En Todo Amar Y Servir

Fr. Catalino G. Arévalo, SJ
December 1, 2015

When Jesuit Father Federico Escaler was named Bishop and ordained on 31 July 1976 at the Manila Cathedral, there were two rather unusual features in the consecratory rites. One, a bishop did not preach the homily; instead Fr. Horacio de la Costa, recently back from his Roman assignment as General Assistant at the Jesuit Curia, did. And Two, Fr Ted Grech, a former Maryknoll missionary  at Taipei, but prior to becoming a priest, the gifted solo trumpeter of the prestigious Cleveland Symphony, … Fr Ted, then staying with our seminary community,  volunteered to take part in the ceremonies. When the processional began, Fr Ted’s trumpet, with its glorious notes resounding, powerfully dominated the great cathedral space, with most in the wondering congregation turning to the choir loft to watch him.

We were in the procession, and the Dominican missionary prelate from Guangzhou (I believe), the Spanish Bishop Juan Velasco, turned to me, saying, “Por Dios y por Santo, you Jesuits take a vow not to accept to become  prelates in the Church, but when one is made a bishop, you fill the cathedral with the bursting sound of trumpets!”  Bishop Freddie, that was at your consecration, and only because Fr. Ted wanted to honor the event. But we won’t have trumpets today, even for your prayed-for, joyous entrance into Heaven!

In his homily at Bishop Freddie’s episcopal ordination, Fr. de la Costa spoke quite briefly. He touched one theme only: on how St Ignatius of Loyola who quite strongly, did not want his Jesuit sons to accept honored positions in the Church, might get reconciled to Bishop Freddie’s new rank. Bishop Freddie had chosen as his episcopal motto, “For Faith and Justice,”  —  the theme proclaimed by the Jesuit 32^nd General Congregation only two years before, as its present mission’s “priority of priorities”.

Dear friends of Bishop Fred. I was almost certainly assigned to give the homily this morning because I have known him somewhat  ‘up close and personal’ for nearly eighty years. I could even say ‘I owe him’ even before that, because I’m told that when my father wanted to court my mother, it was  Bishop Freddie’s father whom he approached, to introduce him to my mother-to-be’s family (as the social protocols of the time expected), and to tell them that he was an ‘ok-person’ to become her suitor. (Eighty years, to be summed up this morning, in some fifteen/twenty minutes or so.)

Although Freddie (if I may call him at times that, for short, this morning) was two High School years ahead of me at the Padre Faura Ateneo [Fathers Bulatao, Gopengco and Hontiveros – and also  my elder brother – were his HS’ 1939 batchmates], we were half-boarders together for three years. We both joined the Jesuits in 1941; we shared the Japanese War — and more years, really, — 1941 to 1948 — as novices and scholastics [for sure, there were several memorable, even dramatic stories from those years: for one, about those ROTC bayonets in the Pasig river … but no time for them now]. Theology studies in the States; priestly ordination by Francis Cardinal Spellman, June 19^th, 61 years ago, at the Fordham University church. Fathers Jesus Diaz and Roque Ferriols, Bishop Freddie and I were, till last week, the only surviving Filipino Jesuits who then became priests. Now we are only three left.

What I recount next, I’ve several times told (even in print), but let me recount it again, to tell you something of Freddie’s person, and his love for our Jesuit brotherhood.

We had the great gift of a Novice Master who became, in a special way, a real father, — for him, and also for me. Freddie’s father died when he was only five years old; my father died, when I was only seven.  Father Vincent Kennally [VIK], our Novice Master, who later became Bishop of the Caroline-Marshall islands in the Pacific, but who asked to be brought to Manila when he was close to death, because he so dearly loved our country and our people, … he became a real father to him, — Freddie said this more than once – and a father also to me. Freddie, just made bishop the year before, 1976, concelebrated at Bishop Kennally’s funeral Mass at San Jose Seminary;  with deep grief, and with many tears, when – as the Mass ended — a special string group played “No mas amor que el tuyo”, Bishop’s Kennally’s favorite Philippine hymn. (Incidentally, the Boston archdiocese started the beatification process for Bishop VIK some years ago.)

