Author: ADIgcalinos

That distaste for karatula led me to consider pursuing other options than becoming a titled one. But I never gave serious thought on becoming a priest, either. I was in my senior year when a brother came to our school to talk about priestly vocation and seminary life. The rest of his blah-blahs did not register, nor it left an impression about something very promising.

It did not help that we had this weirdo and socially withdrawn asshole for a parish priest who drove his faithful to Iglesia sa Dios and some society of nocturnal devotees who would rouse the whole town from sleep with their pasyon-cum-orasyon amplified on loud speakers at dawn, starting at 2:00 AM to be exact. This weirdo minister never cut his hair for the entire duration of his short-lived ministry in our town; he was recalled after he figured in shouting match with a resident who was furious over the asshole priest's refusal to allow the resident's husband's remains to be brought inside the church for that reason: the shouting match.

That asshole priest also invited vandals to his convent and there were nights when stones would rain on his roof as disgusted and disgruntled parishioners vented their ire over his asshole ways. He mostly refused to say mass in the barrios, and he locked the church doors most of the time. His Sunday sermons were downright dry and boring it made me wonder why such an asshole could become a priest, supposedly a good communicator, an excellent marketer of salvation. He was one of the worst preachers I have ever encountered in my life, though I must confess I stopped listening to sermons many years ago for fear of damnation caused unnecessarily by a bad preacher!

That asshole priest made me rethink my decision to enter the seminary. But I had a way of convincing and reassuring myself that I would not become like him. When I asked for a recommendation, the asshole priest readily gave me, although I never got to see what was written inside the sealed envelope. (The one I handed later on to the (e)rector of the seminary.)

Fast forward to December of the same year. Six of my schoolmates trooped to city to take the exam and joined with the rest of prospective seminarians in a two-day get-together. But I went there as an excuse to see my favorite city, no more, no less. Then two months later, I received a congratulatory letter, saying I qualified for the seminary. I was the only one who made it. Two of my classmates were dying to enter but were unlucky. In two weeks, a fraile came to see me and family, probably checking if they were in the position to send me to the seminary.

News of my qualifying spread quickly, and friends and neighbors came congratulating and wishing me success daw in the seminary! Mukhang napasubo na yata ako, a. There's no turning back. What about the girls? Well, I kept them of course! I even added one shortly before graduation. The more girlfriends the better to keep you inspired (no argument, please).

Everything went fine and in three months, I was ready to enter The Hills.

Orginally posted at Capricornian

Recommended Readings:

The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling
Callings: Twenty Centuries Of Christian Wisdom On Vocation

Author: GPagulayan

15 years after my spiritual seed preferred to jump out onto this dry soil, people have finally stopped throwing me the many whys of leaving the enclaves of the chosen. I usually had readymade answers to all of them depending on who was asking. There was one for every kind. I would tell my friends that it was entirely their fault for not disclosing me the real thing, that sex (and the acronym) was more than yummy. Or I would say, “yokong magpari , gusto ko magpaari,” with some funny licks on my upper lip. I would also just tell people that I was not happy inside if I sensed they were to ask more follow ups. This worked so well with my grandmother whom I thought to be very sad but to my surprise, she was the first person to support my decision. When I was in UE, a lot more did not keep me away from their curiosity. Colleagues, students, girlfriends, everyone stabbed me with same whys. It was already part of my reflex to say something for the sake of explanation but honestly, I myself did not know why. I was not sure. I was not thinking. I was not aware of what was happening to me after. I just put finality into things and all I knew, I was already looking for a job just like a regular graduate.

I remember there was too much information inside. Some were about the missteps of our prefects and spiritual formators that I should have avoided knowing much about. Others were details pertaining to the inconsistencies of almost everything with everyone in the Church, in the Seminary, everywhere. I was very critical literally and psychologically that I became so vocal and loud, and restless, wanting to impact change inside the seminary, if not the Church, together with some friends who shared my agitation. It was still my 3rd year inside when I was already hearing from seniors of their plans to go out immediately after graduation. But I was not buying their ideas. I listened to their conversations but I was still firm about finishing up to priesthood.

