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Father Purdy's Letters
Dear Friends and Benefactors, The apostolate in the Philippines is far from a dying one. In the past couple of months efforts have been ongoing to catechize the children. ‘Suffer the little ones to come unto me’ says Our Divine Master. As always, the future is in our hands as we form the children. To neglect them is a crime, for they will certainly fall to the whiles of the enemy ‘who goes around like a roaring lion seeking to devour’. ‘The harvest is great but the laborers are few’. The Society could send endless priests into the Philippines and there would never be a shortage of work.
Allow some brief explanations of our various missions in Visayas and Northern Mindanao to share this wonderful apostolate with you. At the Novitiate itself, located on the Island of Panay, (almost directly in the middle of the Philippines), catechism classes began for the children of our farm workers, and children in the neighboring areas, all within walking distance of the novitiate. In a few weeks, we gathered together nearly 35 children for classes. The knowledge of the Catholic Faith is poor. In a country which is over 90% Catholic, such a state of affairs is disastrous. Many little children do not yet know how to make the sign of the cross. For the littlest children, the basics are covered, making the sign of the cross, learning simple prayers, learning the Ten Commandments and preparing them for their first communion. It is a general difficulty to teach the children because of the lack of catechism books in the local dialect. As a result, many classes are translated into their language while they are given. At the novitiate, the presence of the brothers has proved invaluable for this task.
Evangelization of the children at the novitiate has not been without difficulties. The parish Church of Santa Barbara has learned of our efforts and has begun to counteract them. They are doing this by a string of calumnies against us. We learned of these rumors through the local people who are surprised to find out that they are all lies. People have been urged to stay away from us because we are not Catholic, we have even been labeled as Satanists and accused of having our crosses upside down. It must be remembered that Filipinos are very docile people and the parish priests have a tremendous authority. As a result the people entertain these rumors. To add to it all, the neighboring Barangay (village) has a small chapel that has not beeen used for years except to store rice. Two weeks ago, mass was said there at 6.00am on Sunday, and it was over a loudspeaker for the whole Barangay to hear. The efforts to confound us are much like those at the Fatima pilgrimage. Totally neglected before, the parish now seems to be interested in them for no other reason than to crush our work.
Southwest of Panay on the island of Negros in the city of Bacolod, the priest travels via an hour ferry ride to offer mass in a conference room of a shopping mall. The Legion of Mary have been quite active in the apostolate for the children. There are three catechism groups here: one near the city center in the house of one of the parishioners, another at the site of the future church, and a third outside the city in a small village along the sea coast. In total there are over 130 children. This is truly a beautiful and impressive scene. So many children surround the priest all desiring to take his hand and put it to their forehead in blessing. Still possessing a childlike innocence and docility, in a culture that is respectful of elders and priests, it is almost too easy to give the children the Catholic Faith. Parents readily hand over their children to the catechist for instruction, and the children are receptive to it.
At the largest of these three groups (Barangay Sumag), Mass was offered for the first time with over 80 children attending, and a handful of adults. Fr. Purdy offered the mass and preached for over an hour through the interpreter, discussing the Conciliar Faith and the Catholic Faith. This was done to highlight the difference between the new Mass and the old Mass. In a warning tone he mentioned that difficulties would start with the very near parish church. Little did he know that during the sermon, a woman of the parish was walking around telling parishioners that they should not be there, they should not follow this priest and what he preached. Further difficulties arose with the use of the little palm roof cottage. The owner did not want the cottage to be used for a ‘non-Catholic’ group. After persuasion from our Legion of Mary, the use was allowed.
In the southern region of the Philippines, in Mindanao, is the little village chapel of Santa Lucia. Here there are about 50 parishioners, once again mostly children. The fiesta (feast day) of Santa Lucia was December 13th, and so the priest traveled to this small chapel to give them Mass on the second Sunday of the month, then also on their fiesta. Many events were arranged for the Fiesta of Santa Lucia. Sung Mass was offered in the little reed roof chapel, then the First Communion of ten children, followed by the baptism of four children. After Mass there was a large meal, and by some miracle the number of parishioners doubled for the meal! After the meal there were many games held in the dirt road that goes through the village. Despite the weather not being at its best during the rainy season, this did not hamper the spirit of celebration. It was a grace filled day and many laughs were shared watching the children play the games. Perhaps the most comical was the climbing of the greased pole. A bamboo pole, about 15ft in height, was greased and put into the ground. The contest: to climb to the top and take the prize. After about 25 attempts, and many dirty shirts and backs, the children finally managed to get the prize by climbing each other to the top.
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