“Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalm 23:6 (NIV)
We just came from Sacramento to witness the ordination of Rev. Horace Wilson de Ocera as minister of God in the United Methodist Church. Seeing him on the stage of the Sacramento Convention Center with other ordinands and with his wife, Mary Ann, who happens to be my eldest daughter, gave me such a spiritual high, knowing the difficult road they have both traveled in their faith journey. God in his mysterious and loving ways led them to where they were that night, to commit themselves before more than a thousand witnesses, that they will serve God and His people. It was a spiritual gift for us, coming as it did immediately after our golden wedding anniversary.
Last Monday, June 20, my husband and I were at the Mission San Diego de Alcala to receive another spiritual gift from a very special person. While we enter Roman Catholic Churches and respect its traditions, we do not actually participate in the Mass or in the Holy Eucharist. Not because we do not want to, but because we are not invited. Friends and even relatives assume that we are “Protestants” and we do not go to other churches but our own. But here is a friend who out of the bounty of her heart decided to share her faith as her gift to us. What a wonderful gift. It was quite an experience hearing our names being lifted up and honored for the fifty years of marriage. Thank you, Dr. Maria Lourdes Reyes for your invaluable spiritual gift!
Mission San Diego de Alcala is located just east of San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium. This was California’s first church, founded by Father Junipero Serra in 1769. While seated on the antique pews, memories of my childhood made me nostalgic. I was reminded of my maternal grandmother, a devout Roman Catholic, taking me with her to the St. Dominic Church, with similar architecture but bigger than Mission San Diego de Alcala. I looked at the surroundings and the brick tiles and I was transported to my old hometown, San Carlos, Pangasinan in the Philippines. I was also reminded of my personal encounter with the late Pope John Paul who with his hands clasped to mine told me, “We are one in the Lordship of Christ.”
My mind lingered on the homily delivered by Msgr. Thomas Prendergast. “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you”. This is the same passage my late father inculcated in his children and which I tried my best to apply in my own life.
I would like to cite an experience that is relevant to this biblical text. Twenty-five years ago, a young man came to our home to visit one of my daughters. I did not know him but I graciously ushered him in, asked him to please sit down as I called my daughter. I offered him a cup of coffee while he waited for my daughter to come out. I was told, after they got married, that it was that gesture of goodwill -- of not “judging” him as a suitor -- that made him decide to marry my daughter. He said to himself, “This is the kind of mother-in-law I want to have.”
That young man is now my son-in-law, Rev. Horace Wilson de Ocera.