An Easter Tragedy
As I write I have in mind our fellow Catholics who are survivors of the killer typhoons in Luzon and of the giant tsunami in the neighboring Asian countries. I include here those relief workers who are also Catholics. How will they celebrate Easter this year? Without the church buildings, the images of the Santo Entiero (the dead Christ), of the Resurrected Christ, and of the Mater Dolorosa (the Sorrowful Mother) etc., what kind of celebration will theirs be? Or will there be a celebration at all? When calamities of such magnitude happen, Easter would certainly be difficult to celebrate. I know because I had witnessed personally an Easter tragedy.
It was 4 a.m. in the early dawn of April 1992 in the City of Iligan, my former diocese. I was supposed to be up before 4 a.m., to be in front of the platform just outside the entrance of St. Michael’s Cathedral. On this platform were 15 little “angels” who would welcome with flowers and sing Regina Caeli to the meeting of the images of the Sorrowful Mother and her Resurrected Son. Heavily tired due to previous Holy Week ceremonies I was not able to wake up on time.
At four o’clock the constant ringing of the house phone made me jump out of bed. A frantic Msgr. Labiste, Cathedral parish priest, was on the line with a shocking news. Someone threw a bomb on the spot where I was supposed to be standing during the Salubong. All the children died instantly –—15 of them. Many more were wounded. Hundreds of people screaming in fear and running away from the scene. It was shocking as it was heartbreaking to see those lifeless little children and the wounded writhing in pain on the pavement full of blood, just outside the Cathedral!
As we scurried around bringing the dead bodies to the funeral parlors and the wounded to the hospitals, I was thinking very deeply … was I the real target? Why? Would I be one of the dead or the wounded? Why did I oversleep? Easter means new life. How would I celebrate it now?
As I look back now to that horrible experience I realize that God is never absent in human suffering and pain. He is never separated from us, not even for a split second. The reason is because by His power He keeps us and the world in existence. And so He is with us all the time, even in times of tragic deaths and calamities. Why He would call people back to Himself by means of a killer typhoon, giant tsunami or deadly bomb on Easter day, we do not know and we can never know. If we knew we would be God. He knows what He is doing. He is the author and giver of life. With the blameless and upright Job we can only say: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked shall I return. Yahweh gave, Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be His name!” (1:21) And the Scripture writer adds: “In spite of this calamity, Job did not sin by blaspheming God” (1:22).
To avoid blasphemous complaints against God when tragedies hit us, I find helpful these words from A Portrait of Jesus by Joseph F. Girzone: “As humans, we find it impossible to break out of a human way of thinking. Consequently, when we think of God, it is difficult for us to consider God as He is, and we end up reducing Him, giving Him a sex, molding Him into an image we can understand. As a result, we make Him one of ourselves, with the same myopic human vision of life and the same views and values and hang-ups that condition us to respond to situations the way we do” (page 103).
+ FERNANDO R. CAPALLA, D.D.
Archbishop of Davao
President, Catholic Bishops’ Conference
March 20, 2005
It was 4 a.m. in the early dawn of April 1992 in the City of Iligan, my former diocese. I was supposed to be up before 4 a.m., to be in front of the platform just outside the entrance of St. Michael’s Cathedral. On this platform were 15 little “angels” who would welcome with flowers and sing Regina Caeli to the meeting of the images of the Sorrowful Mother and her Resurrected Son. Heavily tired due to previous Holy Week ceremonies I was not able to wake up on time.
At four o’clock the constant ringing of the house phone made me jump out of bed. A frantic Msgr. Labiste, Cathedral parish priest, was on the line with a shocking news. Someone threw a bomb on the spot where I was supposed to be standing during the Salubong. All the children died instantly –—15 of them. Many more were wounded. Hundreds of people screaming in fear and running away from the scene. It was shocking as it was heartbreaking to see those lifeless little children and the wounded writhing in pain on the pavement full of blood, just outside the Cathedral!
As we scurried around bringing the dead bodies to the funeral parlors and the wounded to the hospitals, I was thinking very deeply … was I the real target? Why? Would I be one of the dead or the wounded? Why did I oversleep? Easter means new life. How would I celebrate it now?
As I look back now to that horrible experience I realize that God is never absent in human suffering and pain. He is never separated from us, not even for a split second. The reason is because by His power He keeps us and the world in existence. And so He is with us all the time, even in times of tragic deaths and calamities. Why He would call people back to Himself by means of a killer typhoon, giant tsunami or deadly bomb on Easter day, we do not know and we can never know. If we knew we would be God. He knows what He is doing. He is the author and giver of life. With the blameless and upright Job we can only say: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked shall I return. Yahweh gave, Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be His name!” (1:21) And the Scripture writer adds: “In spite of this calamity, Job did not sin by blaspheming God” (1:22).
To avoid blasphemous complaints against God when tragedies hit us, I find helpful these words from A Portrait of Jesus by Joseph F. Girzone: “As humans, we find it impossible to break out of a human way of thinking. Consequently, when we think of God, it is difficult for us to consider God as He is, and we end up reducing Him, giving Him a sex, molding Him into an image we can understand. As a result, we make Him one of ourselves, with the same myopic human vision of life and the same views and values and hang-ups that condition us to respond to situations the way we do” (page 103).
+ FERNANDO R. CAPALLA, D.D.
Archbishop of Davao
President, Catholic Bishops’ Conference
March 20, 2005
posted by Abp. Fernando R. Capalla | 3:15 PM
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