Four Sacramentino-Scholastics
COMPLETED THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

The San Carlos Seminary Graduate School of Theology held its virtual Completion Rites last March 20, 2021. It was preceded by the Baccalaureate Mass presided by the Apostolic Administrator of Manila, Bishop Broderick Pabillo, DD. Three brothers from the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament completed their degree Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry, FR. ALVIN P. MANAOIS, SSS (2020); BR. EDDIENEL G. VILLA, SSS; and BR. TEDLEY VILLANUEVA, SSS; and one completed his degree Master of Arts in Theology, BR. VICTOR CLEMENCE B. POSADAS, SSS (cum laude). Brothers Villa, Villanueva and Posadas are now preparing for their Perpetual Profession and Diaconal Ordination. All are requested to pray for their perseverance. CONGRATULATIONS!

VOCATION MINISTRY
in the Time of Covid19 Pandemic:
WHAT KEEPS US NOW?

FR. ISRAEL C. CRUZ, SSS
National Vocation Director
Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament
Philippine Province

This time of pandemic has brought adverse changes in the way we do things. We have shifted from face to face to virtual modalities. With this, our recruitment process and vocation campaign changed, and it shifted using the online platforms in adherence to the health and safety protocols. Currently, we conduct the following activities via the online platform: Encounter with the Sacramentinos (An Online Vocation Search-in Seminar) the three days living in seminar becomes two-hour online sessions, examination and interviews for applicants done via online, and the presentation of applicants to the Provincial Council. As the appointed Vocation Director, I maximized the use of this virtual platform by consistently posting the Sacramentino spirituality, charism, mission and vocation through the Sacramentino Vocations BSVC Manila Facebook page.

Herewith are the activities of the Blessed Sacrament Vocation Club: “Kamusta ka na Bro?” – an online quarterly kamustahan for different BSVC chapters (Manila, Taguig, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan, Cagayan de Oro, Davao) and “Kamusta na Kapatid?” for BSVC Auxiliaries of Dapitan, Dipolog and Pagadian. The Third Sunday Online Vocation Mass through Facebook page of Sta. Cruz Parish, Manila and Sacramentino Vocations Bsvc Manila that commenced in September 2020. VocaTalk: Hamon, Bokasyon, Panahon (Vocation Talk: Time, Vocation, and Challeges) an online program to promote the Varieties of Sacramentino Vocations: Religious Life and Priesthood, Lay Consecrated Life (Servitium Christi) and Aggregation of the Blessed Sacrament (Lay, Married life). BSVC Manila’s Lenten Pilgrimage and Retreat at Rizal Province (March 5-6, 2020) and BSVC Manila, Taguig and Bulacan Chapters’ Lenten Retreat at the Provincialate House (March 12-14, 2021). Online Advent Recollection, Christmas Party and Lenten Recollection for all BSVC Chapters.

To intensify our vocation campaign program and online programs, since the vocation ministry is a shared mission of everyone. It is not the sole responsibility of the National Vocation Director. There may be the presence of a Vocation Animator assigned to each community but since the advent of the pandemic, until now, the Vocation Director is restricted in visiting and animate the community assigned to him. The following strategies are being proposed:

Firstly, each community must look and endorse at least one applicant from their respective community or diocese. If all communities can produce one applicant to our vocation program, this is a good start of sustaining the number of applicants that will undergo our formation program. Secondly, moreover, to encourage all religious to promote all our vocation programs; to like and share our pictures or promotional materials that are posted in the Sacramentino Vocations Bsvc Manila FB page. Lastly, the Blessed Sacrament Vocation Club is present to most of our community, they are our apostolate and our share to the local Church to journey and to help young men to find their own vocations in life, I hope every community will welcome and accommodate them. Most of all, the Vocation Animator will animate them, meet them and plan a program for them. Many of us, religious became members of the BSVC, we testify on how this vocation club help us and attract us to enter the SSS congregation.

With the above stated proposals, the BSVC vocation program would grow where vocations will be nurtured. We pray to Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, the Mother of Vocations and to St. Peter Julian Eymard, our Founder that through his intercession, to call forth many young people who will labor in the Church as priests and religious.

