A thought provoking question came to me in a letter one day ...

DO YOU KNOW GOD?



Dear Father Jesena,

Do YOU know God?

You probably do, because you are a Priest.

But ME, I am just an ordinary man.

I have never studied Theology or Philosophy, like the learned Priests and Nuns. I have not even made the Life In The Spirit Seminar, like the fortunate Charismatics in my town.

I am just an ordinary man, proud of my children, concerned about my grandchildren, worried about myself—because until now— I am 77 years old—because until now, I DO NOT KNOW GOD. Please help me.

I really envy our church leaders, our Priests and Pastors, who are so sure they know God. Also my neighbor, Compadre Pampilo, who is an Elder in his Prayer Group.

But tell me, Father Juni, DO THEY REALLY, REALLY KNOW GOD? Is it really, really God THEY know?

Or are they just parroting—with great confidence and a lot of noise — are they just parroting what they have heard from other parrots?

Can it be possible that they are mistaking a little bit of God for the entire, complete, infinite, unknowable God?

What about YOU Father Jesena? Do YOU really know God?

Are you one of those favored people handpicked by God to be His infallible mirrors, prophets, oracles, judges and interpreters?

But how can I be certain that what you guys preach is GOD, and the Word of GOD?

It is so very easy to pretend. So easy to make-believe. To fool a gullible, hypnotized, hungry, insecure, unsuspecting, superstitious audience.

But ONLY God is God. No one else is God. Nothing else is God. Only God is God.

Please help me. Teach me. How do I know the real God? How do I feel His embrace? For I have always hungered for Him, with my deepest passion.

I wake up at early dawn every morning here in Ledesma Street, Takurong, Sultan Kudarat, awakened by the cocks crowing in my neighborhood. Softly, I walk out of my house, careful not to disturb my dear wife and grandchildren, and I patter to our little garden, and I see the brightening outlines of my roses, the gentle dewdrops still clinging to their velvety petals. I inhale the cool morning air.

And I look up at the magnificent sunrise, forever a source of wonder and hope and joy for me.

Then I glance beyond our humble bamboo fence, and I feel good, seeing the formidable men and women carrying their heavy load of root crops and vegetables to the marketplace.

Soon the church bells ring, calling our devout old women to daily Mass, and to their novenas, and the Rosary.

There was a time, they tell me, when this booming town of Takurong was a dead, one-road barrio, not too long after World War II. The Pioneer after whom my street was named patrolled the Takurong trails—a gifted, valiant, sharp shooting, pioneering earthly gladiator, protecting his domain for the people he loved. DEMETRIO B. LEDESMA. The great DEMET LEDESMA. Invincible, until he was treacherously ambushed in Norala in 1948.

That was a long time ago, when Purisima and Girado and Sumcio and del Corro and Hojilla were here. BEFORE Escribano, and Lechonsito and Griño and Father Bertrand Demers, O.M.I. arrived. A long time ago.

Nowadays, on some lonely, nostalgic afternoon, I walk to the cemetery and I just read the litany of names there, and I remember how those people looked, and how they walked, and how they laughed. And how naughty they were. And how lovable. And how human.

And I think, I, too, will die. Soon. BUT I DO NOT YET KNOW.
GOD !

I have never seen Him. Never felt Him. Never heard His voice.

Now and then MAYBE I caught a GLIMPSE of Him. Not from His PRESENCE, but from His ABSENCE.


Maybe I grasped Him, from WHAT He must BE, in stark contrast to the many persons and things in my life that USURPED His throne.

I HAVE sensed His infinite Purity, from the unbearable Impurity of what is NOT HIM.

Do you know God, Father Jesena?

I do not know God..... I NEVER have known Him.

AND YET… MAYBE…I…HAVE…..Maybe I have……. All my life… ALWAYS.

In my wife. In my children..... In my little grandchildren...... In the roosters crowing..... In my fragrant roses in the early dawn..... In the valiant people faithfully carrying their burdens to the daily marketplace of life..... In the magnificent, fantastic, sunrise.

In the daily pains and ecstasies of living..... In the church bells ringing, gently calling devout old women, and ME, and you, Fr. Juni —gently calling ALL OF US BACK HOME… TO GOD.




Sincerely yours,
B. NEGRILLO


D.B. Ledesma Street
Takurong, Sultan Kudarat