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by Carmelita Cochingco Ballesteros.
November 6, 2010
Last Sunday, the homilist
in my parish in Singapore spoke about the conversion experience of Zacchaeus (Luke 19: 1-10).
“Zacchaeus, come down. Hurry, because I must stay at your house today.” (Luke 19:5) Jesus was the speaker and He was talking to Zacchaeus perched up on a sycamore tree. Zak had climbed the tree in order to have a good view as Jesus passed by.
Father William Goh, the homilist, said that Zacchaeus’ house became a home when Jesus blessed it with His unexpected visit and unconditional love. Jesus proclaimed that salvation has come to Zacchaeus’ house because he too is a child of God.
As evidence of Zacchaeus’ transformation, he gave half of his wealth to the poor and paid back those he had cheated four times.
Father Goh further explained that it was the grace of reconciliation with God which made Zacchaeus’ change of heart possible. He had thought that he was nothing but a hated tax collector. Wealthy, but hated and unloved.
Jesus made Zacchaeus realize his true identity — that of a child of God.
Father Goh ended his homily by exhorting the congregation to continue being humble, prayerful, and faithful. He said that we must continuously ask Jesus to live in our homes and hearts because in the same way that salvation comes unexpectedly, so does death.
It was a grim conclusion to an otherwise inspiring homily. But the congregation didn’t mind because we were about to celebrate All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day.
In remembrance of the dead among us, our families in the Philippines trooped to cemeteries everywhere last November 1. During my 10-year absence as an overseas Filipino worker (OFW), several members of my extended family had died.
The most recent and the most painful death to accept was the death of my ex-husband of 35 years last September.
When my marriage came apart in 1975, I wept alone most of the time. There was no cadaver in a coffin for me to weep over. In contrast, when my father died of a heart attack in 1978, my mother wept and lamented openly. She wore black and flaunted her widowhood.
Today, as in 1975, I am crying alone for myself and my orphaned, grown-up son. Today, as in 1975, there was no cadaver in a coffin for us to cry over. His father had been buried when he heard the news.
* * *
How did the separation happen? I don’t really know. I don’t want to assign blame. It takes two to tango, so I’m partly to blame.
My world was shattered. I was beyond heart-broken. I was like a plane crash survivor, bleeding and badly-injured, marooned in an uninhabited island. I was marooned by bereavement, grief, anger, fear, self-pity, sadness, loneliness…
I was alive, but I was dead.
Wrapped up in my own ordeal and need to survive, I didn’t realize that the ‘plane crash’ had another victim also marooned in another uninhabited island – my young son. Back then, he was two going three.
All these years, I didn’t realize that he had been marooned too by bereavement, grief, anger, fear, self-pity, sadness, loneliness…
* * *
I started to heal when I attended a week-long retreat in Tagaytay City sometime in the 1980s. During that retreat, I was liberated from the darkness by the realization that I am a child of God. It was a liberation from the darkness into the light of grace.
But it wasn’t a miraculous cure of lepers becoming clean or the blind being able to see at once. It has been a slow, healing process. Up to now, I don’t know if I am fully healed. I’m trying my best because as Father Goh reminded us last Sunday, death comes unexpectedly.
On the surface, my son and I are fully-functioning individuals. By God’s grace, we have been shielded from the usual affliction of alcoholism, gambling, drug use, etc. But on the inside, there is a suppressed grief that needs to be expressed.
When I go home, I plan to build a bridge from my island to his. As the first step, I plan to visit the tomb of his father together with him.
In the meantime, I pray fervently that my son be blessed with the conversion experience of Zacchaeus, child of God.