phillippines
Ritche T. Salgado, OCarm, is director of the Carmelite Center for Social Pastoral Communications in Quezon City, Philippines. He spoke with Sojourners’ Mitchell Atencio.
BEFORE I BECAME a priest, I was a journalist. I was writing for an alternative news outfit, Bulatlat. They asked me to write about a priest who was killed in Central Philippines. I was inspired by [his] story, and I wanted to be a priest. The [Carmelite order] I entered has very strong journalist and media advocacy. In fact, our patron saint in the Philippines, St. Titus Brandsma, is the martyr of press freedom and free speech. I never thought that I’d be in a congregation so involved in the pastoral care of media workers. As a priest, I continue as desk editor for Bulatlat.
I WAS just 15, and as the eldest I had to do something to help my family. When the captain of our local army squadron introduced a recruiter to my parents, I was ready to go anywhere. He made it sound so nice! I would go to Japan and work in a famous hotel as a professional dancer. It would mean lots of money to send home to my poor family in the Philippines. Of course, I would have to go to Manila first to be trained, and I would have to change my name to fit my new life.
Some 15 years ago, my aunt and uncle gave me the gift of goat for Christmas.
Let me rephrase: They didn’t give me an actual goat, but they donated a goat — in my honor — to a village in the developing world.
At age 15, I was less than pleased. The plight of starving children and the needs of my indigent brothers and sisters around the globe were far too serious and far too abstract for my selfish teenage brain to wrap itself around.
Today, though, I find myself in the ironic position of wanting to buy goats, mosquito nets, and other items as Christmas gifts in honor of my own family members. This causes me to look back on my selfishness as a teen and see how blind I was to the idea of grace — to the beauty and significance of my aunt and uncle’s gift.