Efren Limpo Lo, cmf

I heard it many times before. Claretians are missionaries who go to places where others would dare not go.  Clever promotional pitch in a flyer posted in our school’s Guidance board. At that time, I was already accepted to join the Redemptorist seminary after my graduation. Yet for some mysterious reason I found my way to Claret Seminary in the summer of 1995.  There, I was introduced to the person of Claret through the study of his Life. More to it, we were taught about the Ideal in his mind which contained the defining character of a Claretian missionary penned by Claret himself: delight in privations, welcome sacrifices, rejoice in being humbled, and glory in torments and persecutions. Are they for real? Who are these people? I couldn’t help but be skeptical about it. To my mind, either they are very bold or incurably crazy. They give up security, comfort, control, and the precious gift they possess – their very lives.

Over the years, I have been blessed to meet Claretians who were really bold, passionate, dedicated, trail-blazers and fiery missionaries. Real stories of missionaries working in difficult missions as Basilan and Zamboanga edified and confirmed my vocation. I was schooled this way, and that captured the imagination of my young life. I was thrilled to be a Claretian and the prospect of a life’s adventure was delightfully enticing. I was privileged to be under the tutelage of the revered Fr. Emilio Pablo back in the olden days of Bunguiao. There, I also met Fr. Rhoel Gallardo just months before his abduction in the island Basilan. His martyrdom reinforced even more my desire to be a missionary. My first official assignment was to go and serve the mission of Tungawan as assistant to Fr. Angel Angeles with Fr. Carlos de Rivas as our superior. I was the youngest in a community of three missionaries. Those were happy times. In fact, it was one of the most fulfilling moments of my early missionary life. The absence of urban comforts and the presence of life threats to one of my brothers fueled my resolve to stay in the mission. I felt the fire and love vibrating in my first companions.

My fascination for missionary life grew even more as later assignments led me to the pages of Fr. Eugenio Herrán Pedrosa, unmistakably, the precursor of the Claretian mission in the Philippine Islands. Stories that took me back to the pre-foundational period, the first missionary expedition and the definitive decision of taking Santa Barbara – the first mission.  Like any other stories of old – subject to historical circumstances that are proper to a time when means of communication weren’t yet as sophisticated as now– ours began with the finding of an almost lost letter. Due to the precarious conditions caused by the post-World War II period, the letter penned by Bishop Mariano A. Madriaga of the Diocese of Lingayen, Province of Pangasinan on August 20, 1945, was only found four months later.  The letter was intended to Fr. Esteban Emaldia, then Provincial Superior of the Claretians in the United States of the Western Province. Three Claretians were sent: Fr. Raymundo Catalan, Fr. Arcadio Hortelano Martin, and Fr. Thomas Mitchell.

The pioneers disembarked on December 26, 1946, in the port of Manila. They stayed for some days in the residence of the Benedictine Fathers of Colegio de San Beda.  The first letter sent from the Philippines to the United States about the new foundation was penned by Fr. Raymundo Catalan on January 14, 1947. In the narrative of Fr. Raymundo Catalan, he described their reality as one of “royal desolation”. Such included beds fit for prisoners, no mattresses, no ice, no lamps, no electricity, and no fridge. They had 6 dilapidated chairs,

[borrowed], and to top it all, there was no running water. They had to fetch and store water in tin cans every day. The church of Santa Barbara was bare, no ornaments, no candles, and not even wine for the sacred worship. All these they endured as true sons of the Heart of Mary, undaunted and disposed to welcome sacrifices, delight in their privations. The church in Santa Barbara was left in a very bad shape because of the war. The roof was peppered with holes from gunshots and when the sun is up and bright, it looked like a canopy of stars from inside. The church walls suffered severe damaged as well, the altar looked very primitive and dusty like an inhabited house of centuries old. Talking about their daily food, Fr. Hortelano Martin added that they have to content themselves with the little [canned goods] that they have brought from the United States and rely on the comforting aid of personal imagination. There was no market nearby and they did not have a regular cook. They did not have a single decent meal except during their first two days when kind folks brought and share with them ready-made food from their houses. The rest of the days they just had staple dry rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner Fr. Hortelano Martin’s beautifully written 12-page Saludo a la Congregación mirrored tales that unriddled the full extent of their situation in Santa Barbara. It puts on display how the first missionaries went through the ordeals of the new mission while still able to toast for their life, for their vocation and for the Congregation that they have unreservedly loved.

These are the stories that reflected missionary life in all its vagaries and triumphs. Stories that gave witness to the ideals set by Fr. Claret in his definition of a missionary.  At the slightest instance of pain, they could have opted to whine and leave but they didn’t. They braved –quite literally- every dangerous storm, every ounce of pain, and every inch of discomfort down to the darkest, most unforgiving test they have ever been. These are the stories that stayed with me for they meant something. Claretians had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something of much greater value. They remained true to what Fr. Claret prescribed.

These stories of our pioneer missionaries shall remain not simply as a glorified fossil of a bygone age but as a living and pulsating challenge for me. Their stories evoke not only sentiments of deep admiration for their resilience but also an edifying fidelity to their missionary calling. Fr. Arcadio Martin ended his Saludo with a particularly striking realization that in order to be faithful to one’s missionary vocation, one must keep alight the lamp handed over by Fr. Claret. I met Claret through the noble examples of his missionaries. The lamp has been handed over to us. It is now our turn to carry it and keep the flame ablaze.

Being a missionary is great. And like most great things, it demands great love.  Only love sustains the hurting moments of a life embraced for others. Being a Claretian is no different. For it is an existence nourished and fueled by love. When our hairs turn white, our skin wrinkled and blemished, when night and day fade; only love remains. Love jolts us beyond adventure, beyond dreams, beyond cognition, beyond the innocent desires of our tender years.

 

Fr. Efren Limpo Lo, CMF

Fr. Efren Limpo Lo, CMF is Claretian missionary from the Philippines. He received his degree in Sacred Theology at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid and his Licentiate in Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He serves as the Provincial Secretary and Archivist of the Province.