A letter to my cousin, my inspiration in the vineyard of The Lord.

DEAR FATHER WILLY
                   
                    
FATHER WILLY JESENA, C.Ss.R.
Somewhere in KOREA

Dear Cousin Willy,

There were three of us in our 1952 Lincoln School barkada---Clemente Hosillos, Wilfredo Jesena, and Arsenio Jesena.

You and Clemente were in 2nd year high school. I was one year behind you.

We were members of the Legion of Mary and the Children of Mary. We loved to make the Wednesday Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual  Succour at St. Clement's Church in La Paz. We also went to a lot of  movies together and we went skating and we ate arroz caldo at Fort San Pedro, or else we would simply sit around and discuss books and talk about what we wanted to do with our lives.

It was Clemente Hosillos who announced to one and all that HE wanted to be a Priest.  As it turned out , he did NOT become a Priest. He did not even enter the Seminary.But you and I, we entered the Seminary and we became Priests. You joined the REDEMPTORISTS and I joined the JESUITS.

You left Lincoln School to study for the priesthood long before I did. And you were ordained a Priest long before I was. You became a Preacher of Missions in Mindanao and the Visayas, and you became a Formator and Superior of the Redemptorists.

During Martial Law, you visited the subversives and the tortured activists in the Cebu stockade and you were always a fearless champion of Human Rights. And then after a life time of silent but heroic work in the Lord's vineyard in the Philippines, you volunteered to be a Missionary in KOREA.


In Korea, you braved the cold weather and the new culture and the difficult language with your characteristic dedication. And then you got CANCER.

You had your cancer operation in the Philippines.

But after your cancer operation you RETURNED TO KOREA and you continued your apostolic labors there.

Up to this day you are still Fr. Willy Jesena C.Ss.R., God's quiet apostle, always tirelessly working for the salvation of souls.

Me naman, as in the past, I am following YOUR footsteps, trying my best to catch up with you.
  
Do you know that it was because of the textbooks and notes YOU lent me that I got all those gold medals in Lincoln school? (I even received the gold medals for Best Behavior--because I was always with you!) And do you know that it was partly because of YOUR good example during my sensitive teenage years that I was inspired to frequently think and eventually fall in love with God and His holy Priesthood?
TODAY, almost half a century after Lincoln School, I look back and wish I still enjoyed the extraordinary spiritual ambience of our youth... Often and wistfully, I long for the consolation and the almost-physical bliss and the gentle ecstasy of God's wonderful presence.

But those heavenly moments are long gone, and with the passing of the years, my certainty of God 's existence and His infinite love, and the joy of His ineffable presence remain only a distant, dim, doubtful memory.

The past 40 years have been too painful; the stumblings and the falls and the failures of my loved ones and my people have been too frequent and too devastating--where, Fr. Willy, did our loving God go? What happened to His promises? How, why, did his kindness turn to neglect and cruelty and rejection?

God, if there is a God, is supposed to be on the side of the poor, and the oppressed. But in my struggle for His Kingdom, God has been absent. He has been deaf. I have fought alone.

My suffering people and I--we are left with nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.....

That is why today I am sharing this little poem with you. I have entitled it "FORGIVE ME, I AM ONLY GOD." It is my one and only poem. It is the epic and the angst and the Gethsemane and the Calvary of my entire life. THIS POEM IS ME.

Maybe in some way this poem is also YOU.

Maybe this poem is Everyman...

Maybe like every human being grappling with the question of WHAT IS REALLY REAL, striving to communicate with a God who is invisible and seemingly uncaring and seemingly unfaithful to His promises and protestations of constant and never-failing love, I dare to complain, I dare to silently scream. To shout my problem. To shout my hunger for an answer. Through my little poem...

I WAS WALKING FROM MY RESIDENCE TO MY OFFICE ONE MORNING  AND I WAS PRAYING TO OUR ABSENT GOD. I WAS SAYING ,"LORD, MY LIFE HAS BEEN SO...  SO IMPERFECT.PLEASE FORGIVE ME... I AM ONLY MAN.' AT ONCE I HEARD A SILENT, ENTREATING ANSWER IN MY HEART,'NO, JUNI--YOU--PLEASE FORGIVE ME --I AM ONLY GOD.'

And the gentle, pleading, wounded, healing words began to touch and flood my mind and my heart--IT WAS GOD, asking me for understanding, for acceptance --for forgiveness, even --because He did not manifest Himself in my reality and in my unfathomable needs. He did not speak my language--for He is only God.


He did not--maybe He could not --speak in a way that my heart could appreciate and could respond to, unlike the world --and the flesh--and the devil. He did not manifest Himself in a way that grabbed me and filled me and thrilled me and possessed me. And satiated me and inspired me...

He was sorry we were in totally different wave-lengths. O God--do you hear me? Can you hear me? Where are you? Why are you so irrelevant, so untrue ? You had assured me that you would always be with me, even to the consummation of the world, but you leave me only with lifeless basilicas and belfries and liturgical robes and incense and idolatry and pride and words and words and words............and emptiness.

GOD does not speak the language of the worldly and the proud. He is, He only is, what He is...GOD.

AND HE DOES SPEAK....He speaks the stars and the moon and the ocean and the river and the rain. He speaks the little baby, speaks the lovely rose. He speaks forgiveness , He speaks my daily healing... He is my Resurrection, He is my Home.

IT IS SO INFINITELY GOOD OF GOD, OUR LOVING FATHER, TO WAIT FOR HIS STRAYING PRODIGAL CHILDREN, AND TO RUN AND EMBRACE AND KISS THEM AND REINSTATE THEM AND WELCOME THEM AND HEAL THEM...AND INVITE THEM TO BEGIN AGAIN... TO BEGIN AGAIN.

WHAT A WONDERFUL GOD...HE IS MY RESURRECTION, MY PERFECT FATHER-MOTHER, HE IS MY HOME... YOUR HOME...OUR HOME, FR.WILLY.



Your grateful cousin,
JUNI                                     
          

                                        by Fr. JJ, S.J.

Copyright 1998 Fr. Arsenio C. Jesena , S.J.