CONSECRATED Layperson

FR. MIGUEL M. GARCIA, SSS, JCL

HOMILY delivered on March 13, 2021 during the Perpetual Incorporation of Ms. Veron Valmonte as member of
Secular Institute Servitium Christi, Archdiocesan Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament, Sta. Cruz Church, Manila.

In the Introduction of this Mass, we heard that Secular Institute is one form of consecrated life in the Church, along with Religious Institute, Society of Apostolic Life, Order of Virgins, and Hermits. The Secular Institute is a way of life which we can say is as old as the Church itself. The roots of the consecrated layperson began in the Church as early as the time of the Apostles. We have examples in the early Church of such outstanding laymen who were living on their own while leading other men among the brothers and engaging in evangelical works and likewise laywomen who were involved in the same evangelical effort of the early Church.

Consecrated laymen and laywomen who have dedicated themselves to follow Christ have been called Secular Institutes by Pope Pius XII. We can read the documents Provida Mater Ecclesia and Primo Felicitier that actually served as basic materials for this newest form of life in the Church today. These are groups of people composed of priests, laymen and laywomen who have bound themselves under vows or other forms of sacred bonds to practice the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity in the celibate state and obedience for the purpose of working for their personal sanctification while exercising an apostolate of love for Christ in the world.

With this in mind, we can find the three pillars of the Secular Institute, namely: CONSECRATION, SECULARITY, and APOSTOLATE. These are the three key principles to understand this form of life in the Church.

CONSECRATION: by professing the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity in celibacy and obedience, the layperson is consecrated to God “to be totally available for the fulfillment of the ideal which they choose to live” [CICLSAP, Consecration and Secularity, 2017]. It is a form of life seeking of evangelical perfection under vows while remaining in the world. Like Religious, the members of Secular Institute seriously and permanently bind themselves to the profession of the evangelical counsels. They take the vows, though not in the same way as, nor with the proper way of understanding and interpreting it proper to that of Religious. The main difference lies in the fact that Religious “leave the world” and tend towards perfection “out of the world”; whereas members of Secular Institutes tend towards the same fundamental perfection by the same general means but without “leaving the world” – they remain in the world!

Therefore, consecration of members of Secular Institute is a form of consecrated life in the Church in its full sense meaning of consecration. It is no way something that lies halfway between the Religious consecration and the Baptismal consecration; not even correct to think that they are semi, partial, or quasi-religious! They are fully consecrated persons just like the religious.

SECULARITY: This makes this form of life so unique and perhaps the reason why many do not understand this particular vocation in the Church. It is really difficult to comprehend consecrated secularity. According to the document, Primo Feliciter, “…the proper and specific character of the Institutes, namely, that they are secular and that this is the real nature of their calling. Everything about them must be clearly secular. There will be no paring down of the full profession of the Christian perfection, solidly founded on the evangelical counsels and essentially the same as that of Religious, but perfection is to be lived and professed in the world…”

Secularity simply means an attitude that affirms the goodness of the created world and relative autonomy of this world and the worldly concerns of humanity. This means that remaining in the world is the fruit of a choice, a response to a specific calling to take up this a choice, a response to a specific calling to take up this dimension of ‘staying within’ or ‘living within’: within the heart; within the home; within the structure; within the situation and within history. Members of Secular Institutes are the real front liners in evangelizing the world; to transform the society from within; and they are the hidden witnesses of the Gospel.

Finally, secularity is what makes this way of life colorful and interesting. Members of Secular Institutes are to live their consecrated life exactly in the same way, manner and situation as other laypeople. What makes them different is their consecration – they have vows to live while living the daily routine of their life.

APOSTOLATE: All the faithful are called by baptism to participate in the ecclesial mission of witnessing and proclaiming the Good News and to strive in various ways to build up the Kingdom of God. Within this mission, the members of Secular Institutes have a particular task.

