HE’S FIVE years into retirement but as active, as involved, as committed as ever in his labors in the Lord’s vineyard is San Fernando Archbishop Emeritus Paciano B. Aniceto.
He’s everywhere, as though nothing has changed, in his status – for lack of a word – dispensing the gifts of his priestly faculties, sharing the gift of grace with his flock.
This March 9, Apu Ceto turns 82. At a surprise advance birthday celebration our group of ex-seminarians – “non-ordained alumni of the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary,” as he calls us – stage for him at the Domus Pastorum last Tuesday, he specially requested me not to turn him into a saint, knowing that it has been my practice over so many years now to write something about him on his birthday.
Of course, the sinner that I am falls furthest from even the least possibility of any pretention to ever turning a Simon into a Peter. The most that I can do is to bear witness, to give testimony to a life dedicated to God and his people.
Here is one I wrote ten years ago that still stands true today.
THERE IS something about Apu Ceto that is indiscernible to the naked eye.
Of slight – very slight – built, his physique exudes fragility. The very antithesis of the stereotypical ideal of masculinity.
Handsome – in the movie sense – he’ll be the first to laughingly dismiss that. Orator – in the televangelist’s fire-and-brimstone mold – he would not even think of it.
Apu Ceto is a priest in every bit not extraordinary. So, what draws people of all ages, of all walks of life to him?
He makes that classic definition of the priest that impacted our generation right on our very first day at the seminary eons ago – “the best gift of God to men, the best gift of men to God.”
So much so that simply being with him is always an experience in faith, an epiphany even. As that time in 2003 during his ten day pastoral visit to California which was one spiritual journey, indeed a pilgrimage of renewal, of rekindling the fires of one’s faith.
Live the faith. Love the family.
His is a message so sincere in its simplicity. His is a message that indelibly touched those who reached out to him and those he reached out to: hundreds of Capampangans, scores of other Filipinos, and a sprinkling of Latinos, whites, blacks and other Asians in San Francisco, Antioch, Los Angeles and San Diego.
“The two priceless treasures of our people, coveted by other peoples…undiminished in value even through our worst economic dislocation,” Apu Ceto says of faith and family as the defining character of the Filipino.
“Modernism and materialism, especially in wealthy America, besiege increasingly the very foundation of the Filipino-American family. Against this onslaught, we need to return to our core values and be steadfast in our Christian faith to prevail.”
Apu Ceto has always made that call for the propagation of the Filipino core values of respect for human life, love for the elders, the bayanihan culture of sharing and malasakit, and family prayer, especially to those already born in America.
He denounced abortion and euthanasia as “pillars of the culture of death…high crimes against the family and against God.”
“The baby and the elderly are integral elements in the nucleus of the Filipino family. Take them out, fission ensues, and the nucleus suffers a total breakdown.”
In a clear jab at the pro-choice lobby in the US: “The baby in the womb is not a simple choice. It is a human being created in God’s own image and likeness and therefore should come into the world to fulfill God’s plan for him. Man has no business playing God, usurping His power over life and death.”
Of love and respect of the elderly: “Filipino culture puts premium in the wisdom of age. Thus, we take good care of our elders, never treating them like overused rags fit only to be shut in some retirement home, left to die alone, and as fast forgotten.”
And the attendant promise of a blessed long life for those who subscribe to the Fourth Commandment – “Honor thy father and thy mother” – “so that all may go well with you, and you may live a long time in the land.”
So, the Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians. So, it was written in Exodus 20:12. So, it has become Apu Ceto’s mission too.
Live the faith. Love the family.
Apu Ceto is his own message. Messenger and message fused into one. It is from that oneness that emanates Apu Ceto’s charisma – in its true essence of grace endowed upon a person owing to his privileged position with the Divine, to paraphrase the sociologist Max Webber.
Apu Ceto is that good sermon we see, we feel, and – prayerfully – we live.