I had not had any higher philosophical questions about the order of things not until Marxism, or Liberation Theology by the Boffs, or Postmodernism/poststructuralism, or Derrida, Lacan, Levi Strauss, Saussure, plus the stinky visit of three burnt friends outside our Seminary walls followed by the sneaky escape of a mentor friend from whom part of my nakem owed its maturity. The third storm was already stirring up, destructing within (from the Heidegger’s “destruksion” ) in order to put things into motion so as to displace/replace/redefine positions of origin of things that build the politics of relations into the status quo. I could not keep things within. They wanted me to burst out a narrative and blow an exit which was already becoming me.

I was seriously celibate until graduation. I had no girlfriend my whole life. I had not kissed anybody. I was a virgin, untouched, but only personally damaged by some artistic hand strokes. That is so funny, isn’t it. But true. I felt I was a shy thin dark and ugly fellow!

Not until I was given a teaching position in a medical school in Quezon City. I was like a bird on a first flight, spreading my wings wide in an open air. Woos woos! Imagine 50 to 60 young pretty nursing students in each 10 classrooms I handled, almost of my age at that time, amazed and listening, staring at your youth. Ah, what a moment to remember! It was then that Edmund Husserl’s Phainomenon became meaningful to me. So I began to bracket some presuppositions. I set aside some unnecessary prejudices in order to arrive at a clearer and more objective understanding of appearances. They came very clear to me. Back then, I behaved strictly as a scientist: to accept only the givens in their original form.

I knew that going back to the Seminary was still an option but it never visited me. The loyalty of materialism and earthliness were more compulsive in my life. Being an independent bachelor and earning more than enough in UE for 9 years as a Philosophy and logic teacher, I felt I was already living my dreams. I could buy what I wanted. I could go wherever I thought was fun until midnight without anyone reminding me of the right things. I switched into different relationships here and there behaving like a mad dog. However, there was one thing I did that I regretted so much. I extremely submitted into a long affair with a girl who was a kapatid in the Iglesia ni Cristo. I got baptized an INC. I don’t know though if that was valid up to now even if I willed for religious refreshment afterwards. I became a tiwalag. I loved her and I was sure about it. She also loved me and I was also sure about that. My baptism and our break up after 4.5 years were the only things I could not comprehend. Things became clear to me when I heard she married to an INC minister.

To date, the option is closed unless Batman insists and makes tweaks in my life. I may have gone too far away from the seminary walls but its curse continues to haunt me, still putting spiritual walls around this luxury of distance and freedom of exilic life. It bends my character and actions to the ground and liquefies my spirit so as to prefer only the bottom or lowly corners of the world. It has become my cool breeze under the burning heat of California sun, my cozy coat in the snows, more importantly, keeping my sanity on the sea level despite this huge spatial gap that I’ve built between me and the people I treasure the most.

I don’t know if I am thankful for being SEXed, for being transformed into this one personification of a big paradox of life and living. I chose to self exile yet I am continuously gathering myself to do U-turns that never stops until I am stuck on the infinity of aloneness time and time again. Sometimes, I ask of the classic question, why, and I find myself staring at empty spaces where music and muses grab me off to solitude, or I say, ‘dreamitude.’ Then I scribble some notes of all kinds.

Recommended Books:

Heidegger's Being and Time
Edmund Husserl's Experience and Judgment (SPEP)
James H. Cone's God of the Oppressed

Author: ADIgcalinos

The then newly-opened Robinson's Galleria was so tempting to be explored for a barrio (but not barriotic) boy who only had sari-sari and at times sira-sira (had to close for stacks of debts) stores back home in the boondocks of Mindanao as hang-outs.

