The Flight to Peace: A Revert’s Story (Part I)
By: Shirley Monreal

Part 1: Frail then Dampened Wings

What is usually surprising is that I would always write my musings in the wee hours of the morning. Moments are such as though I were billetted into a time warp wherein all of the memories of my past would get stuck into then afterwards resurge like visions of sorts.  In those particular instances I could even imagine myself flying throughout the universe (that is, when I would remember those dreams I had been having during some past days) or maybe just sitting in one corner reaching out to butterflies fluttering above larks’ backs and meadows. In other times I could be seeing myself propelling over the medieval period where fiefs and princess lived, and castles with moats surrounding their humongous foundations. In consonance to that would also be a zooming forth into the present, as I would eventually dream of my everyday routines and sometimes, rectify my misdeeds committed in a whole afternoon. In other words, an intersposing of experiences and visions that capture my imagination, to the extent of creating in my innermost self the sources for artistry. Nevertheless it is not merely artistry that besets my awakening, but this one thing that is God-given, precious, and ingrained universally of which nothing could be explicated more fully than with the trust due to the Divine. This, what I am trying to put forth is faith, that has all the more encompassed the totality of my soul more than did creative inklings.

My venturing into faith was drunk from my mother’s milk, to quote Saint Augustine of Hippo. Never did I have any recollection for having faltered in Sunday Masses, as I was being forced to get up before 9AM and speedily gobble my breakfast before putting on children’s gear with skirts that had lots of lining. My clothes were definitely itchy, and made me mortify myself by walking to church with every abrasive skirt lining piercing through my flesh. My mother and my aunt were the sinister culprits of every woeful predicament I would undergo: from dressing me up, to telling me how to behave, to make me stand up straight althroughout the Glorias and Credos and pinching me when I motioned myself to make noise. And since I was naturally rebellious, I’d scrape the dust ground of our once crude chapel (now a beautiful parish of Mother of Good Counsel) with my shoe due to disgust and discomfort about the abrasive linings of my dress and all the rudimentary what-nots of my parents. I would always wonder then, why should people go to Church where I would just get myself to communicate with God through my little Pater Nosters I’d recite prior to bedtime slumber? Of course, this I did try to raise to my stubborn parents; but neither of them hearkened to my fits of complaints as I was ‘merely a child’ and ’should not question faith.’ This, naturally, I had to bear. I should not question faith because, God was terrifying like that picture of Our Mother of Perpetual Help looking too intently at me in one corner of the church whenever I would tug along with my mother in reciting her perpetual novena.

Ah, sounds as though I am still grumbling against an insignificant detail of church-going–definitely!–but I do look back at it with sheer amusement. Why should I not? This had precipitated more instances of church-going as time went by; for, as my years progressed, I was not anymore compelled by necessity or obedience to authority that I visit that church over yonder that merely entailed walking up 35 steps to get there. As I grew, my fascination for the sacred became embedded in it. I was not only mesmerised with churches, but also with religious objects. Thus I became a rosary and carved ikon collector, of which I would pester my relatives to buy me different rosaries, prayer cards, and images of saints. And since the Scripture had also enthralled me, my readings of it became too exacting, concentrated and profound that at age six my aunt had to buy me a newer one. During these period of religious bliss, my execration for the Untruth was holding its ground that questions of faith were resurging like tides in a bellowing sea. I would read different Bible translations, listen to homilies of priests, keep track of Sunday readings; and if it were not for my shyness, accost a vicar of our parish to teach me what things of the Lord would mean. At long last I knew that I had graduated from complaining about Masses and attending them with itching garments. I had transcended into one little child who intends in belabouring herself with the burdens of Truth searching so as she could please her one and only Maker.

Elementary grades were socially cumbersome to me, but there was much personal delight in enjoying academic prestige. I had this one single pride of establishing a name for being the smartest, thus scrupulous enough to maintain the image of genius. However, it was still with matters of faith that I excelled the most and with that the nuns would shower me commendations and praises. I reeked with self-admiration (my most inherent vice since time immemorial), and tried to make my way forcibly into the intellectual crowd for self-recognition. How I loved to be different! Uniqueness was a big part of my personality that I learned to spurn people whom I disliked so easily but accomodate those whom I thought would be beneficial to building an egoistic personality. Ironically though, I still longed for a place in the religious life someday so I began dreaming of becoming a religious sister. In between my rigid readings of Scripture was a routine of sketching anything that came to mind: thus would I draw nuns’ habits. Indeed was I much in love with religion that I never figured out that faith would be a cross to me in the long run. My motto was that if all should fall apart, let them be but my faith; my battlecry on the other hand was “Faith or death”.

