PROUD TO BE A DOMINICAN BY THE GRACE OF GOD (# 4)
On December 4, 2023, I celebrated my 86th Birthday. I joyfully said to the good Lord, “Thank you very, very much.” Not only for the gift of life, but also for the gift of my Dominican vocation; in particular for keeping me a Dominican priest up to today, 61 years after my ordination. Like life, vocation is an undeserved gift - and a mystery.
An important prenote: all Christians - and many others - are called by God. All vocations -to the different states of life are equal in dignity: All called have the same goal: heaven. All - priests, religious women and men, lay faithful - have the unique way to follow: Jesus Christ. All are disciples of the Lord. Essentially, all vocations are equal, that is, “neither better nor worse: simply different” (M. Gelabert). Every vocation implies a passionate love got Jesus.
Let me narrate to you some highlights of my vocation and the main pitfalls I encountered on the way up to today. I will focus on four points: first, I will tell you of the main steps leading to my priestly Ordination; second, of my mission as a Dominican; third, on the principal negative events that - thanks God – did not point to me the exit door. and finally, on the power that keeps sustaining me up to today.
- THE JOURNAY OF MY VOCATION
There is a title of a well-known book: “Todo empezó en Galilea,”Everything started in Galilee.” For me, the whole thing started in a small town in Avila called El Oso. On a cold day of winter, December 4, 1937, I was born in a modest family of farmers. I have three other brothers and two sisters. I love my roots, my town, my family, my people. From my father, I learned impartial justice and passionate commitment to my work. From my mother: love, tenderness, prayer, and compassion with the poor.
At seven, I became an acolyte in the town Parish. I loved to be an acolyte and serve my Parish priests. I loved, above all, to be an acolyte in Holy Week – then celebrated with great solemnity and sobriety. During Holy Week, I met the first Dominicans from Avila: they celebrated frequently the Holy Triduum in the town. I remember I loved their preaching and their habit (white and black as life and death).
In elementary school, I was a normal boy who liked to leanr. One morning – I think it was spring, 1948 – the teacher, knowledgeable and always punctual, Don Jacinto Santos called my name and asked me to stand up. He told me: “You will go to the Dominicans.” I felt very happy! A few months later, a Dominican came to give me and another townmate an oral exam. I barely passed it: I was so nervous! We both were accepted, and proceeded in October 1949 to La Mejorada (Valladolid), our apostolic school, to begin our high school studies with the Dominicans. I went with great joy, but also with great sadness – the sadness of leaving my parents, my family and my town (I remember the first night I did not sleep at all!). I recall the words of the great writer T. S. Eliot: To be human is to belong to a particular region of the earth. The tree of my life has grown, and always grounded on my dear town El Oso in Avila, Castilla.
After 2 years in La Mejorada, I went with my classmates (74) to Santa Maria de Nieva (Segovia) for the next three years and finished high school in May 1954. I loved to study during my hgh school years. Love the humanities and languages, literature, music (In Santa Maria, I started to play the piano). I was poor in sports, except in hand ball.
We (now 39) received the Dominican habit in Ocaña (Toledo) on July 12, 1954. I enjoyed my Novitiate year (in spite of its normal difficulties), and improved my relationship with God and with others. I learned to pray as a Dominican and to sing Gregorian chant, which I loved. I started to love our Lady of the Rosary, St. Dominic and our Dominican saints, in particular St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Catherine of Siena, Saint Martin de Porres, and the martyrs of our Dominican Missionary Province of Our Lady of the Rosary. We had to learn, then, the Rule of St. Augustine by heart in Latin (it was the heart of our exam before professing). I remember my Novice Master, Fr. Rodrigo, with great love: he was already old, he loved us, and he was enamored of the Order, of Jesus, of Mary, of our Father Dominic … He taught us about religious life and Dominican spirituality, the vows, etc. He explained to us the mottos of the Dominicans: Veritas; Laudare, Benedicere et Praedicare and Contemplata aliis tradere. At the end of our Novitiate, we made our simple profession in Ocaña on July 11, 1955. (By the way, our Dominican Province is a missionary Province, focused especially in Asia. This is the reason why we make a fourth vow: to go to mission lands, wherever we are sent).
