CHANCE - on godly connections & meeting St. Josemaria

I received a peculiar and unexpected gift in December 1991.

A little book titled The Way written by a Spanish priest named Josemaría Escrivá, found its way to me. I was sixteen.

I could not have known the tremendous significance of the gift. It was fated to change my life and the choices I would make.

I remember the package arrived one afternoon at school. It was a very humid day and most of us were outside enjoying the hours after the last class. I was at the school gym when several classmates came looking for me. Along with them was a college student who brought the package. He was wearing a neat white Med school uniform. He said he had been given strict instructions by the sender to give the package personally to me. I felt sorry for him. He was drenched in sweat from the afternoon sun, having walked around the campus just to find me.

I took the box, mumbled some thanks, and ran off mindlessly. I did not even send a proper message back to the sender. I could not be bothered that he had taken great care to make sure I received the gift.
When I got to the dorm, I opened the box, and the little book -The Way- tumbled out first. I looked at his image on the prayer card. The eyes seemed to speak right through you, that glint of holy mischief.

There were many things inside the box — among them another book titled The Faith Explained by Leo J. Trese, and writings about the coming beatification of Escrivá on May 17, 1992.

I was puzzled why this friend sent me these "religious" things. I was a little disappointed — it was December and I thought there was something fancy inside. I was very much a free-spirited soul. Things of God were not on my list of preoccupations. I was about to finish high school the following year, and my world was full of teenage trifles and constant anxiety about the next chapter — college. At that time, I felt lost. Medicine was the only goal for me, the reason I had entered Science High School. I was expected to excel and settle for a medical course. My ideals for medical studies had somehow burned out. I no longer wanted it, and nothing else could move me. The pull of the creatives was strong. I felt there was something else for me but I did not know what it was or how it would come. I had no idea where to go. My classmates were mostly done with their plans and choice of schools. I was stuck, waiting — it seemed — for nothing. The results of my aptitude test were puzzling, confirming that I would do well as an accountant.

Finally, I opened the letter from my friend that came with the gift. I saw once more the usual white paper, the familiar neat and beautiful loops of his penmanship. I was honestly surprised to receive the package because we had been disconnected for some time. My parents had discouraged the tender correspondence three years earlier. I was thirteen then — they said I was too young to engage with his affections. Usually I would receive mundane letters and worksheets for Calculus, Physics, or French. This time the letter had a different tone. It was still tender and affectionate but without trifles. It gave serious instructions — not to waste my time, to give my time to God, to take my studies seriously. He wrote that Josemaría Escrivá had become his inspiration to live a holy life, and that ordinary people can become saints. It sounded so urgent and so full of fire. I was a little annoyed. What was all that business about becoming saints?

I look back now and realize the package was indeed carefully prepared for me. Everything was ordinary and yet extraordinary — it was the start of a serious call by God. I thought my friend was going away to join the religious life. His letter had no return address. It was perhaps his final goodbye. He instructed me to find a good confessor. If only he had known — I was no longer attending Sunday Mass at that time. In my four years at Science High, I had quietly turned into an agnostic. Deep inside me there was a lot of intellectual posturing about our academic pedigree. God and Catholicism did not fit into the equations. I did not take his letter seriously. These godly things could surely take a back seat. I thought of escaping to Silliman University to take up Journalism or Marine Biology.

However, God had other plans.

My mother read in the local newspaper about an academic scholarship offered by a new and unknown school — the Center for Research and Communication. I was not eager but my mother persisted that I take the chance. I was the only one in my batch who took the exams. I am glad I listened — because one glance at the brochure and I knew immediately, without question, that it was the place waiting for me. The connection to Escrivá was a surprise too. It completed the whole picture of what I had been looking for. The Escrivá package sent by my friend was a prelude to the place where I was meant to go. It was a last minute decision. The road to Manila was almost impossible to realize. My father initially blocked the plan — he was absolutely against the idea, and I thought that was the end of it. I got through, however, thanks to the tenacity of my mother.

For most of my life I had lived in a bucolic village by the sea, hundreds of miles from the capital — isolated and far removed from city life. On May 17, 1992, we watched the beatification of Escrivá on television. I would be in Manila one month later, and finally enter CRC. Here I met the godly people of Opus Dei. My life took a radical turn — and of all the new things I absorbed, it was my newfound Catholicism that I cherished most. It was not an overnight conversion. I merely found my faith again, and the guiding hand of Escrivá was present all throughout.

I ponder these events of the last thirty years with a heart full of gratitude. I praise God that He gave me the chance to return to my faith. Once in my younger life I rejected Him, but He made the way for me and gave me more. I am grateful for my friend who took the chance of sending the Escrivá package. With tears and a grateful heart I was able to thank him — only eighteen years after I received it. How good and pleasant was this journey back to God. How can I not be grateful for this chance. A truly beautiful chance.

Many times I look at the image of St. Josemaría and tell him — what a strange sense of humor he had for me. The drama of this conversion continues to affect my life. The boy was the unlikely catalyst. I was very stubborn, but it worked nevertheless — despite the bumps and detours along the way.

When a saint appears in your life, listen and open your heart. They choose to come into your life and accompany you to do the will of God.

The gift of faith is always fruitful, and the indwelling moves outward to others.

Thank you, St. Josemaría.

Thank you for the numeraries and the priests who looked after my soul, and for the genuine lifelong friendships I carry with so many of them. May you all be blessed a hundredfold. May you delight God in all the ways of your calling.

Thank you, St. Josemaría, for that holy mischief.

Thank you for giving me the chance. Through you, I found my Catholic faith again.

------

The Way 146

"You give me the impression that you are carrying your heart in your hands, as if you were offering goods for sale. Who wants it? If it takes no creature's fancy, you will come and give it to God. Do you think that is how the saints acted?"

---

.