My patron, my friend
My devotion and deep attachment to St. John Paul II started roughly a year ago at home in Cebu. And oddly enough, it was couched in cynicism. I was, you see, in a state in my spiritual life that left much to be desired. I often despaired in the ability of God to make things a little easier for me and my family.
It did not help that I have this thing in my neck, about which I did not go to see a doctor. There was no money for it, and even if I had, I would rather save it for our needs. Besides, it did not seem to bother me, so to the fates I had it consigned. This was the state of affairs of my life when JP2 came in.
I had just awakened one morning but did not rise from bed. My eyes fell on a picture of JP2 hanging from a nail on the wall. It was all that remained of an old calendar whose pages have long gone with the dates they signified. As I stared at the picture, I began to talk to him in my thoughts. I told him if maybe he can help me with this thing in my neck.
I recalled to him that I actually saw him, though from afar, when his motorcade passed through my hometown of Mandaue City during his first Philippine visit as a pope in 1981. Rather testily, I told him that if he helped that woman in what was to be his first miracle, the woman who later bore his blood relic at his canonization in 2014, then maybe he could help me as well.
But he has to give me a sign that he was willing to help, the skeptic in me told him before finally rising. And as I faced yet another day, I promptly forgot about the whole thing. That night, as I watched the news on TV, my daughter, Carmel, on the sofa nearby, the news came that the Vatican was donating to Manila a part of the blood relic of JP2. It was as if a hammer hit me.
Wow. Was this a sign? Was this the sign? Babbling, I told Carmel the events of that morning, and the news we were now seeing. Her interest aroused, Carmel started googling JP2. Then she delivered the bombshell. “Today is April 2, right?” she asked. I said “Yes. Why?” “Well, April 2 was the day he died,” she said.
Thus was I drawn not only to him but to a renewed faith in God. I started going back to church. Months later, I came upon a copy of Time magazine that featured him. One particularly large photo of his face had me wondering if he shaved by himself or had someone do it for him. As I turned the page, there he was, in another photo as a young man --shaving! Wow.
Recently, I have had to leave Cebu for a while to be with my wife in Carigara, Leyte, as she cared for her aging parents. In one of my daily novenas to JP2, I told him how we have not seemed to communicate for a while. Days later the news came that his blood relic was going to visit Carigara on March 31, two days before April 2 when first he came into my life a year ago.
Extraordinary coincidences? Maybe. But to me, the tears that well up in my eyes every time I think of how this extraordinary being touched my life are real. They are wet, salty, and come unbidden. And when I have dried them, a great feeling of peace and reassurance comes over me. And that is real as well, just as the God to whom JP2 brought me back to, is real.
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