But the most inviting part of that mall along Edsa and Ortigas was its cinema that was showing what was to be a seminarian's dream flick-ST films, which were very much in fashion at that time. Not that I, nor were they deprived of skin flicks because back in the province, we had seen films hundred times racier and hotter than those offered in some Cubao theaters or elsewhere.

But it must be different when you were on a restriction: the stakes are higher and the thrill simply unimaginable. This thought I shared with three of my fellow X-Men, who agreed to avail of our Sunday liberty and partake of the skin flick on the big screen. But we were plain curious about how much that starrer could arouse our sensualities as boys of the cloth. We were young boys, yes, but our young testicles were oozing with advanced testosterone levels, mind you.

I could still remember the three ladies who made me perspire despite the ultra-cold AC and my heart beat faster: Cristina, Greta, and Rita. The three X-Men had the same trouble, only that they made more frequent trips to the RR where they must have poured out their 'sama ng loob,' with the lone flourescent lamp hanging overhead as their only witness .

After two hours, we left the place grinning, recounting the most titillating parts that mostly left stains on our undies, we found out later.

That's how we enjoyed and not just fantasized and looked at sexual freedom in the context of sexual repression. Some X-Men brought their sensualities to the next level, but I restrained myself for fear of ST + D. Hitching should not have been a problem but my fear prevailed. My conscience was not sick, and I had and still have a clear sense of what is good or bad for me. I chose to be safe. Besides, I fully trusted and made use of my creative imagination with little help from the ever reliable Ms. Palmy.

Guilty? Not a hint. We were being truthful. The recklessness of youth in us resolved to introduce ourselves in advance to the world of sensuality before age or death catches on us, leaving us desiring and despairing to do things we could not possibly do anymore, things that we could not do within the walled confines of The Hill, of things forbidden by Padre Pio because he was the only one licensed to do it with the blessing of his padre de amore. Mama mia!

I wished I could bring the tres marias to meet the tres padres, but I knew they knew better than importing flesh traders to The Hill. Amen.

First published at CAPRICORN...not for the faint-hearted

Author: ADIgcalinos

So the public may know, a classmate- friend in the Visayas was telling me about SEX. SEX is actually an abbreviation for Society of Ex-Cams. I was floored! What a brilliant idea! Of course, I insisted on being enlisted as a founding member.

See, sex and seminary and seminarians and their masters are inseparable. They are mutually dependent and therefore, a necessity. Which brought my favorite (e)rector and dean into some kind of oral intimacy, as intimated to us by a fellow who had witnessed that passionate lip-locking moment where else but in the blissful quarters of the frailes at The Hill.

Sex and the various attempts to do it in whatever form and position or relation is not uncommon in an abnormally cloistered confines like the seminary/semenary. Trust the seminarians' creative imagination. This is about the only thing that requires no Call Slip or Out of Campus Slip that should bear the signature of Padre Pio. Everybody has a license to it and only the felines waive their licenses to do it themselves, but not giving up/given up on someone else doing it on them. Oh, that mystery byte, I remember. Or, that padre plumber digging holes at dawn. Or that confessor (bless his soul) licking the hand of the confessee, name it and you have it. Or, of used rubbers sticking out of the windows in that infamous infirmary whose wards had most of the time firmed themselves with little help from madonna reincarnates. We can go on and on but it's too premature to spill the beans here.

I shall have more of the above in the succeeding posts.

Originally posted at: http://bukidnonhome.blogspot.com

Admin Note:

ADIgcalinos is an ex-seminarian. Expect him to ocassionally drop some booming thoughts about his life as a seminarian. For me, he is Dalisay in the making. Subscribe to us, NOW.

