Focus on reditio
before Holy Week

My parents were Catolico a macha martillo. But I am not. Just another Christian who devotes some time of the Lenten Season to a review of one's life. Whether one has lived it according to my faith.

Most Catholics spend their time on retreats. Spiritual analysis of their lives in the face of tremendous temptations of money, comfort luxury, power and honor. It is important to take stock of our situation instead of just contentedly basking under the illusion that everything is okay with us.

Thus, the whole of the last four weeks my attention focused on a first-ever religious ritual ever held in Bacolod - the Reditio.

Reditio is just a public profession of faith by Christians. It is usually preceded by the tradito - a personal witnessing by members of the Neo-Catechumenal community in their house-to-house evangelization when they testify to their personal encounters with the living Christ.

As I had said - this was the first time this happened in Bacolod. Actually, the Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Bata with the first community members are the ones who gave their public profession of faith.

The highlight was Tuesday's reditio with no less than vicar general of the diocese, Msgr. Victorino Rivas, heading the group of four clerics. This included Msgr. John Liu, the venerable former parish priest of the Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish in Hua Ming. Bata pastor Edwin Cadena also attended it.

The other was Fr. Angel Mojica, a priest from Columbia and now itinerant pastor of the team from Rome.

The reditio was first implemented in Molo, Iloilo. That was two years ago. And hundreds from all over Iloilo and nearby provinces attended the rites held at the Molo Catholic Church.

There's nothing extraordinary about it. Only that the veteran members of a neo community take turns publicly attesting to the fact that they have individually confirmed the tenets in the Apostles' Creed in their lives.

For me, and to each of us, it provides an outline of God's plan in our lives. In short, we discover in our meditation concrete interventions by God and later, the hindsight awareness of what was the intended good of what had originally been considered as tragedies.

And members of the community find themselves strengthened in their faith by listening to the testimonies of colleagues. Each has series of miracles to narrate - different but always touchingly beautiful.

That was why every Tuesday and Friday, we religiously attended the rite at the Bata Church. So did hundreds of other Christians, including some from Iloilo and Dumaguete.

The stories are varied. How the life of the very rich had been turned around. And how, stripped of attachment to wealth, the Christian discovers how God converts a person and gives him/her life. The same with the very poor. He or she remains poor but finds the secret that transforms the Cross into a glorious cross.

But the most important feature of the profession of faith was the encounter with God's forgiveness. His mercy and love. Not only claims to have become holy. The members of the community state that they are still a community of sinners. But all have found themselves gratefully thankful that God loves them despite all their sins and their ingratitude.

That is what makes their lives on earth as a foretaste of life in heaven.

Thus, we can all look at things happening around us with the sense of humor of Christ. Somehow, we have found out that the best laid plans of men must ultimately give way to what God has in store for all of us. And that is often surprising.

Well, that was a fulfilling insight into how God concerns Himself with the lives of the disciples of Christ.*

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