Blessed Pedro Calungsod (c. 1654 – April 2, 1672) was a young Roman Catholic Filipino sacristan and missionary catechist, who along with Spanish Jesuit missionary Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores, suffered religious persecution and martyrdom on Guam for their missionary work in 1672. Calungsod was beatified on March 5, 2000 by Blessed Pope John Paul II. On February 18, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI officially announced at Saint Peter’s Basilica that Calungsod will be canonised on October 21, 2012.
Pedro was just one of the boy catechists who went with San Vitores from the Philippines to the Ladrones Islands in the western North Pacific Ocean in 1668 to evangelize the Chamorros. In that century, the Jesuits in the Philippines used to train and employ young boys as competent catechists and versatile assistants in their missions. The Ladrones at that time was part of the old Diocese of Cebu.
Life in the Ladrones was hard. The provisions for the Mission did not arrive regularly; the jungles were too thick to cross; the cliffs were very stiff to climb, and the islands were frequently visited by devastating typhoons. Despite the hardships, the missionaries persevered, and the Mission was blessed with many conversions. The first mission residence and church were built in the town of Hagåtña in the island of Guam.
At this time, Spanish missionaries were actively converting Chamorros to Roman Catholicism. Very soon, a Chinese quack, named Choco, envious of the prestige that the missionaries were gaining among the Chamorros, started to spread the talk that the baptismal water of the missionaries was poisonous.
These began the persecution to the missionaries. Matapang was a Christian converted, turn again to unlawful things and intend to kill all the missionaries. He violently hurled spears first at Pedro. And he got hit by a spear at the chest and he fell to the ground. Padre Diego could not do anything except to raise a crucifix and give Pedro the final sacramental absolution. After that, the assassins also killed Padre Diego.
The companion missionaries of Pedro remembered him to be a boy with a very good disposition, a virtuous catechist, a faithful assistant, a good Catholic whose perseverance in the Faith even to the point of martyrdom proved him to be a good soldier of Christ.
On December 19, 2011, the Holy See officially approved the miracle qualifying Calungsod for sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church. The recognised miracle dates from 2002, when a Leyte woman who was pronounced clinically dead by accredited physicians two hours after a heart attack was revived when a doctor prayed for Calungsod’s intercession.
The Relevance of Pedro Calungsod
The youth of the Philippines today are undergoing a period of severe testing of the traditional “faith of their fathers”. The well-known shortage of priests and even religious; the lack of religious and catechetical formation (it has been estimated that less than 10% of Filipino children receive adequate catechetical instruction) especially in the urban areas, but increasingly in rural areas as well; the massive population movements toward the cities, where traditional family structures breakdown, and with them the handing-on of traditional Christian belief and values; the moral impossibility for traditional parishes to reach the majority of children and teen-agers in the massive slums which are rising around the big cities—all these factors contribute to the erosion of Faith among the youth in the Philippines.
But, perhaps the most serious breakdown of the life of faith among the young is the work of the mass media and the global youth culture it propagates, even to the furthest mountain barrios, areas still largely unreached by schools and traditional means of instruction. The beliefs and values of often decadent post-modernist currents in the West are fast becoming the norms by which young people everywhere live: the morality, above all, so far removed from what the Church teaches in family life, in sexuality, in the pursuit of material wealth and of gratification (consumerism, drugs, etc.). The victim of all this invasion is the traditional Faith, the traditional moral standards, the cultural ways of life and behavior which 400 years of Christianity have tried to make part of the Filipinos’ way of life.
Against the attacks on Christian life, against the prevailing lack of commitment to anything beyond material gain in contemporary culture, against the confusion and relativism of post-modernism, the unrestrained struggle for wealth and pleasure of the global culture preached by the media, we can place before the eyes of the young a role model of commitment to Christ and to his Gospel. We can invoke the intercession of a 17-year-old native Filipino to pray for, inspire and lead young people to a new understanding and love for Christ and his way, to a willingness to give witness to what the Gospel teaches, to a readiness by a young person to give his life for Christ and his Church.
More: in an age when, as Pope John Paul II has said, youth in the Philippines must be willing to bravely proclaim their Christian Faith, both at home and even in other lands, what more splendid thing can be done than to give a concrete young person, catechist and missionary who is alive in the Crucified and Risen Christ today, for our young people to know, to pray to, to imitate?
Christmas & New Year’s Vacation
Blessed Day! It was a vacation but most important it is the birth of Jesus. I and my family are so busy doing/preparing for Christmas but still we don’t remember to attend the mass to see the birthday of Jesus. I don’t went on provinces for vacation, I just stay at home and helping my mother to cook, clean the house and gift wrapping. I also went on my classmates & friends houses to have some moments together. We really enjoy this vacation because of a lot of photos we took. Picture, upload and edit. Juts a high school student usually did.
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“There is no place like home.” The above passage made me eager to go home. My Christmas vacation started on December 19, 2010, so I left MSU together with my sister on that day also after attending Misa de Gallo. When I arrived home, my youngest brother surprised me. He made some Christmas decors in our home and prepared our dinner. He even washed our dishes because he knew we were very tired from a long trip. “Wow! Is this my brother?”,I said to myself. Because of the long time we didn’t see other we gave and received hugs and kisses in our family.
Early in the morning in the next day, we attended the Misa de Gallo in our place since it has become a tradition in our family to attend the nine-day period of prayer or in short Misa de Gallo from December 16 through December 24 at dawn everyday to prepare ourselves in commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ. Also, in our church it is our attitude that in every after Misa de Gallo there is always painit to be serve to the people who attended the mass. I was impressed that the practice that we have was not diminished as time goes by, but it was developed.
In myself, visiting my lolas, antes, uncles, cousins and my other relatives has been my attitude every time I got home. When I met my cousins we still played our childhood game, dakop-dakopan. I enjoyed very much.
Going in the church, I am glad that the Catholic Youth Organization is still alive. Since I am a member of this group, I joined the caroling. We wore smile in our faces while singing Christmas carols in every house. The CYO also sponsored a Fun-Run competition and it was participated by the children, teenagers and adults. We had little prizes for the winners in the said competition. Praise God, it ended successfully.
December 25 came – the most awaited day for us. Though my brother is in Manila, we still celebrated Christmas a meaning and joyful one. It was my first time to...