Generally speaking, members of Secular Institutes have no corporate apostolate like that of Religious. Their special apostolate is to insert themselves into the world merely by being present in it through their professional competence, through their friendly contact with those around them and through their mutual help. The witness which they give as that of a truly human life, an apostolate of simply being what they are, who they are and wherever they are. Such manner of being present in the world enables them to have a daily and unceasing contact with all people in every walks of life, in every social milieu, in every type of work, in all professions and in all circumstances. This apostolate of engagement seems correspond to the ideal proposed in the words of Pope Pius XII, “an apostolate in the world and by means of the world”.

With these in mind now, we can say what Secular Institute is NOT. Secular Institute is not an organization, a movement or an association in the Church. Members of Secular Institutes are NOT religious; but consecrated persons just like Religious.

All Religious are consecrated person but not all consecrated persons are Religious. Secular Institute is not Third Order, not a Confraternity, not an Aggregation but an Institute of Consecrated Life in the Church.

Servitium Christi was founded on 6th January 1952 in The Hague, Holland, by Fr. Godfried Spiekman sss, then Superior General of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament. He was responding to St. Peter Julian Eymard’s wish to have a Eucharistic Congregation “for men and women in all walks of life”. The Institute was established in collaboration with Founder Members Miss Ton Golsteijn and Miss Han Bollen, who subsequently became its first two General Directresses. The Institute was erected in the Diocese of Rotterdam, but was granted Pontifical Right in 2010. The Spirituality of the Secular Institute Servitium Christi is the Eucharistic Spirituality of St. Peter Julian Eymard (1811 – 1868). Hence, the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament as well as the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament are closely associated with them in a special way.

In 2007, Servitium Christi finally took off its ground in the Philippines. But the seed was sown as early as 1998-99 when Fr. Mandy Tipones, SSS the Provincial Superior then already initiated its foundation. After fourteen years, the Servitium Christi in the Philippines is already a Region (Region of the Filipino Martyrs) with two Centers (Manila and Davao) and with eighteen members (10 perpetually incorporated; 4 temporarily incorporated and 4 with devotional commitment).

Servitium Christi is inviting all single ladies out there to try this form of life in the Church. Not all flowers are meant for altars; and not all single ladies are meant for convents. There are single ladies who are meant to remain in the world but consecrated to God for the Church. You will not leave your family, work and wealth behind; but you will consecrate yourself by professing the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity in celibacy and obedience. You lose nothing in joining this Institute, and yet you gain everything – JESUS in the Eucharist!

BR. RODOLFO PINTO
is laid to his final rest

Our well-loved pioneering Filipino Sacramentino, Br. Rodolfo Marzan Pinto was laid to his final rest at the Provincialate Ossuary on February 27, 2021. The Most Rev. Sofronio Bancud, SSS, D.D., led the celebration of the Funeral Mass joined by the members of the Provincial Council, POLA, Taguig, Sta. Cruz and Scholasticate Communities. May our continued prayers for the soul of Br. Rudy lead us to relive his memories of persevering in the life of holiness.

POLA ANNUAL RETREAT,
NO MATTER WHAT!

As a Province we obviously missed our yearly much-awaited coming together for the Annual Retreat. Since the pandemic last year to date, we were prevented to gather as one province for this purpose. But determined more than discouraged by the limitations of time, this year, the whole province held its Annual Retreat structured in the community setting. The Most Rev. Socrates Mesiona, D.D. (Apostolic Vicar of Puerto Princesa) graced this year’s Congregational Retreat with the generosity of his personal time and talent. His preparations were obviously no small-time since the condition of the pandemic demands virtual if not pre-recorded talks and sessions.

He animated the week-long retreat with a theme centered on the message of the Philippine Church’s celebration of the Quincentenary of Christianity: “Gifted to Give.” Above all these truly soulinspiring thoughts and sharing of Bishop Mesiona was literally his selfless effort to adjust with the complex demands of holding Annual Retreats virtually. Nevertheless, the whole POLA is appreciative and grateful to Bishop Mesiona. It is the aspiration then of the whole province to share and discover more its gifts for the praise and glory of God’s name; for our good and the good of His Holy Church. Indeed, the graces of holy retreat are there to renew and strengthen our commitment to know, to love and to serve the Lord.

