MANILA (UCAN): On the 500th anniversary of the first-ever baptism in the Philippines, Archbishop Charles Brown, the papal nuncio to the country, called Filipino Catholics modern missionaries because so many were overseas working around the globe.
During the Mass, celebrated on April 14 in Plaza Sugbo, Cebu City, Cebu, the archbishop challenged Filipinos to live out the faith they received half-a-century ago from Spanish missionaries and to take up modern-day challenges in the Catholic faith.
“The Catholic faith is being carried throughout the world by Filipino Catholics, not as colonisers but in many cases as overseas Filipino workers,” he said.
The archbishop said, “Let us recommit ourselves to our own baptismal calling so that we will be witnesses to the light of Christ not only here in the Philippines but indeed throughout the world.”
Archbishop Brown conceded that the primary motivation of the Spanish expeditions was commercial in nature but in the process they planted the seeds of faith in Philippine soil.
“The history of the Church in Asia is as old as the Church herself, for it was in Asia that Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit upon his disciples and sent them to the ends of the earth to proclaim the Good News and gather communities of believers,” the papal nuncio said, quoting a Pope St. John Paul II apostolic exhortation.
‘The history of the Church in Asia is as old as the Church herself, for it was in Asia that Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit upon his disciples and sent them to the ends of the earth to proclaim the Good News and gather communities of believers’
Orlando Cardinal Quevedo, former archbishop of Cotabato, Mindanao, thanked the Archbishop Brown for his message.
The cardinal said there were three ways to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Christianity in the Philippines.
“Filipino Catholics should respond to the great blessing that the Lord has given us through gratitude, rejoicing and sharing,” he said, adding that they should also be thankful for the spiritual blessings they have received over the past 500 years.
“Archbishop Brown said that we received the faith 500 years ago from European missionaries. Now we are the spreaders of faith in the world. We are the new missionaries and therefore we must rejoice because of this gift,” Cardinal Quevedo said.
As we celebrate the 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines. The Chaplaincy to Filipino Migrants organises an on-line talk every Tuesday at 9.00pm. You can join us at:
https://www.Facebook.com/CFM-Gifted-to-give-101039001847033
Like the papal nuncio, Cardinal Quevedo praised overseas Filipino workers for sharing the faith in the “ordinariness” of their work.
“Filipino overseas workers share the faith not so much by words but by the joy of their Eucharistic celebrations,” he said.
“Being missionaries of faith has many challenges. Like the Spanish missionaries who crossed the Pacific Ocean 500 years ago, our obstacles in proclaiming the faith today are different,” Dolores Agabin, a church worker in Manila, said.
Agabin said one challenge in proclaiming the faith is materialism.
“It is difficult to preach the Good News to a world consumed by material goods. Nowadays, money is the most important thing, especially in this pandemic,” she said.
