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A Bukidnon Martyr (2)
God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good. (Gen 1:31
(I will) consider how God works and labors on my behalf in all created things on the face of the earth. (St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises # 236)
On October 4, 2023, feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis issued Laudate Deum, a follow-up to his Laudato Si which he wrote just 8 years ago. Both letters speak of the care for the environment, better yet, the urgent need or gospel imperative for it. He feels he needs to write the second one to sound the alarm about the critical condition of our common home. That global warming has accelerated like never before and that it’s caused by us is undeniable. Based on the global temperature readings for the past 10 years or so, scientists believe that within a few years we will be reaching the recommended global temperature ceiling!
The image I got from the letter about our planet is that of a patient who is terminally ill, and given the lack of response to medicine, the condition is only going to get worse. Pope Francis says that for a lasting change to happen, we need a cultural change, and for this to happen, we need personal change. It sounds like a doctor telling a patient that he needs a lifestyle change. And we know that that’s the most difficult change to make!
Of course, for the pope, this is not just an ecological problem. It is a social problem. Pope Francis says that the pandemic and the climate crisis have helped us realize that everything is connected and that no one is saved alone. The mentality of maximum profit, for minimum cost and at the shortest amount of time runs counter to the very truth that this sharpened realization has given us. Such an attitude is unsustainable and is causing so much damage to our planet and suffering to people, esp’ly the poor.
More importantly, Pope Francis looks at this problem in the light of the mystery of Christ and it is from this light that he enjoins us to what he calls a pilgrimage of reconciliation with the world. He writes:
“‘...the creatures of this world no longer appear to us under merely natural guise, because the risen One is mysteriously holding them to himself and directing them towards fullness as their end. The very flowers of the field and the birds which his human eyes contemplated and admired are now imbued with his radiant presence”. If “the universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely… there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face”. The world sings of an infinite Love: how can we fail to care for it?”
“‘...God has joined us so closely to the world around us that we can feel the desertification of the soil almost as a physical ailment, and the extinction of a species as a painful disfigurement”. Let us stop thinking, then, of human beings as autonomous, omnipotent and limitless, and begin to think of ourselves differently, in a humbler but more fruitful way.”
“I ask everyone to accompany this pilgrimage of reconciliation with the world that is our home and to help make it more beautiful, because that commitment has to do with our personal dignity and highest values.”
A martyr for this pilgrimage of reconciliation with the world, this deep connection between environment and us, this gospel-inspired care for the environment is Fr. Neri Satur. Fr. Satur hails from Pangantucan, Bukidnon and is an alumnus of Pangantucan Community High School where I’m now assigned as chaplain. Every October 14, the day Fr. Neri was killed, is Fr. Neri Satur Day here in Bukidnon. Last October 13, we had a Mass celebrating the 32nd anniversary of his martyrdom. His mother attended the Mass.
In 1987 the people of the diocese of Malaybalay led by its bishop then, Bishop Gaudecio Rosales, organized a series of pickets against two logging companies operating in watershed areas (what it was, though the term is not yet that popular, was a synodal Church in action). Unable to stop the logging, the bishop - in 1990 - resorted to writing to the president, who at that time was Cory Aquino, asking for a total log ban. Through DENR, a total log ban was declared and, not only that, the bishop and the priests were designated as forest rangers with the power to enforce the log ban. One such priest who was just ordained in 1989 was Fr. Neri Satur. He took this responsibility with a burning zeal of someone who was newly ordained to serve God’s people.
About two years after his ordination, at age 30, he was brutally murdered. He had seven shotgun bullet wounds on his chest and abdomen and his skull crushed with a rifle butt. His parish secretary had warned him about rumors of death threats against him. To which, according to the secretary, he replied: “ang akong pagpanalipod ug pag-amping sa kalasangan dili para nako kun dili para sa katawhan, ilabina sa umaabot nga kabataan”. [my defense and care for the forest is not for myself but for the people, especially the coming generation].
Bishop Guadicio Rosales, in his pastoral letter, which he issued a day after Fr. Neri was brutally murdered, wrote: “He (Fr. Neri) spoke of freedom from unjust and selfish attitudes, structures and values, especially of their roots -- sin -- and how we are all liberated in and only through Jesus".
As Pope Francis reminds us with his last letter, Fr. Neri reminds us that God is in all his creatures, reminds us that they sing of God's great love, that we are one with them and that we don't live alone nor are saved alone. Fr. Neri’s life is a call to praise the God of creation and redemption, to praise God in all his creatures. For did he not shed his blood in union with Christ: Take and drink, this is my blood?
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Links:
Bp Rosales' Pastoral Letter:
Bp Rosales' funeral homily:
https://www.misyononline.com/book/export/html/703
Fr. Reynaldo Raluto's article: