Text of the Response of Fr. Mark Lesage CICM

Good afternoon,
 
It is indeed a great honour as a CICM to be honoured by a Jesuit- run University.
 I accepted this award in the year we celebrate the parish:a communion of communities   because I want to honour the parish community of Las Piñas with whom I have journeyed  for 30 years and the award is also for the Bukal ng Tipan pastoral  centre   which has been running  for the past 17 years.
 
Upon my arrival in Las Piñas in 1969,  I was immersed into the reality of the Vatican I church.  But very soon, we were confronted with the fact that as  a church we should not remain inward looking but also outward looking.
 
It was In 1971, when students from the university of the Philippines, in one field trip to the bamboo organ, questioned us about the sad state of the Bamboo organ and the parish church. They made us realise that as missionaries leading the community it was our responsibility to be also responsible for the upkeep of a unique heritage of the Philippines, the bamboo organ.   The restoration of the bamboo organ and the renovation of the church became a perfect tool to build community awareness, commitment  and pride among the parishioners,  so that up to now the people still  feel that they were the ones who did it.The parish community will forever be grateful to Architect Bobby Manosa .
 
 
 The  illegal settlers just a few hundred meters away from the church helped us also to become an outward looking church. They were relocated within our vicinity after their shanties were demolished in Intramuros. They made us realise that they were our parishioners, and that they should become our priority.  I admired how the original people of Las Piñas who at the beginning looked  down upon the settlers for taking away their beach and suspected that whatever they lost in their houses were stolen by the newcomers, gradually allowing them to feel at home in the parish.
 
Painfully, but gradually, the  social consciousness of the parish grew.  In this aspect , we were greatly supported and formed  by  the Asian Social Institute headed by Fr.  Senden, CICM,  and Dr. Mina Ramirez. During those years through the parish social ministries, which they called pagkalinga, the poor experienced that they were the parish favourites. But it taught us that  doing things for the poor or The charity model  of the church should develop into a cooperative model: Doing things with the poor.
 
The next years almost  became the season of cooperatives.  Different cooperatives emerged when the people felt they were responsible for their own development 
We learned how important  it was for us as church to network with other communities like institutes ,NGOs,LGUs who have the same  values.
 
Moving the parish of Saint Joseph from a centre-based parish to a community based parish, from a priest-  centred  parish to a participatory parish ,from a maintenance mode to a missionary mode has been a long journey
 
 
Las Piñas was not my first  assignment.  Before that,  I was assistant parish priest  for 5 years in Pasig.  I remember seeing only a small percent of the people being  active in mandated organisations.  In the morning  some people were wearing a blue uniform and in the afternoon the same persons  would wear a brown one.  Even then the question that lingered in my mind was :   Is there another way to organise a parish so that every baptised person, and not a just a few can get involved in the church and  preferably where they live?
 
 
.   Not finding any answer,  I went to Mindanao, to Moalboal in Cebu, to Tagbilaran to learn from the pastors and the community.  Every time I came home I started preaching and teaching about what I saw, what I witnessed.
 
After 10 years the people got tired of listening to me and I got tired of  them, since they did not change their attitude at all.  Later on I realised that there was nothing  wrong with the people but that there was something lacking in myself.  I realised that I have been dreaming for the people and not with the people. The next decade was a decade of trying, failing and learning, and using different strategies. What kept us going was our dream of becoming a participatory church.
 
At the beginning of my third decade as parish priest,  I invited Estela Padilla, a full time pastoral worker to attend a seminar on building Small Christian communities in a pastoral centre in South Africa.  There, we were affirmed   in our vision, the what but the great learning was :The how! .  It was like a new Pentecost for us. Back in the Philippines we saw the need to  contextualise what we had learned in South Africa ... In due time, right before our very eyes,  we saw the mushrooming of small Christian communities.The skills made the difference!
 
The 1990s were our golden years of parish building when  communion of communities became a reality. Young, creative and committed people, belonging to the “ Community of Living Water” CWL, created a new wave, they discovered new means of evangelising the people .  Committed young leaders wanted to pursue the dream of making our church a participatory church in the world
 
In 1999 the CICM  decided to turn over the parish to the diocese. I was then 65 years old.  I felt like Abraham, who was asked to move out of my familiar place and was  given a new assignment.  The new provincial had a new mandate for me:  To share our experiences, our methodology and programs with the different dioceses in the Philippines. Reflecting about our mission in our new center, at the Maryhill in Taytay, the name Bukal ng Tipan was born.  It was the fruit of all our learnings and experiences in Las Piñas,Las Pinas gave birth to Bukal ng Tipan.
 
And now,  17 years have passed and with a team of Lay persons, who mostly had experienced a participatory church in Las Piñas,  we have journeyed with more than 20   dioceses ,some in revisiting their outdated vision statements through our participatory visioning process. We have inspired bishops and priests through our “Clergy leadership in a participatory church”.
 
We were also privileged during the past 8 years to dialogue with the churches in Germany and Austria and to inspire them to dream again about their church, to discover the German face of Jesus
Because of that a national movement was organised in Germany  called: A local Church Development” or “Loki”.
 
Sometimes we are asking ourselves the question:How effective,  how necessary ,how powerful ,how life-giving are small Christian communities?We were blessed with an answer in the diocese of Jaro where we have journeyed with their diocese and  communities
 
Naburot  , was one of the most devastated islands by typhoon Haian .  But the real spirit of the BEC proved that the community can rebuild itself in a record time.  After the typhoon  destroyed their fisher boats, their houses, and  their chapel they said :”Let us start with what Haian was not able to destroy. Haian destroyed our community centre,  but not our community spirit.  Haian destroyed our chapel but not our faith.  After a few months they made their new boats in bayanihan style.  With their  earnings from the boats,  they rebuilt their houses and  later on their community centre and chapel.
When I witnessed the energy of  this small Christian community I felt like joining the prayer of Zachariah. “Now let your servant  go in peace because my eyes haven seen the salvation of the church.”  But then I added : “Lord I am not in a hurry…..”
 
 
I would also like to thank Leo Renier with whom I have journeyed for almost 25 years by being,living and witnessing as a community reminding us all the times that we cannot ask people to become a community if we ourselves do not live as a community.
 
That we receive this award in the year we celebrate : The parish; a community of communities is indeed a honour .May this award also  be a challenge for the Bukal ng tipan  team to make “communion of communities in mission” their framework beyond 2017 so that parishes might be able to move from a maintenance mode to a missionary mode.
Thank you.