I was at the most a spiritual prude, the consequence of which was my tepid social life. Being an oversensitive little damsel, my full resort was to thinking about God’s redemption of me in the long run. I perceived this world as full of ungodly antics propitiated by people whose gods are their bellies. I never liked being with people my age because they never understood what I wanted so I did find it best to communicate with my teachers and God at the tabernacle instead. Apart from these unusual activities for an elementary grades pupil were my readings of various articles concerning faith. Of course I acknowledge that I was brought up a hardcore Catholic whose family had once raised the battlecry of “The Catholic Church or none at all” thus never really believed that I would be led sway by various intricate doctrines. I was one of those who fully believed in a relativistic outlook about belief, that each of these churches scattered everywhere are of God and are all conforming to truth. True enough–I was a child! I, in between 7-12 never learned to eat meat yet, only milk but I never did agree to that notion. I overly felt an independence in myself in even interpreting Scripture to the extent of drawing myself near to occasions of believing in heresy. Oh little child full of pride! Extant in me was a rebelliousness for everything, for now as I recall all that had transpired, my pride was due to the want for acceptance of my weaknesses. Ever since my youth I was taught to always hold my head up high for family honour, and not to behave correctly was worth lots of reprimand. Consequentially, my seething hatred for confusion about myself, my family, and my upbringing were those that composed my cowering against the Lord’s Caritas. True, I felt confident in religion but it seemed that my piety was brought about by my flight from the reality of a broken family and a broken self, whose desires for redemption totally composed that of every possibility of healing the shattered pieces of my paternity. This spawned my bitter inclinations of nonconformity which even seeped into my search for Truth.

And… lo, and behold! Unbeknownst to me was the Devil wreaking havoc, planting the seeds of dissention watered by pride and aversion. A relative who never was friendly with Catholicism constantly supplied us with materials replete with anti-Catholic rancour and would always proselytise against our abiding by Catholic teachings. A man with a strong build and a very frightful countenance, I would remember hiding behind the door of our room whenever I would hear him arrive through our gate. It was routinary for me to listen behind closed doors to his preaching (as he was a former Evangelical preacher) and debates against my nominal Catholic kin. At most times he would dumbfound my parents, and my aunt whom I have always honoured as being the wisest woman I have ever known would even be thrown into senseless justifications about the Church and her dogmas. At last, the seed of confusion was sown and with it the longings of my soul. What if the Church was not the bastion of truth after all, but a bulwark of lies? How can I save my soul? With these things in mind, I began to peruse all the vituperous articles left by that uncle of mine whom I now begin to see as a hero, an antithesis of my domineering kin I lived with. Much to my sensitive soul’s agitation, my readings of Jack chick comic books, Babylon Mystery Religion Fundamentalist propaganda and the accounts of a supposed Jesuit priest named Romero filled my imagination of purported Catholic vermin. My fears never did dissuade me though; I even thirsted for more tales of horror. I scoured over my Catholic Bible and saw that it had seven more books than the Protestants’ Scriptures. I then looked for answers from more anti-Catholics and my Fundamentalist 5th grade teacher and sure enough did I figure that my way was out of this Whore of Babylon called Catholicism. Add to that was my fanaticism of a Bible self-professed know-it-all named Soriano whose television program “Ang Dating Daan” filled me with awe. I continued in my saga of truth searching, attended Masses with the intentions of scorning the Eucharist in my heart, wrote crude essays that depicted my rebellion against the Mystical Body of Christ, and vociferously lashed out against the clergy behind their backs. During these times of a triumph of defiance, my proud soul was never repentant and all my aims were at exposing Catholicism as well as all its big dark spots and potholes. Now, being in an Augustinian high school, I would whisper constantly to myself: If this Augustine would repeat in himself tirelessly about his finding of Truth in this Church of the Whore, then he never exists as veritable enough. A wise churchman, indeed but blind to the affairs of God’s knowledge. Thus, should I correctly state that my secondary school years were built upon my little way of deconstructing the Catholic Church, and throw down the bricks that make up its foundations.

My seething rage against all things Catholic even pervaded my academic essays, especially those which tackled Rizal and his writings. As most of us know that Rizal is mostly seen as trustworthy enough in his opinions, I would build mostly on his criticism of a medieval minded, imperial Spanish church that willed nothing but strike down dead anything that would counter their hold upon us Filipinos. As history books would always depict the Church as totally in cahoots with unscrupulously cruel Spanish officials, my activism would be ignited and my ire directed towards today’s Church in the Philippines. Through the pen’s might, I spewed out unsatiable ideologies that the Church was the culprit of all things economically, and socially insidious for it still is none other than the Whore of Babylon deigning to extend its reign over the whole world. Naturally, my biased journalism was the product of my biased outlook of Catholicism, fanned by a torrentious rage contained in the articles which had educated me in the days of my youth. Gone were the days of my longing to be a nun. Gone were the moments of silence spent before the image of Our Mother of Perpetual Help which I would always look forward to every Wednesday. Gone were the fond memories of my first Holy Communion wherein all of my relatives had a grand celebration at home because I had first received the Body and Blood of our Saviour. All that had remained of my poor soul was pride, and a seething nefarious attitude of tearing down Christ’s Edifice in the name of saving others’ souls from eternal doom in an “idolatrous religion”.

