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Thanksgiving Message

God does not call us so we can do great things for Him; rather, He calls us so that he

could do great things for us. This was one of the points for reflection that was given to us

during our pre-Diaconate Ordination retreat last year. Indeed, today the Lord has given us

the greatest gift we have received so far. But this gift does not come one time big time forin the eleven to twelve years we have spent in formation, He has given us little gifts that

have helped bring us to this point in our vocation journey, small gifts that have prepared us

to receive this great gift of ordination. Hence, would like to thank the many bearers of

Gods gifts to us.

[Family.] We would like to thank our respective families. We thank especially our

moms and dads for their patient and faithful love that has made known to us a God who

loves patiently and faithfully. We hope to share this same love with the spiritual family that

we have been called to nurture as we begin ordained ministry. To our families and

relatives, when the time comes that you begin to miss us and see less of us because of the

demands of ministry, let us allow ourselves to be consoled by the thought that perhapsmore than physical proximity, it is the intimacy in our hearts and memories that will

continue to bond us as family.

[Apostolate.] We would also like to thank the people we have met and worked with

in our different apostolic engagementsthe different chapels in Sapang Palay, Payatas, and

Montalban; the different families and communities we lived with in Tondo, Muntinlupa,

Bukidnon, Culion and Zamboanga during our Urban Poor and Mission Trials; the

management and staff of the different factories we worked in during our Labor Trial, and

the medical staff and patients of the different medical facilities we were assigned to for our

Hospital Trial; the different student organizations in and outside Ateneo; the schools and

parishes, offices and organizations which are part of our Jesuit ministries in Naga, Iloilo,

Cebu, Davao, and, Cambodia. The many and varied experiences of success and failure in

ministry are invaluable lessons we bring with us as we engage in ordained ministry.

Pasensya na po sa mga kakulangan namin at kapalpakan at paumanhin po sa mga nasaktan

namin. We just had to go through them to learn our lesson, and hopefully we did learn our

lessons well.

[Academics.] To all our Juniorate teachers, we thank you for drilling us on the basics

of language and communication. To our Philosophy teachers, the prime movers of the

Unmoved Mover in our search for Being, thank you for teaching us to unceasingly question

our experience of being. Honestly, I hardly understand what I have just said. And yes, to

our Theology professors, thank you! Now we can say that indeed there is a God . . . not

simply by faith but with a faith that seeks understanding. The oral and written exams wehad to take, especially the comprehensive exam (Question pa lang hindi na namin

maintindihan!), have impressed on us two things which we take with us as we seriously

engage ourselves in ministry: our contingent nature and our utter dependence on God.

[Formators.] And yes, not to forget, our superiors and formators. Dont we just love

them? To all our superiors and formators, our spiritual directors and retreat guides, thank

you for being patient with us when we were stubborn, encouraging when we doubted our

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vocation, firm when we were wrong, and affirming when we were right. We would like to

especially thank Fr. Joe Quilongquilong, our present rector, and Fr. Jojo Magadia, our

current provincial. Thank you for letting go of us! When ordination seemed to take

forever, we thought you were just too attached to us. Hindi pala.

[Ordination.] Finally, we would like to thank all those who worked hard to make

this a meaningful and stress-free celebration. To all the scholastics and brothers of Loyola

House under the leadership of Neo Saicon, thank you for taking care of all the details from

picking up our relatives at the airport, making sure that they have a comfortable place to

stay in and preparing for this beautiful liturgy. We thank the 50 voices that comprise our

choir, friends from the different choirs involved in our music ministry. We would like to

especially thank Fr. Tim Ofrasio for another Ofrasian Creationour chasuble--and Fr. Jett

for shouldering the cost. We thank the Loyola House of Studies community and the

University Dorms Administration for opening up their premises to provide a warm

welcome for all our guests. Thank you too to the Church of the Gesu Committee for

providing the support that the scholastics needed as they prepared for todays celebration.

We are grateful to each and every one of you dear relatives and friends, formerclassmates and officemates, students during regency, partners from various Jesuit

institutions and companions in ministry, workers and staff from our houses and centers,

friends from various religious congregations and charismatic communities, diocesan and

religious clergy, and so many more thank you for all your prayers and support, and for

taking time to share this moment with us, arranging your schedules, traveling from

different parts of the country and the world to be with us. It means a lot to us that you are

here.

Finally we thank our ordaining prelate, His Emminence Most Reverend Jose Antonio

Cardinal Tagle. While you were in Rome during the conclave, we secretly hoped to go to

Rome to be ordained by the Pope. But this unholy desire was not to be so. But we stillthank the Lord for giving us a Jesuit pope and for allowing the local Church to keep you a

little while longer.

Just as it is by Gods graciousness and your generous affection and support that has

gotten us to this point in our vocation journey, we would like to end by begging for a few

more favors. First, please continue praying for us. Please pray that we will continue to

strive and persevere to be the good Jesuit priests you hope us to be, even if in a limited and

imperfect way.

Second, please do not spoil us too much. You may spoil us . . . but not too much. And

when the day comes when we start feeling entitled to preferential treatment, when we

start expecting and demanding privileges, please remind us that the only privilege that theonly privilege we are entitled to is to be of service to God and his people.

In the end, todays celebration is not about us six newly-ordained priests; rather, it

is about our Gracious God who is doing something great for all of us at this very moment, in

this very place. And so we pause for a moment to thank the Lord for this graced moment.

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Finally, we ask you to join us in honoring Mary our pratroness and advocate. Like

her, may we truly magnify the Lord for this graced moment and keep all these things in our

hearts. Please all rise for a hymn to our Blessed Mother.