefly, people who know how to pray, to contemplate, who interiorly stand before God.' In reading these lines, who does not think of men like Benedict, Bernard, the Abbot de Rancé? These men confronted the problems of their time, bringing answers, because they knew how to pray, because they walked before God."

October 21, 2005 We have a free today. I joined the group who went to the Camaldoli. On the way, we stopped at Mt. Alverna where St. Francis of Assisi received the stigmata, then headed on to the hermitage where St. Romuald spent the last years of his life. It was an unannounced trip so the monks were not really expecting us, but their superior was kind enough to entertain us and showed us around their Church, cemetery, and hermitages. This monastery is for their monks who want to live a solitary life. They have another monastery at a distance for communal life, but we did not venture to go there. On the way home, we stopped at Cortona and allowed ourselves to wander around this very peaceful and charming town.

The following day till the last day of the Chapter, we were back again to the daily grind of discussion, voting, small groups meeting, etc. till the last day of the Chapter. More than half us capitulants got colds at one point during this meeting, either right from the beginning, middle, or at the end. I have mine from the beginning till the end. At least, I was able to sustain till the last day. The sister infirmarian, a medical doctor by profession, was so diligent in taking care of us who were in need of her services. She was like a military doctor attending to the soldiers wounded in battle, so that we can go back again to our field of duty. No one of us died or seriously wounded, but on the other hand, within that 21 days of tight gathering we received 7 death notices from different monasteries of our Order. Most of them as a crown of old age, but there was one who was tragic.

The State of the Order was summed up in three creative words: 1. Awakening 2. Forward movement 3. Commitment to Formation. Awakening - A change of atmosphere, of spirit was noticed since the last Chapter in 2002. The awareness of our situation of precariousness has caused an awakening, produced a fruit. Assumed in faith, precariousness has generated hope. Forward Movement - There was no communities which lament their precariousness. On the contrary, there are communities in transition, which have become aware of the value of our cenobitic, fraternal life, and try to improve fraternal relations, communication, dialogue. Commitment to Formation - It was noticed how important the formation of the entire community is, formation to the Cistercian life adapted to our time. It should go hand in hand with a great communion between the superior and his or her community. A solid and ongoing formation on all level constitutes the fundamental and indispensable basis to help our communities face the challenges that await them.

October 31, 2005 In his closing homily, our Abbot General Dom Bernardo Olivera delivered a moving and challenging words to all of us, he said: "The Lord Jesus bids us farewell from Assisi with a clear, strong, gospel word. Once again we return to our communities bearing good news. This good news has to do with us. In our study of the house reports we emphasized the important role of the superiors.. And now, in the readings of today's Eucharist, the thirty-first Sunday of the liturgical year in cycle A, are laid out for us the basic features of authority according to the mind and wishes of God.

Let us begin with what authority is when it has become bad news. The false superior says but does not do, exhorts and witnesses falsely, and thus gives an example that makes no sense. Worse still, such a superior likes the stage and applause, seek the best place even when arriving late, likes to be greeted and treated with honor. In a word, such a one seeks more to lord it over than to serve, and forgets that he is merely the brother of all. Superiors of this kind will be humiliated because they have exalted themselves, although God's mercy is great, even for them. And then let us look at what authority must be according to the gospel. To have authority is to minister, serve, and stoop down. The superior's place of honor is at the feet of his brothers and sisters. Those who act this way have no teaching of their own; rather they convey the teaching of the one Teacher. They do not beget children for themselves but for the Father of all who is in heaven. And when they lay down the law, they subordinate everything to the precept of Jesus the Messiah: Love one another as I have loved you. Such as these, like Paul the apostle, hand over their lives as they hand on the Gospel, spend themselves so that others may live. In their exhorting and motivating they represent God the Father, an in their affectionate and motherly care they make God's spirit present. It is clear to them that the common goal is the kingdom and the Glory in the one and triune God.This teaching of Jesus the Teacher applies also to the Abbot General.."

After the mass on October 31, a good number of the capitulants, especially those in the European continent, headed back to their respective communities, bringing with them the hopes and challenges of the days to come.

Nov. 1, 2005 Solemnity of All the Saints. Early this morning, Sr. Carmela of the Benedictine monastery in Assisi came with their Italian driver to pick me at the Domus Pacis. Lo & behold she is from Camiguin island in Mindanao and speaks Cebuano the same dialect as mine. Of the sixteen sisters in the community five are Filipinas. It's now the only Benedictine monastery for women in Assisi, which in the time of St. Francis counted a dozen. There's also another one for men, which again is a remnant of the many Benedictine monasteries in Assisi in the middle ages.

Their guest mistress, Sr. Angela, is also a Filipina and manages this enormous house. Pilgrims all over the world flock to this monastery from April to the end of October. They close it from November to March every year. I stayed with them for 3 days after the General Chapter to see more of the town. I have the chance to roam around the town during these days and met a Filipino Franciscan stationed at a corner of the upper Basilica of St. Francis where pilgrims give stipend for mass intentions. I found out that he had been to our monastery here in Guimaras in 1992 and stayed for 15 days in one of our nipa huts and ate with the community. I certainly remember a Franciscan staying with us at that time but never registered in my mind that this was that brother, for this brother at that time was wearing a gray habit and was slim but at our meeting he wears a brown habit and gained weight. No wonder his face lit up when I introduced myself as a Trappist monk from Guimaras, Philippines.

