At the Crossroads 13

Since I wanted to join the religious congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC), I entered its Novitiate in 1975. This was after my arrest, torture and detention (8 months and 13 days) as a political prisoner under the cruel Marcos Dictatorship, and after a year of teaching at the St. Theresa’s College and San Carlos University in Cebu. The Novitiate was a joyful training school for prayer, for living a community life, for knowing the charism, mission and spirituality of the MSC congregation.

Through a 4-year college scholarship at the Ateneo de Manila University, I obtained my AB in Pre-Divinity, minor in Philosophy and learned to love philosophy very deeply. Fr. Tom Green, SJ, with a doctorate in physics, led me to a profound sense of questioning the world and human existence, through Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Language. At the Loyola School of Theology, I got my Master of Science in Theology. I think I did my best theological paper with Fr. Catalino Arevalo, SJ, then a member of the Vatican’s Theological Commission. Fr. Green tutored me into Spirituality and Fr. Carlos Abesamis, SJ was my mentor in inculturation and biblical scholarship.

In 1980, then Jaime Cardinal Sin of Manila obtained for me a permit to travel to Rome, from the oppressive Martial Law Regime. From the Pontifical Biblical Institute, in Rome I obtained my Licentiate in Sacred Scriptures, cum laude, in 1984. I know biblical Hebrew, biblical Greek, Aramaic and the Egyptian Hieroglyphics. I focused on Wisdom Literature for the Old Testament tract and Pauline Literature for the New Testament. My final thesis, which I researched partly in Israel and Egypt, was on Mark 11,15-1.

Then in 1984 I went back to Manila to teach Sacred Scripture in a new way (intercultural method of investigating the text of Sacred Scripture) at the Maryhill School of Theology and other seminaries and houses of formation in the Philippines. I engaged myself in the work for Justice and Peace, applying my scholarship in the service of the struggle of the people for food and freedom, jobs and justice, land and liberation! I facilitated Justice and Peace workshops and spirituality retreats in Asia, Europe and the US. For this priestly ministry, I was ambushed by the military under President Corazon Aquino in April 25, 1989. My dream to be a priest with the poorest, farthest and remotest mission outpost came true when I was assigned as pastor among the tribal Filipinos in the forested hinterlands of Northeastern Mindanao. In January 1, 1998, I was forced to flee from the parish because armed para-military men surrounded the church and the rectory to get me.

For the cause of the Priesthood, let us also gladly dedicate my 30th sacerdotal anniversary dinner and dancing for the retired MSC priests in the Philippines, and for new vocations to the priesthood in our very own Serra House of priestly formation. – Fr. Ben Alforque, MSC