"Emerging at the Squatter's Area"

Every week end here in SMSC is devoted for doing apostolate to different parishes with its corresponding designated pastoral areas. It is one of the many activities here pertaining to doing pastoral ministry and it serves as an avenue to practice and develop our individual and unique gifts, skills, talents and abilities in which it is best suited. With this, we are not only enriching ourselves by learning in the classroom setting but also with the experiences that led us into entanglement with the life of the people, community and to the reality at large, which are quite different compared into pure ideas within the classroom setting. I consider my pastoral area as the mini-battle field of my future ministry, as future priest. Whether I like it or not, it will serve as our springboard to the real score of my ministry someday and that is why it is but fitting to give utmost importance to this area of formation.

In the battle field, a plan is crucial for winning what we are fighting for. Therefore there must be a framework that a group shall carry as a track in attaining the goal. We are sent as a team composed of four members and the reality of the group rest on the fact that three are still neophyte theology seminarians with only one third year who serves as the team leader. However, the group, with the gift of faith and perseverance, uniqueness of talents and abilities, dare to be in harmony in their service.  "Ora et labora" (Prayer and work) prayer gives us strength that comes from above which dwells within our heart and it made us persevere amidst difficulties. We cannot but accept the fact that we need to accord our framework to the brilliance of some theological and philosophical views of theologians and great thinkers. The lines of our inspirations are the pastoral exhortation of Pope Francis, Evangelii Gadium, the book of Chris Lowney entitled Pope Francis: Why He Leads the Way He Leads, Margaret Wheatly’s So Far Away from Home, Juan Luis Segundo’s Concept of Liberation Theology, Stanley J. Gren's On the Post Modern World and lastly, Schein's Level of Cultures which explores different context of culture.

In doing our apostolate, our team was instructed to be on the hands-on mode in the place called Ut-nay, part of the Fatima Shrine's jurisdiction. Needless to say, it is a typical squatter's area hidden at the back of beautiful, tall, glittering buildings and factories of the City of Mandaue. The people who are living there were coming from different places, embodied with varied cultures in their native hometowns, practices and attitudes also have a fair share of the menu. However they have common mark, the mark of being Christian believers. Perhaps it could be our entry point in doing our mission, moreover, in doing so, a critical preparation and evaluation is very much needed and that is why we need to set the framework which we shall use in the arena.

Following the collective ideologies coming from different perspectives of the various authors, we take the challenge of integrating the essence of their sociological, philosophical and theological views which are standing on the ground of secular and religious perspectives. It is important to ask the first fundamental question on where is the community now in terms of secular and spiritual status. As I have said earlier, to analyze the sociological conditions of the people before going into the very starting point in the so-called stage of diagnosing is at the thin line of crucial scrutiny. From there, a possible remedy maybe given existence out of the gnosis coming from careful reflection, anchored on the very act of looking at the bigger picture with the needed holistic perspective.

The world is constantly changing as attested by the third law of motion, in which everything in the physical world is constantly moving—motion could be tantamount to change. However, unaware we maybe, it affect us greatly from both sides of our being. 

The sociological perspective of Margaret Wheatly from the secular school of thought which tells us that we are so far away from home, that we are now in the new world wherein one must be brave enough to face the emergence of life and world's situation can be used as a walking staff in guiding this journey of ours. Wheatly was exuberantly right in coining these ideas since it cannot be truly stop by nature because it is the nature itself. It is basically the flow of globalization and highly preoccupation of secularism that we need to be cautious with, however, it doesn’t mean of surrendering the whole thing, it only challenges us to reflect on where we are coming from and what we are meant for.

We are reminded with this reality that we are not in control of everything—a phenomenon. One of the problems that Wheatly saw was the capitalistic ideology which aims profit, and the ultimate goal is money. People in the 21^st century are becoming greedier, no satisfaction, and always wanting for more. Money and self-interest are there primordial objective. These are just some examples of the emerging situation that we come to realize with the advent of Wheatly's social analysis of the world today. Nonetheless, she presented an important challenge that we need to consider: How are we going to face the emergence of the contemporary challenges mentioned above.

Going back to ourselves and examine our self's identity is Wheatly’s suggestion in responding to these gargantuan challenges to the entire humanity. The self as our starting point. We need to examine ourselves and take a look at our identity and mission. From that springboard, we begin where the emergence is. As a warrior, we should not combat in the external panorama, rather, we should engage in the battle from within.

After we examine, responded and settled the queries within ourselves, we are now ready to engage in “fishing” as “fishers of men”. As the dictum says "Sail into the Blue Sea where a wide horizon is waiting to be conquered." A fisherman usually releases his net into the blue water—the deep blue sea—because it is where enormous number of fishes can be found.

Like any other places, in the ocean, there is also the so called wilderness. In the context of our pastoral area, it is the emerging challenges in the contemporary world as I mentioned above. It needs to be conquered. It must be seized by re-evangelizing the people through enculturation. This is so because it is part of the reality that in our ways we need to face the storms, waves, or typhoons—whether gigantic or petite. We need to persevere, like in the deep blue see, we need to swim as fast as we could and we need to conquer our fears amidst the dangers that await us. We should also not forget, like the fishermen, in spite of the eagerness to have a big catch, we need to be patient. Despite of all the challenges, we need to be hopeful that after all the endeavor, after all the efforts we exerted, after all the storms that we conquer, a ray of light will still shine in the horizon and the darkness hovered with lightning in the sky will once again be calm and the ferocious ocean will be a friendly sea that invites everyone to experience here tender embrace. All of these will never come into existence without the sustenance of the sacred faith implanted in our individual hearts. 

For me, the first step in doing pastoral ministry is to be there where the peoples are. Being with the people implies different connotations—it could be being with them on how they feel, on how they live their situation, on how they face their problem or to listen to their struggle. A balance overview will give us a clear picture of what are the problems and opportunities in the area. In other words we need to put ourselves into the right place and to take position before doing pastoral ministry. In this regard, Schein's level of culture's point of view makes sense that if we are to understand the group's culture, one must attempt to get at its shared basic assumptions and one must understand the learning process by which such basic assumptions are given birth. This is also because the essence of a culture lies in pattern of basic underlying assumptions, and once one understood these, one can easily understand the other more surface levels and deal appropriately.

I would say we begin where the person is at, just like in the squatter's area. During the day people are so busy struggling to sustain their needs hence we cannot interrupt them. We need to find time in which we can talk to them and accommodate them with their most available time. The only time we can talk and be with them, is during night time before and after dinner. Therefore, our go signal to do our task is during that time. We can do our pastoral ministry by starting to listen to their stories whether success or challenges and from that starting point, we can respond on any ways that we are capable with. By being there and being with the people doing our apostolate is a way of doing theology.

Look at their smiles...:)

And their situations...what can you do for them?

He remind's us also!