This is how unfamiliarity works. It is like Christian people meeting Christ for some time in their lives, but lost contact with him and when Christ appears in different forms they missed him and could no longer recognize him. That is why people are doing things which are harmful or uncharitable to oneself or to others because of one's ignorance of Christ. We have a vague knowledge of him. However, conversion is always possible. On my way to San Damiano one day, I met three other Trappistine abbesses who also stayed behind at Assisi after the Chapter to wander peacefully in this sacred place. That was only one of the several times that our paths crossed as we go our separate ways trecking from churches to churches attempting to capture the echo of the distant past where St. Francis and St. Clare and their followers hallowed this place by their sacred presence.

November 4, 2005 From Assisi to Rome. On this day the mother prioress of the Benedictine monastery left for the Philippines to visit their foundation in Malaybalay, Bukidnon (southern part of the Philippines). She was accompanied by another Filipina sister up to the airport. I also went with them up to the airport and from there I took a train to Termini the main train terminal. From Termini I headed to our Generalate and stayed for another two nights before embarking for the Philippines. I touched the soil of Guimaras on the 8th of November exactly a month since I left for Assisi.

November 17-19, 2005 The 3rd Diocesan Synod of the Archdiocese of Jaro. Shortly after I left for the General Chapter in Assisi in early October, I received an "ecclesiastical summons" from the Archbishop of Jaro, as a member of the Third Diocesan Synod, to attend the Synod from November 17-19. The preparations for this Synod hark back to some 4 years, beginning with the submission of lineamenta by parishes, vicariates, religious communities, religious and lay groups. From these there emerged a first draft of 14 areas of concerns, assigned to their own commissions. These drafts were then returned, the emendations collated, and a second draft emerged.

November 23, 24 2005 Fr. Agie represented the community at the Pre-Synodal Assembly for Non-Parish Organizations and Ministries at the Archbishop's residence. This assembly discussed three concerns: Promotion of Vocations & Mission, The Life and Ministry of Religious Women, and the Life and Ministry of the Clergy. The results of these discussions were collated by the respective commissions and were presented as the working papers for the First Session of the Synod last November. Since Fr. Agie was present at the Assembly, I asked him to attend the Synod, too, in the capacity of an observer.

There were some 114 members of the Synod, and some 34 observers. The number of the observers would vary from day to day, and they could participate in the discussions at the plenary and small groups (workshops), but did not have the right to vote. The discussions were quite lively, and what was very noticeable was that the laity was quite vocal about their concerns and needs, and critical of the clergy. The last day's morning was a marathon plenum and voting on proposals. Early in the afternoon, most of the Synod attendees processed with other organizations, from the Cathedral to the West Visayas State University grounds (about 2 kilometers) to celebrate the Mass for Christ the King. At his homily, the archbishop expressed his pleasure at the outcome of the Synod, and stated that he approved the proposals in principle, will submit the documents to a Post-Synodal Committee which he will create to study and finalize them for immediate implementation. The last diocesan Synod was in 1933. It was quite an experience being a part of a Church actively moving, and one could feel the Holy Spirit moving each one present.

November 23-26, 2005 Death of Fr. Fabian. On November 22, I was informed of the death of Fr. Fabian. The following day, together with Fr. Jess who assisted Fr. Fabian for about 10 months, we left for General Santos for the funeral on the 24th and came back home on the 26th. Fr. Fabian was one of the two founders left of our community. He was born on February 6, 1925 at Minnehaha County in South Dakota, U.S.A. He served the U.S. Navy for a while before entering as a lay brother at Holy Trinity Abbey in Utah in 1949 taking the name Br. Fabian. As a brother, he joined the six other monks from the different monasteries of the U.S. Region to transplant the Cistercian monastic life into the Philippine soil in 1972, but he was such a wide reader which made him eligible for a priestly ordination without doing formal study to the priesthood. He was the first to be ordained priest in the community by the legendary Jaime Cardinal Sin who was then, the bishop of our diocese at that time.

For some years he served as vocation director & cellarer. It was in the latter's capacity that brought him to different places in the Philippines meeting some of the big shots in the country and form a lasting friendship with them. In the 1990's, he works so hard in looking for a piece of land for the realization of a Trappistine foundation in the southern part of the Philippines. He faithfully served the sisters as their chaplain and eventually requested that at his death he will be buried there. This was fulfilled after more than two months of struggle in bed caused by series of minor strokes and seizures. He finally won the victory and died peacefully on November 22, 2005 and was buried on November 25th at their cemetery. He was 80 years old out of which 50 years were lived as a solemnly professed monk and 30 years as a priest. He is survived by a younger brother and an elder sister who is a Benedictine nun. May perpetual light shine upon his face as he gazes the glory of the Lord. We commend him to your prayers.

God bless.

In Christ and Mary,
Fr. Alberic and the monks of OLP

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