Worth Viewing:

The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys

A refreshing and honest portrayal of adolescent Catholic boys. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys follows Tim (Kieran Culkin) and Francis (Emile Hirsch) as they engage in aimless vandalism and mockery--not from malice but boredom. Sadly, the theft of a religious icon and a plan to kidnap a cougar result in far more serious consequences than either boy intends. The authenticity of the characters and dialogue make the movie work; both script and performances are genuine and consistently surprising. Jena Malone, as a troubled girl who gets involved with Francis, is particularly good, but the whole cast (which includes Jodie Foster and Vincent D'Onofrio) does excellent work. In capturing both the harm and the good that teenagers can do, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys transcends the usual rebellious-kids storyline. The movie features animated segments that depict Francis's fantasy life, created by Todd McFarlane (Spawn). --Bret Fetzer (Amazon.com Review)

Burning.

Murder.

Stenches of charred bodies.

Burned souls.

Called souls were many but few were chosen to partake with sumptuous meals.

Flames laughed. And smokes challenged all saints in heavens. Flames danced and swayed with the wind - - and the ledda all around but not with the heights of priestly walls - - and smokes darted their might to the place of thy kingdom come bringing all along the screams of burned souls to heavens or hells, nobody ever knew.

And beyond the heights and mights of that priestly walls, the drapes stood still, and faithful enough, guarding the called who call themselves semens and also the owners of holy cloaks who called themselves Prefects, all of them were preoccupied of their dreams in limbo or somewhere else, dreaming of the good promised days of redemption of happy life, some or all of them never knew what was hell like, the dreams of doing something holier than the ordinary, of becoming guardians of the infirms, the poor and the sick. And just beyond the walls, one soul cringed, cried, burned and charcoaled out of reach.

I was one of the semens - - I hate to remember it now. And I dreamed that night about sex.

Then, just before the roosters crowed for the third time, screams betrayed the silences of The Hill. One body lost its soul. Rather, the soul was purged from the body.

And when the lights shone on the dreamy faces of the walled-wanton lives, the truth was revealed, blackened beyond recognition, charred truth. Awed by the scene and by the sudden revelation, one priest run for the merciful water.

The bottled water in hand–we call that water, holy–he held the bottle with his index finger and the thumb, looked at the body with sacramental thoughts, more of condolences than of venerations, he sighed and closed his eyes as if summoning all his strengths and transferred those to the body, and in depth breath of repentance, he raised his sight and called the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and drenched the charred body to salvation. Unknown to the called, the soul was towed by the smoke to heavens or hells, no one ever knew. The absolution was too late.

Shouldered dropped, drooped, and heavied by the lost of one soul, the semens and the Prefects winked and said goodbyes to the body of a soul sentenced by burning flames, a soul of blackened flesh beyond recognition and in cognito, gone to different places at the same time, left by the muses of poetics and wonders of languages. Gone and alas, incommunicado from the grasps of all known-living worlds. And exiled to the worlds only the believers knew. They asked for repentance and prayed to God that He may receive the creature to His fold and give it an unending happy life.

It was hard to say ‘you damn fool, be thankful. The worst is over, isn’t it?’

But, on second thought, the end of its kind was not as expected, far from what was imagined and nothing to what was conceived as holier which was supposed to be, and far from what the mind could grasped. Having poetics today was inimical and philosophizing was out of places, moreso to the meaning of sermon to be heard or to the existence of gospel being preached. Nothingness should be the call of the day.

Or, maybe, it was better to miss the scheduled holy mass, for nothing was holier than to contemplate to what had happened, to what was happening to the joyful days of the living, now dead unceremoniously, mercilessly burned and displayed beyond recognition, as offering to the new day. God may forgive His called ones missing the words of wisdom at this day. But, not today. Not with this seminary.

But, what was the used of lingering to one’s charred body of an unknown person to a semen dreaming of holy days with the sickly and poor and not with the dead? God will left all souls to heavens, anyway.

Or, maybe, it was easier to linger on one’s pain than to imagine oneself experiencing the agony the charred body had gone through this early hours. Sympathy was a virtue but turning your back to the causes of sufferings, the sufferings that the semens professed and confessed to ease upon all who carries the burdens of their crosses, that is, carrying all crosses to himself all crosses of the burdened, was apathy.