We rode together in a Volkswagon beatle to Novaliches, Freddie himself driving. He said to me, coming back, “I have never wept so much, ever ever in my life, — not even when my mother – surely the person I have most loved in life  – left us in death.”  I tell this story, because it reveals the kind of bonding Fred had with his Jesuit brotherhood, and because it tells us something of his own gentle affectivity. Freddie was a loving person. In a very spontaneous, simple – but not a softly sentimental — way, he loved people and was much loved in return. Several persons told me, during these days of the wake, “Bishop Fred seems to have been so close to his family, so much loved by the younger generations!” And that was and is true, isn’t it, I ask you — you who are here in force this morning? One sign with the flowers says, “Tito Freddie, with much love.” Another, “Lolo Freddie, you are a gift to us. We love you.” There have been many quiet tears these days. On the Ignatian motto, “En todo amar y servir: In everything to love and to serve.” Pope Francis once said, “With many of us priests, good priests, there is much service, yes. But so often, if there is truly much service, there not so much tenderness and love.”  This was not true of Freddie, wasn’t it, for those who got to know him, ‘up close and personal’?

Freddie had been a Jesuit for 35 years before Rome named him bishop. In his twenty years as Jesuit priest, he had been given practically every office of responsibility and leadership in our Province which he could have received: seminary teacher and prefect of major seminarians at San Jose; socius, or right-hand man of the Provincial (then Fr Frank Clark, who – as a regent — had taught him at the Ateneo HS, and who  loved and valued him so highly); head of the La Ignaciana retreat house and Province CEO for its retreat ministry; treasurer for the Province; President and community Rector in, one after the other,  the two main Mindanao Jesuit colleges, at Davao and at Cagayan de Oro, where he was Xavier University President.

Then Rome stepped in and asked him to take two of the poorest mission regions in Mindanao:  Kidapawan in Cotabato and Ipil, in Zamboanga del Sur. “Hotbeds of conflict,” they were then. “Peripheries and outskirts; with the poor, for the poor”; Freddie’s posts, long before Pope Francis said that’s where we belong.

They ordained Fr Freddie a bishop in 1976 (as we recounted earlier), and asked him to start the Kidapawan Apostolic Prefecture from scratch, to organize it,  set up its basic institutions, get it financially supported, then leave it four years later, on its feet, a new diocese. The move to Ipil in 1980, an even harder task, to do just the same there, holding office 17 years as its Bishop, where – as in Kidapawan earlier – he worked at the creation of a solid, lively, functioning local church.  Its third and present head, Bishop Julius Tonel, two evenings ago told us that Ipil would forever remember Bishop Escaler, with wondering gratitude, for all that the diocese and its people owed him.

The Philippine Jesuit monthly newsletter has a few lines from an early letter, just three months after his consecration. “It has been quite hectic, covering six of our nine parishes, — drop-in visits, talks, retreats, conferences, parish assemblies, right and left: rewarding, but taxing; yes, quite taxing. Right now I’m mediating a split among the faithful in a new parish. Who will its patron saint be? One sector wants San Jose; a second, Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Neither side will yield. If San Jose wins, the first group says, we will not ever attend Masses in the church. If Our Lady is chosen, the others will then do the active boycotting. Exciting? Yesterday I had my first chance for some sleep and rest. Thanks be, Ateneo de Davao has given me a room to hide in.”

But remember, ‘For Faith and Justice’ was the motto he had chosen. Option and labor for the poor, the leading task. Its ‘real-ization’ through his episcopal ministry, especially in Ipil, deserves a book of its own. Ipil in the 1970s-1980s: attacks by different militant sectors, the Abu Sayyaf among them. A first attack; a major one, with loss of many homes and nearly a hundred lives. A second invasion, razing large sectors of the town, and by chance, the bishop himself right on the spot, bravely but barely able to prevent a really bloody Muslim-Christian mutual massacre.