REFLECTIONS: 2021 POLA Annual Retreat

Fr. Miguel M. Garcia, SSS, JCL

Triggered and certainly awakened by the 4th talk of our speaker, Bp. Soc Mesiona on Mission, I wish to share my thoughts on something that I’ve been silently entertaining in my heart and mind. Apparently, the right time has come and it is seemingly ripe to let these thoughts be known by others (although I shared this too with few brothers) and perhaps may likewise invite them to think and reflect on this.

I’ve been thinking the idea of the possibility of establishing an SSS PRESENCE in places we want to be BUT NOT in a PARISH setting. As of now, majority of our ministries are parish based. Our presence in a particular place is within a parish setting. Parishes are entrusted to us to take care of the pastoral needs of the people within a territorial jurisdiction. These parishes are not ours and therefore will not be entrusted to us forever. Scenarios may come that when there are enough diocesan clergy and are ready to take these parishes from us, will consequently end our presence in that particular arch/diocese.

It is time for us to think of new ways of being present in a diocese not necessarily administering a parish or a shrine. Our Eucharistic Charism is not restricted only in a parish setting. Our charism would be more widely shared notwithstanding within a defined parameter.

Our Rule of Life n. 42 provides that “Our communities are called to become centers of prayer which offer assistance to all on their pilgrim way. This ministry is particularly suited to retreat houses and city-center churches.” This ‘city-center churches’ is quite antediluvian at present because no more Bishops would ever entrust a city-center church to any religious congregation.

We can start thinking of having a city-center place that is owned by the Congregation while carrying out our mission and apostolate. It is practically a ministry of PRESENCE in the midst of a busy and occupied setting. The community might be open to collaborate with the parish where we are or with the diocese for a wider-range of engagement. Religious may insert into the pastoral ministries of the parish or diocese where we belong.

While it is true that today, only center of consideration where we carry out our Eucharistic ministries is focused on parishes, shrines; however, it is likewise possible to start looking for other venue for the future. The richness and magnificence of the Eucharist cannot just be contained within a given parameter of a parish; this can be shared widely and freely apart from a well- defined territory. Our charism goes beyond parishes and shrines.

Looking and reflecting on our Rule of Life, its provisions are adaptable to what I am thinking of. Certainly, there would always be reluctance, hesitation, uncertainty and doubt. I surely understand all this. Anything that is new would always provoke these feelings or reactions. Nevertheless, the interest and desire to give this a chance and to try awaits a world that needs to be explored. I am sure this is an unfamiliar ground for all of us; yet this ground needs to be familiarized; a ground that perhaps we have to walk around and share our Eucharistic charism which St. Eymard dreamed of – to bring this to all corners of the world! Gifted to give! With this theme of our 500th Year of Christianity in the Philippines, we Filipinos are challenged to share the gift of faith to all nations (ad gentes); but without prejudice to share this gift of faith likewise here in our own country. As a Province, we have received much; and therefore, we have much to share both locally and internationally.

I am willing to collaborate and explore more with anyone whom this possibility be entrusted and may I also invite others who are attracted or perhaps those who share with me similar views to consider this possibility – a new mission for the future!

Congratulations!
Rev. Fr. Mark Honesto del Rosario, sss
Ruby Jubilee 40 years

Priestly ordination Anniversary
19 April 1980 – 2020

When heightened protocol on social distancing and crowd gathering came restricting once more our religious events this mid-April, Fr. Mark, while bound to follow safety ordinances was all-resolved to celebrate his joy and thanksgiving to God for the gift of 40 years of his priestly ordination. All the way from the United States, he wished to be home and spend this celebration of milestone with his Filipino brothers and friends. He offered his Thanksgiving Mass in Sta. Cruz Church Manila on April 17, 2021 at 12 noon. He is joined via facebooklive by the rest of the Sacramentinos province-wide in his celebration.