We transferred then to our great Convent in Avila, Monasterio de Santo Tomás, where we studied our three years of philosophy: in Avila, the lovely and mystical city of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross. Since I was a child, I also loved these 2 Carmelite saints. Facilitating a retreat to Dominican Sisters in Manila (where I often quoted the mystics from Avila), a sister asked me: Why did you become a Dominican and not a Carmelite? Because Gd called me to be a Dominican - and I love it. I liked in particular, during our studies of philosophy: the inspiring accounts of our missionaries, the lessons on preaching and use of the radio (we had a radio station through the third year) by Fr. Florencio Muñoz, who was our model preacher, one of the best preachers in Spain then. During the third year of philosophy, we had to preach one sermon in the refectory during lunch. I remember I preached on the First Word of Jesus from the Cross. In my philosophy years, I learned to appreciate the essential importance of study, prayer and community life: the three ordered to preaching. I began to write: my first article (column) was entitled, “If Saint Thomas would come back” (Si Santo Tomás volviera, en el Diario de Ávila)/
I took my first year of theology in San Pedro Mártir (Alcobendas, Madrid). My class and the other philosophy classes (over 100 students in all)) inaugurated the Convent of San Pedro Mártir in 1958. Here, on December 3, 1958, I made my solemn profession. (I remember I asked my kind and dedicated Master of Students, Fr. Pedro Tejero, if I had a vocation. because I had some superficial doubts. (I had the normal jitters before an important decision in life), He told me: “Just make the Solemn Profession; God wants you to be a Dominican missionary. Amen!
I enjoyed my first year of theological studies in Madrid very much, and I am most grateful to my mentors and advisers. Most seldom we went out of the walls of the convents.
With another classmate (one more joined us one year later), I was sent to the Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC to study the remaining 3 more years of theology plus one more for the Licentiate in Theology. At the beginning, it was terribly hard and painful: we did not speak any English. We could communicate in Latin with our Professors. With our classmates? Not in English, not Spanish, and not Latin. Some nights, we went to bed (both in the same room) really sad, almost in tears. Later on, we enjoyed our stay in Washington DC: we tasted freedom. (One day a month: each one of us was free to go anywhere; we were given 5 US dollars). The American Fathers treated us excellently well as well as our dear classmates. (Through the first years, I was allowed to answer my exams in Latin; I studied in Spanish).
In Washington I had two idols: John F. Kennedy (I attended his inauguration as President, the first Catholic president in USA, in January 1961, when I heard him say: “Ask not what the country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.” My second idol: Bishop Fulton Sheen, whom I heard preach at the lovely Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which is nearly in front of our Dominican House. (In front is the Catholic University of America). I learned so much from Bishop Fulton Sheen the greatest preacher and best Catholic televangelist I have known: When you preach, he said, do not sit, for you do not start a fire while sitting! (Fulton Sheen is now a Venerable. I pray he will be beatified soon, and later canonized).
I was ordained priest on June 14, 1962, at the Church of Saint Dominic in Washington DC. We were eleven ordained Dominican priests: 3 from our Dominican Province of Our Lady of the Rosary (Spain) and 8 from the Dominican Province of St. Joseph (USA). During the ordination I felt wonderful but numbed. (By the way, in the noviciate we were 39; Spanish co-novices ordained: 16). I always remember the words from our ordaining Bishop Russell when he presented to me the Book of the Gospels. (These same worlds were first addressed to me - some months earlier, when I was ordained Deacon, but then did not touched me):“Receive the Gospel of Christ, whose herald you now are. Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practice what you teach.” After the ordination, I felt good but also sad: I had no family there, only a few friends, and some people from the Spanish Embassy in Washington. My first Solemn Mass in my town 0n June 29, the Feast of our Patron St. Peter the Apostle, was boundless joy! (F. Gomez-Berlana OP).
- MY MISSION AS A DOMINICAN MISSIONARY
After finishing my studies - with a Bachelor’s and Licentiate degrees in Theology like my classmates in the Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC -, my superiors assigned me to Santo Domingo Convent in Quezon City, Metro Manila. Here I began my teaching of moral theology at the then Dominican studentate of the Province (my first assignment, Assistant parish priest of a wonderful priest, Fr. Damian Villegas). There I spent 2 wonderful years, and I came to know and love the miraculous Our Lady of the Rosary of La Naval, the beautiful image which saw our missionaries say Good bye to her before going to mission lands: Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, etc.