And the holy bell could be more comfortable and it sounds more comforting. Indifferences to peoples’ pains were palatable while kneeling, genuflecting and astutely preaching the comforting words of the Gospels, mum to the noises of discomfort of the worlds outside the walled sanctuary, numbing all pains that already creeping up to the ends of all arteries and veins, may it be full of cholesterol or not, that this eerie scene brought so early in the morning.

The sounds of solace, indeed, were needed in these trying times.

The bell rang the third time and it was time for the daily, routinely chanting of lauds and the giving of halleluiah to heaven with the intention to include the lost life in the petitions.

I was there. As a decoration of the circumstances, I did not know. And I hate that!

The ironies for that day were vividly stated by Padre Pio (not his real name, of course), who we fondly called kalbo, in his sermon. He said: ‘After that experience we just encountered this early morning, of seeing the charred body of one lost soul, after savouring the stenches of death, the dead, not anymore the dying, the sickly and the poor, and better still, after feeling the sharpness of burned flesh for those who had the innards of touching the body, with the greatest intentions of comforting the dumped corpse, may these be touches full of contritions, venerations and/or condolences, God showed us the true world, the world of pains and sufferings we were called for to serve. I saw your dreamy faces turned pale and blue, full of shocks and angsts, of despairs and admonitions.

‘I asked you now. To whom we direct our admonitions? To whom do we blame for the circumstances that just ended a good and youthful life, I presumed, who, like you, hours before he found himself in flamed, was full of dreams and aspirations? Is it not disturbing that just few steps from our doorsteps and few meters from our headboards, there he was and died without help? Indeed, there was a discomforting revelation that evil worked its best while many were fast asleep and dreaming, out of guard. Enemies strike when it is less expected. So, be on guard. Or, we, may put it this way, always be prepared for any eventuality.’

Padre Pio paused and let his words flowed–plowed their dreams with viciousness–among the seminarians who at that time fighting the sleepiness and sloppiness they always brought inside the chapel and with complete disregard of the needed wakefulness to hear the gist–even the jest–of the sermon. Some were at attention but with glassy eyes, with tears of controlled yawns, and pretending to be awaked. Some shifted the weights of their bodies and swaggered their uneasiness to the truth in the sermon like bitter pills being put to their mouths. The silences of the faithful and the hoarse voice of the priest haunted the saints who were present at the altar. And, bounced back to the pews occupied by the called.

The semens hoped that the father should end his long speech and his rhetorics in dissecting the scene they all knew a while ago, and looked forward to the sumptuous breakfast being prepared at the refectory, a meal of fried dried fish we called tuyo and sautéed pechay which we hated so much as unpalatable menu. The meal was hopefully sumptuous because it was only the menu being served, and thus, we got no choice.

But, the father had no inkling to end his sermon and he continued: “It all happened under my nose, just beyond the seminary walls, just beyond the comfort we called holy lives, just as we philosophized the meaning of existence, quidity, and social justice. And just beyond our stupidity.”

Okay, that was stupidity all along. Listening to his rhetorics of salvations could not shoo away guilts that were slowly creeping and eating my thoughts of redemptions.

And still…

The sight burned its images in the abyss of my memories. And, it is still burning. The stenches of death were still stacked in the bridge of my nose and I could still smell it until today. The scene was still living in the back of my eyeballs so that I could still see it when I blinked against tears. The laughters of burning orange flames licking the priestly walls and engulfing at the same time the charred body that was crying in pain, in agony, and waiting for forgiveness of whatever sins it had. These imaginations are pulling me back to The Hill. Gadammit!

If only the occupants of the priestly sala felt the heat, the absolution was given as it falls due. And there were no other burned souls whose screams cracked dawns. But, nobody listened to the agony.

Now, they are coming back as Tales of The Hill.