In 1995, Bishop Freddie was kidnapped; held captive for several days. Much anxiety in church ranks; the first time a bishop was taken. It never got fully cleared who really held him; most likely, it seems, a group tied up with the Martial Law regime. Bishop Freddie had several times strongly raised his voice against human rights violations by the Marcos military.  He was released within the week, no ransom paid, but ‘suitably warned to keep quiet.’  “My new assignment is quite exciting,” he wrote in ’76; in ‘95, it had become also frightfully dangerous.

Reaching age 75 in 1997, it was finally time to hand on Ipil to a Jesuit Bishop successor, Fr Antonio Ledesma, who presides at our Mass today. The following fifteen years have not really been “retirement”; far, far from it. … But it’s time now to sum up.

We have touched on the more recently fostered Ignatian theme-words, “En todo amar y servir. … In all things, to love and to serve.”  A fitting enough encapsulation of Bishop Freddie’s life, as Jesuit, priest and bishop.  “Servir”. Most of you know the so-called “Prayer for generosity”. We know St Ignatius didn’t himself write it, but (except for one line in it) one finds much of his spirit there. “To give and not to count the cost.” “Love is shown,” the Ignatian Exercises say, “more in deeds than in words.” Bishop Freddie has spoken often, yes; part of his bishop’s ministry. But words are not at the bottom line with him. All his life has been doing, doing; getting things done, giving of himself constantly for others.  The service has been really outstanding; but all of it, quiet, unpublicized, given matter-of-factly; just what one does daily; no fuss, no noise. You can ask anyone who has known Freddie well. The glad giver, who never counted the cost, all his life long.

In his homily, Fr Joe Quilonquilong told us that just weeks ago, he brought the new pastor of the San Miguel parish, Fr Gennie Diwa, to meet Bishop Freddie. Freddie, now lying on his sick bed, terminally ill, already too weak even to get up. “This is the new parish priest here, Bishop.” And Freddie, hardly strong enough to speak, said. “Father, If you need any help, just call me. Anything I can do, just call me.” And before they left, again: “Any help you need, call me.”  That ‘servir’ life-story deserves a whole book, an inspiring, heart-lifting book. And maybe, just maybe, later, — some have been asking these last few days,  — even a beatification process.

“Amar” is the other word. We have said it already; there has been much, very much of that. The ‘amar y servir’ we spoke of above, was all for other people. But we must speak now, all so inadequately, of his love, his passion even, for Jesus Lord and King of all his being, and Mary who, we know, we know, was truly and tenderly mother to him.

Fr. Quilongquilong spoke too, of the depth his prayer, above all in the final years. Fr. Joe said that when in Rome, not too long ago, Freddie held the ancient book of St Ignatius’ handwritten diary in his hands, and turned its pages, the tears came silently, but copiously, from the depth of his filial and reverent heart.  When Pope Francis spoke to his Jesuit brothers at the Papal Nunciature, that one evening in January this year, Freddie had asked to be there. He sat almost directly in front of Francis, intently listening … in prayer, really; not a word said, and all that time, only the flow of silent tears.

Two weeks ago, when I prayed with him at his bedside, and thanked the Lord that He had used Freddie to give so much of His love to so many people; used Freddie through so many down-to-earth deeds to give hope to so many who were poor, needy and suffering, — there were silent tears running, the words of his own love with which he then prayed with me. I thanked the Lord that He had used the day-after-day deeds Freddie had so matter-of-factly shared, and how so many had come to love him, too, because of God’s caring they saw in him. In the last years especially there was the obviously deep consolation and prayer people sensed present in him, the love that had grown as gift, in the midst of the sacrifice and the self-giving of, — really, we can now say, — all his life long.

Thank you, Bishop Freddie. We say good-bye, now at this final Mass.  Not with trumpets ringing to fill this church this morning. But with grateful love quietly speaking from our hearts, — oh, from the many hearts of those, for whom you embodied what Ignatius said our lives should be: “In everything to love and serve.” “En todo amar y servir.”  Freddie, rarely has that “en todo” been so well fulfilled, as you fulfilled it.  Again, salamat.

Amen. Amen.

---

This was preached at the funeral of Bishop Freddie Escaler on December 1, 2015, Church of the Gesu, Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City.