Strength & Serenity

Former President Cory Aquino’s 82nd birth anniversary was marked quietly and very privately by her family and friends last Sunday.

Her granddaughter Jia Dee played the organ while her daughters Ballsy Cruz and Viel Dee, and niece Jackie Aquino, sang with  the impromptu choir.

Cory’s only son President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III was working, as he flew early Sunday to Zamboanga to visit the victims of a recent bombing incident, and attend to matters of security there.

Roses and Crosses given to Fr. Catalino Arevalo, S.J. by Cory Aquino.

Her spiritual adviser Fr. Catalino Arevalo, S.J. celebrated the Mass, as he has been celebrating Masses on Ninoy Aquino’s birth and death anniversaries for many years now. Even when she was in the pink of health, Cory used to say she couldn’t ask for more when her time came, telling Father Arevalo and her friends that they needn’t come to her grave on her birth and death anniversaries.

After the Mass, in which Arevalo prayed that President Noynoy Aquino’s last year in office “would be his best yet,” Ballsy thanked the small group on behalf of the family.

She said the whole family had asked for their mother’s intercession in praying for the safety of Pope Francis during his five-day visit to the Philippines, saying her brother had been so “stressed-out” with the security preparations in light of reported assassination plots.

“We could see during our Sunday reunions that he was really so stressed out. And we did hear from sources about the threats to the Pope’s life, so we prayed to Mom to help Noy and all of us succeed in protecting the Pope,” Ballsy recalled.

And she said she was overjoyed with the success of the Pope’s visit, because he brought a lot of hope and happiness to the Filipino people.

“If we could imagine how God would look like, since He is invisible, I guess we could imagine that He would look like Pope Francis,” she said.

Ballsy very candidly quipped that though she looked forward to the Pope’s return, she wished it would be under a new President — seeing how preparations for this visit had taken a toll on her brother, who spent many a sleepless night ensuring the beloved pontiff would be safe and secure.

True enough, plots to kill the Pope during his Philippine visit have been confirmed, and the Pope himself said he saw “shadows and dangers” around him, but is undeterred.

Carmela Borres of Bahay ni Maria, a close Aquino family friend, said even if she was not around, Cory Aquino must have been smiling in heaven that the Pope visited the Philippines under her son’s watch, and that the visit was a success in strengthening the faith of millions.

(From left) Viel Dee, Nina Abellada, Jonty Cruz, Pinky Abellada, Jiggy, Ballsy and Eldon Cruz, Manolo Abellada and Fr. Catalino Arevalo, S.J. gather at Cory Aquino’s tomb at the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque City to commemorate her 82nd birth anniversary.

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Cory and Pope Francis would have had many things to talk about.

Shortly after her presidency, Cory Aquino went on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy. The guide reportedly told her and her companions, “You know, St. Francis would always ask the Lord for more sufferings.”

Cory related in an interview that when she got back to her hotel room, she got down on her knees and told God, “I don’t think I’ll ask for more suffering. But if more suffering comes my way, I will not complain.”

And she was always true to her prayer.  When she found out she had colon cancer, the same disease that claimed her mother Demetria Sumulong-Cojuangco, she told her children and relatives, “I have had it good, I cannot complain.”

“And I used to think, or I like to think, that there was a quota for suffering. And I felt I had filled up mine,” she told me after she was diagnosed with cancer in 2008. But she didn’t ask God, “Why me?”

This is one of the many facets of Cory Aquino that I admired and still admire — her capacity to find nobility and purpose in life’s trials and her gift for transcending them. The painting she gave Father Arevalo, in fact, shows roses and crosses in harmony. That sums up her life.

“Jesus Christ came down to earth to suffer and die, and He was without sin. And we should also ask ourselves why we have been put on earth and it is to fulfill God’s mission for us,” she told me.

I believe Cory knew in her heart that the roses (of which she had a garden-ful) and crosses (of which she also had her fair share) were part of her mission in life — starting with martial law, Ninoy’s hunger strike, his solitary detention, his assassination. All these led to the glorious EDSA people power revolution in 1986.

I also admired her resilience and her self-confessed “fatalism.” She was resigned to things she could not change or did not have power to control. Some people call it acceptance; the Pope calls it “resignation.”

During his conference on the flight back to Rome on Philippine Airlines, the Pope said, “There’s a word that’s difficult for us to understand because it has been vulgarized too much, too badly used, too badly understood, but it’s a word that has substance: resignation. A people who knows how to suffer, and is capable of rising up.”

If there is any prayer that I can think of that best epitomizes Cory Aquino, it’s the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity ?to accept the things I cannot change; ?Courage to change the things I can; ?And wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right ?if I surrender to His Will; So that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever and ever in the next.

We miss you, President Cory!

(You may e-mail me at [email protected].)