Capital or small ‘S’?

The gravestone sentence read: “I believe in the communion of saints.” That’s lifted from the “Apostle’s Creed,” written by the Council of Fathers in 325 AD. What has that got to do with our houseboy? He snipped Blessed Pedro Calungsod’s picture from Inquirer’s front page.

Our ancestors prayed this most widely used creed. We do too, at Sunday Masses, often by rote, regrettably, with scant thought of what it asserts.

Yet, it anchors what our parents knew as “Todos los Santos.” “All Saints’ Day” is marked on Nov. 1. Pope Gregory IV, in 837 AD, broadened this to honor, not only martyrs but all who’ve passed on in grace, whether known or forgotten.

“All Souls’ Day” follows on Nov. 2. “It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead,” the Book of Maccabees says. Abbot Odilo of Cluny, in 998 AD, started this remembrance in Benedictine monasteries. The rite spread throughout the Church—and the Philippines.

On the eve of All Souls’ Day, crowds jostle into hastily cleaned cemeteries to pray before freshly painted tombs. Crowds can uncork bouts of giddy claustrophobia. So some families visit cemeteries earlier.

The “Todos Los Santos” message, however, persists: A community of believers share, across the divide of death, grace that surges into eternal life.

“Today, you will be with me in paradise,” the dying thief was assured by his co-crucified. The Samaritan woman at the well had a tutorial on this. Paul addressed his letter to “the saints” at Ephesus.

Indeed, there are scores of small letter “S” saints—maids, teachers, barbers to priests and market vendors. Despite their flaws, these obscure men and women serve God in neighbors. “Here comes everybody’s feast,” author James Joyce wrote.

Then there are the capital “S” saints. Their names ring out, when the Litany of Saints is chanted. Mary, mother of Christ with Joseph; Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola, Therese of Lisieux; Lorenzo Ruiz of Manila—and “San Pedro Calungsod,” if Inquirer’s Oct. 28 editorial proves right.

“No further questions,” the Sacred Congregation for the Cause of Saints said in concluding its Oct. 19 session, that editorial noted. Its members  forwarded to the Pope, their recommendation  that the 17-year-old catechist from the Visayas be raised to the altar.

“Afirmativea vota dal tutti cardinali e dal santo padere per la canonizatione del beato Pedro Calungsod,” read a Facebook posting by the postulator, Ricardo Cardinal Vidal. “All cardinals voted affirmatively to recommend that the Pope canonize Blessed Pedro Calungsod.

In March 2005, then Pope John Paul II beatified Calungsod—the last step before canonization. The local church celebrates his feast day on April 2. A Calungsod shrine stands within the archbishop of Cebu’s compound.

Benedict XVI makes the final decision. He’ll review reports by the cardinals and medical panel. Among the cases studied is that of a “brain dead” woman who works in Cebu today. “When the process is over, we can talk about it,” co-postulator Msgr. Idelbrando Leyson demurs.

Two Filipinas wait in the canonization queue. One is Isabel Larrañaga Ramirez who founded the Sisters of Charity of the Sacred Heart in early 17th century. In 1999, John Paul II elevated her to “venerable.” The other is a Chinay. Mother Ignacia del Espiritu Santo who set up the Religious of Virgin Mary congregation in 1684: In 2007, Benedict XVI also named her “venerable.”

Calungsod and Fr. Diego de San Vitores were martyred in Guam April 1672. Much of what is known of Calungsod is in  the Cebu  archdiocese’s “Deposition” to the Sacred Congregation for the Cause of Saints. “This depended… on the Posifio, prepared for the beatification of De San Vitores for the dioceses of Manila and Agana.”

San Vitores’ “policy for his companions was they be unarmed,” historian John Schumacher, SJ, writes in Philippine Studies. As a young man, Calungsod could have escaped. But he chose to defend San Vitores who “was half blind,” all sources emphasize. “San Vitores was helpless without his companion, who led him by a rope around his waist!”

In shielding San Vitores, Calungsod took spear thrusts and catana (machete) blows. Attackers Hirao and Matapang then turned on the Jesuit who died with “words of forgiveness.” The bodies of San Vitores and Calungsod were dumped into the sea, bound together.

He was “joven bisayo or young, all 17th-century documents reveal, Loyola House of Studies’ Catalino Arevalo, SJ  notes. Did he come from Tigabauan? Fr. Pedro Chirino established in this Iloilo town the first Jesuit school for boys in the Philippines.

Starting a new mission in Guam, the Jesuits were joined by “the brightest and the best” students. Did these 17 Filipino teenagers sail from Cebu? “Family traditions” say a Calungsod boy, only 11 or 12 years old, joined the Jesuits in Mactan, then traveled to islands “near Hawaii” and was “killed there.”

Like San Lorenzo Ruiz, was Calungsod an “overseas Filipino worker”? Canonization may come to a country of OFWs but “no longer a nation of believers.” Only 21 percent of urban students believe in life after the grave, a survey by McCann Erickson and Philippine Jesuits found.

Majority or 88 percent believe in a Supreme Being. But only 15 percent were instructed in their faith by parents. “The phenomenon of bursting churches is actually misleading,” notes Windhover magazine. “Their doctrinal foundation and catechetical instruction seem to be faltering.”

Our houseboy pasted Calungsod’s cutout from the Inquirer on a cardboard, with a makeshift stand. With his wife and two young daughters, Airen says they pray for Blessed Pedro’s intercession.

Isn’t that the “communion of saints”? we itched to ask. “How about coffee?” we requested instead.

(Email: juanlmercado@gmail.com )