Thereafter, our Superiors assigned me to the University of Santo Tomas (UST), the Catholic, Pontifical and Royal University of the Philippines, founded in 1611 by archbishop Miguel de Benavides, OP and our fathers. I spent there 45 years of my life, and I continued teaching at UST (for ten more years) Moral Theology, Spiritual Theology, Social Ethics and Bioethics. At the University, I was appointed to work in different offices. Three in particular helped me to be of service and to grow intellectually, spiritually and socially: the Faculty of Sacred Theology, the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery and The Social Research Center. What I loved most through all these years in UST was my preaching and my teaching/writing of theology, social ethics and bioethics, and also my pastoral-spiritual work. While I was teaching bioethics at the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, I was appointed member of the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV) in the Vatican (2000-2015), which helped me - in the yearly meeting at the Vatican - be more committed to bioethics and to life issues and concerns. I became very much involved with the Alliance against the Death Penalty which fought peacefully for the abolition of the death penalty: (It was abolished in the year 2005). I was also a member of the Pro-life movement which fought prayerfully against abortion. Moreover, I was also pastorally connected - and gladly - with Ascending Life (Vida Ascendente), the association and movement of the elderly in the Church.
In September 2009, I was assigned to our St. Dominic’s Priory in Macau where the studentate and the Center of Studies of our Dominican and missionary Province are located. By January 2010, I began to teach moral theology and the social doctrine of the Church at the Faculty of Theology or Christian Studies (later, Religious Studies) of the Catholic University of Saint Joseph (USJ), Macau, where I also taught - later on - spiritual theology, and Christian marriage and Family (2009 -2019).
In Macau, I had at the beginning a difficult time while adjusting to the new environment and activities: it is not easy to be uprooted when you are a bit old! (I was already 72). I like my teaching and my community life here and also the more serene and quiet atmosphere. (I became more “a solitary bird” on the roof of life). I miss my joyful and full pastoral life in Metro Manila. In Macau, my pastoral life is rather limited: some Sunday Masses with the people, on English here and there. In particular, I enjoyed and was enriched by my weekly Mass with the Missionaries of Charity.
One pastoral activity I am committed to, since 2015, is as a columnist of O Clarim, the Catholic Weekly of the Diocese of Macau. I started to write a simple column intermittently (twice a month at the beginning), under the general title A Pilgrim’s Notes. I was happier when the editors began to translate some of the columns in Cantonese, and later on in Portuguese, too. Since 2022, and thanks to the generosity of the editors, all the columns are translated from English into Cantonese and Portuguese. It gives me special joy the columns in Cantonese for it is my little apostolate with our Chinese brothers and sisters.
Since I came to Macau, I have been much involved with other formators in the initial and permanent formation of our Dominican Province. In initial formation in Macau, with our student brothers. In permanent formation, by visiting our missions in Asia. A project I loved very much was the visitation to all our missions in Asia: I imparted short courses on permanent formation, often with spiritual retreats. I had the great joy of visiting and sharing Mass and table with our brothers in the Philippines, Taiwan, Korea, Myanmar, Timor Leste and Hong Kon - also in Rome. The core of integral initial and permanent formation (human, spiritual, theological and pastoral) is this: to help our brothers to acquire and perfect a form (formation), the form of Christ, which implies the following and imitation of and the transfiguration into Christ, God and man: following the Lord by the path of our Father and Founder Saint Dominic: through the tripod of community life, prayer and study ordered to preaching, and preaching directed to the salvation of humanity. Amazing grace - like all other vocations. (F. Gomez-Berlana OP)
- SOME DANGERS IN MY DOMINICAN JOURNEY
First danger: an unfortunate and dangerous event. Some weeks before we were going to Madrid (June 1958), we had an excursion or a whole-day outing. A brother and I escaped from the excursion and went by auto-stop to our respective towns – Papatrigo and El Oso, which were about 24 kilometers from Avila. We had everything well arranged. We were going to come back at night and had two brothers waiting for us: one would open the main gate and another, a window of the studentate. Unfortunately, we were seen by a brother cooperator who next day told the fathers after lunch. The Master of Students, a delicate and kind soul, Fr. Luis Lopez, punished us with a 3-day light retreat only. Thanks God, he did not expel us! It was very wrong: we should have thought of the possible consequences. Then I realized why my mother was not so happy about my forbidden visit, although - as usual - she did not say anything but jut prepared a good lunch. My mother loved silence, especially when one may be inclined to criticize: “We only live four days, really; I do not want to be in bad terms with anyone”).
Second danger: postponing my ordination to the Diaconate. Before accepting to be ordained as a Deacon, I had an apparent serious doubt about my vocation and decided to postpone my ordination to the Deaconate: I asked my confessor, a secular Spanish priest, and two Dominican fathers. They told me: “It is up to you.” We had the community Retreat in September 1961. I consulted with my professor in Homiletics, a saintly man, Fr. Dominic. At the end of the Retreat, I was certain I had to go on: then and there, I was so happy, so outrageously happy. What was my main problem? This question: Who wanted me to be a Dominican, my mother or me? I was totally convinced that it was me and my mother. One more note. It was in Washington that I really had encounters with women. we were allowed to go to parties with friends. (Understandably, it was not so in Avila and in Madrid, where then we lived as monks). The Lord was kind to me: I liked young women, of course; but not one in particular!
Third danger: a doubting priest? As a priest, I never had a serious doubt about my vocation, but certainly I could have been less a sinner and more a good religious. After Vatican II (1962-1965), many priests and religious left their vocation. Apparently, many among us became too lax: instead of following the Council’s imperative of opening the windows of the Church to the world, many Catholics became not just in the world, but of the world. I, too, became worldly and a bit careless with my Dominican vocation, which I always loved. At some point, I had too much activity. As I told the Provincial Chapter in 1997 in Valladolid: “Martha, Martha, or Fausto, Fausto, where are you going?
Fourth danger: the danger of leaving! In the post-Vatican II aggiornamento (right and wrong interpretations), why did I not leave, like many diocesan and religious priests? Why did I continue when many of my co-novices, including the two who went with me to study in Washington DC? God knows. I am most grateful to God, to his infinite mercy, for keeping me a Dominican, and usually a joyful Dominican priest. I think I continue as a Dominican not because I am better than those who left: certainly not. I stayed by reason of the mercy of God, the help of Mother Mary and the prayers of other holy people, above all, of my mother. I am a miserable sinner; but I have tried seriously to be faithful - even in my super-active and dangerous years - to my daily Mass, my daily reciting of the Divine Office and the Rosary of Mary, and my going regularly to confession. I am convinced, moreover, that God had to make little miracles, with some caresses in difficult times (I am sure of these) to keep me a Dominican.
Beside the normal difficulties and obstacles of the way of my Dominican life, there is one that limited my preaching and writing: doing these not in my maternal language - Spanish -, but in one that I learned somehow after being twenty-one years old - English. I should have done more effort to learn better Tagalog and a little Cantonese. Probably this obstacle and the continuing distance from my roots, from my parents and family, constitute part of my light cross.
Fifth danger: Why have I stayed in Macao for more than 14 years? God knows. Certainly, thanks to God’s merciful Providence. Why was I not tempted - not even once - to go back from Macaw to Manila? The Good Lord did not allow me to question my stay, and try to go back to the apparently greener pasture of UST (Manila). I never have had any doubt. I consider it God’s grace the happiness and joy I lived in the Philippines, particularly in the University of Santo Tomas (UST) and with my brothers in San Juan City (Metro Manila). I am also happy in Macau, in a very different environment. After all, what gives meaning to life is the true happiness that comes from practicing virtues and our vows, thus following the Virtuous One. (F. Gpmez-Berlana OP)
- MY DOMINICAN JOURNEY CONTINUES
Some years ago, when I was assigned to UST (1265-2009) after 2 years at Santo Domingo Convent in Quezon City, I taught a course in bioethics at the Major Seminary of Vigan (North-West, Luzon). I had 24 students of theology. One afternoon, the students organized a basketball game (Filipinos love basketball and Manny Pacquiao, the great boxer). The members of one team had a lovely T-shirt on with this inscription on their back: “I am called soon to be chosen.” God called me and I was chosen thanks to his grace and love. Chosen to be a Dominican missionary. This call to follow Jesus by the path of St. Dominic is indeed the Good Lord’s greatest gift to me.
On May 8, 2022, the Diocese of Macau celebrated Thanksgiving Sunday, which was the Good Shepperd Sunday, with the priests and religious women and men who were (in 2022) 25 (Silver Jubilee), 50 (Golden) and 60 (Diamond) years of priesthood or religious profession. Around 30 priests concelebrated with our Bishop Stephen Lee. The Church of St. Lazarus was full with lay faithful, and brothers and sisters. I – a Diamond Jubilarian - was asked by our dear Bishop to preach the homily in English. I accepted gratefully and respectfully, and preached on the Good Shepherd. It was a wonderful experience: eucharistic, fraternal and joyful! Thank you, Lord! I had another celebration of the anniversary of my sixty years as a Dominican priest in my own town: this was incredibly familiar and joyful. This time, the celebration of the Diamond Jubilee with our community in Macau was internal, prayerful and – as I wanted – “low key.”
By the way, I celebrated my Golden Jubilee (2012) in the Diocese of Macau and also magnificently with my Dominican community that prepared a loving and elegant program with dinner: I felt at home! It reverberated gloriously later on (June 29, 2012) in my town in Spain. My Silver Jubilee in Taipei with my co-novice and friend Amado Diago OP, missionary in Taiwan for a long time, a man who loved life, Jesus, and people. The celebration tool place at Domitian School of the Dominican sisters Missionaries (misioneras) of St. Dominic, to whom I was then facilitating a spiritual retreat. As usual, it was a grand, colorful and joyful festival centered around the Holy Eucharist.
Looking back to the journey of my life, I have to say that the past is in God’s mercy and it is never too late to be better and holier. However, tomorrow will be better if I begin today, the only thing in my hands: O that today you would listen to his voice! Do not harden your hearts! (Ps 95:7-8). The future is in God’s Providence and the present in his loving hands. Thus, my life is grounded on the grateful past, looking to the hopeful future and walking in the loving present by steps of love. With God’s love and the grace of the Holy Spirit we walk he Way (Jesus) towards the embrace of God.
About two years ago, I had a long conversation, a wonderful encounter with a young man and a young woman in our community’s meeting room. Both, Chinese and Christians (of the staff of the Macau Weekly O Clarim). After a fruitful and joyful exchange of one hour, they asked me: If you had a chance to begin your life again, what would you be? Without any hesitation I answered: A Dominican priest. This is what I love most in my life: to be a priest of Christ of the Order of Preachers (OP). I would change one thing, though: I would try much harder to be good, to be more faithful to my Dominican vocation, to cooperate better with the grace of God, to be, in particular, more Christ-centered, and therefore, more prayerful and more compassionate - and joyful. I remember the words of our Dominican brother Blessed Reginald (13th Century): “I have no merit living in this Order, because I’ve always found too much joy in it.”
Thanks to God, the journey continues! From Macau, where? Continue in Macau, go back to the Philippines, or to Spain? Again: only God knows. As my father told my weeping mother, when I was sent to Washington DC: “Do not worry! God is everywhere.”
And to close, and as your brother, let me suggest to you, to all of you called by Jesus:
Be loving! We all have been called. You have been called. God never fails us. He only asks us to cooperate with his never-failing grace and love. What matters most is love. Every day try to do what you have to do with love. Love as charity is the virtue of life, the value that gives life to the other virtues, to our deeds - and leads us to heaven. The only thing that will accompany us to the other life is the love we accumulate through life. We are what we love. “In the evening of life, we will be examined on love.”
Be prayerful. Why am I still a Dominican, a happy Dominican? By the grace of God and the prayers of Mary Our Lady, of my mother and friends and other brothers and sisters. My fraternal advice: be faithful to prayer. There is always remedy for those who pray.
Be compassionate, that is, share something with the poor, and forgive always. Try to see Christ in the faces of poor people (“proxies of Christ”): I was hungry and you gave me food … At the personal level, here is peace- interior peace - in forgiving, which includes forgetting the offenses of others as offenses, or remembering them as healed wounds.
Be joyful and hopeful. A Christian is a happy person: he or she is in love and therefore is joyful: joy is a characteristic of love as charity. In spite of concrete moments or days of certain sadness and, perhaps, of tears, be joyful. We trust God: He is in change. Hope - my favorite virtue -is the virtue of the journey. Graced hope: a loving, prayerful, patient and courageous, and joyful hope. Undoubtedly, tomorrow will be better.
Thank you, Lord, for my vocation. Sorry Lord, for my infidelities. Help me Lord through the remaining race of life. I love you Lord! (F. Gomez-Berlana OP)