It was therefore through my vengeful activism that, in the latter phase of my secondary (Catholic) high school education that I motioned myself to shed off all of my Catholic identities and join the mother sect of the “Ang Dating Daan” program then named “Iglesya ng Dios kay Kristo Hesus, Haligi at Saligan ng Katotohanan” (now “Church of God International”). My choosing of IDKHHSK was primordially attributed to “all answers sought after now sought successfully” for Soriano appealed to my intellect more than anything else. His penchant for coming out with steady and unassuming answers haunted my longing to survive in the ecclesiastical sphere, and to be armed with “wisdom” to thwart all of religion’s enemies. (As such is the mark of Christ’s true Church, accordint to what I had “found out”.) For didn’t He say that “I will give you a mouth that shall speak words than cannot be refuted even by your very opponents?” Soriano had the greatest gift of speech, to entice an entire human race with a seemingly impeccable wit that could win the convictions of many a truth seeker. And as expected of me, with a spirituality as benign as that of a babe, I took grasp of Soriano and his teachings so easily as an unaware Little Red Riding Hood led astray by the call of a wolf. I was about to be baptised into the sect in November of 2000 after receiving fifteen days of indoctrination, but as a protocol sixteeners were refused baptism as such were still considered children (according to IDKHHSK doctrine, only seventeen year olds and below are refused baptism as catechumens are supposed to fully ‘understand’ doctrine before they get baptised). Unbeknownst to me, I was eventually influencing my once staunchly Catholic mum and aunt through my continued watching of the ADD program that they expressed their willingness to be part of the sect as well. My mum was the first to be converted into their ways after I hearkned to their doctrine; then my aunt followed. Finally on the 10th of May, 2001–before my entrance into college–all three of us in the family were immersed into one gigantic swimming pool known as the ADD Central baptistry in Apalit, Pampanga. We joined numerous others who, according to them, had “seen the light of truth” in this new religion called the IDKHHSK. As Soriano was conferring the final prayers after our baptism, I was intoning in my heart the desire that I can now “die in the grace of the Almighty”. I was shaking; I was weeping; I was sad, but joyful. At last I can now see the Lord! At last…

My zeal  to help my newfound religion was intense that all the prescribed prayer meetings were part of my agenda. There was no reason to skip any worship service, though; everything was monitored, especially one’s attendance. An attendance sheet was kept at the doorway wherein one should log his presence for that day. As part of the monitoring scheme, each member also had identification cards so as the locale workers could know a member’s name and perhaps, how they are participating. Since our inception into the sect, we were then assigned into different committees, and mine was to be part of the youth group named “Kristiyanong Kabataan Tungo sa Kabanalan” or KKTK. Since I was not very social, it was against my will to be abruptly pulled into a fellowship with other youths. Nevertheless, the KKTK attendances were requirements so I had to comply, even in the usual Thanksgiving dance practices (oh yes, liturgical dances were much of the norm–well, if you’d call their services liturgical). But I did not prosper too well in the KKTK as I was too much of a serious person, who would rather delve in theological discussions than participate in a mere requirement for “liturgical” dancing during Sunday Thanksgiving celebrations. The pressure to always join in everything for fear of being branded as lukewarm, and the stigma of excommunicated members’ names read aloud during every Saturday worship service was certainly rattling to my sensitive demeanour. Yet, my ardour of persevering til the end, mostly precipitated by my desire of salvation, kept me going til the ends of my wits. I considered my hardships as following into the footsteps of the apostles, they who were mostly ridiculed because of their faith in Christ. For anyway, did not Soriano always rally us up into recognising our underdog status against the INCs and yes, the Catholic Church that I once loved but now hate so tremendously? We are persecuted, we are the object of everybody’s scorn. Soriano says it so such must be true; for how can a man personifying God’s wisdom lie that much? Needless to say, I personally looked up to Soriano as a father and a brother, one who brought us all we needed to know from the Scriptures. His wisdom is not like all those found within those remarkable theologians of the Catholic Church, for here is a man who has not even finished secondary school but can topple everybody’s regard for established denominations! Indeed the Lord is with him, and nothing can ever withhold this man from proclaiming the truth. It is with this notion that my faithfulness was such that I had dreamt of following his footsteps in all sorts of mano y mano debates wherein he would always end up triumphant. I wanted to be him–well, because of my pride and a religion that continually enhances it for me.

As days of zealous tromping along IDKHHSK doctrines went by, the skies seemed to darken a little and a peculiar sense of crashing waves came to my senses. This I never realised, for all the while was I oblivious of any sincere meaning to catastrophe. I was secure in all things possible, secure in my salvation because I had drunk the Doctrine so there was no reason for my soul to panic. But the sense of danger was just lying in one corner of this beach that extends far towards the south, and since I merely saw beauty, I became gullible. Simple doctrines began to change course, and some aspects of church services actually veered away from what Soriano was preaching on television. We were always taught to never easily fall down on stumblingblocks, because doctrine can serve as so “to those who are not keen”. All the warnings were very conspicuous, and I wondered why it was so. Everything seemed as though a threat against leaving! But of course, I was primordially a very doubtful person so I had to leave such intuitions behind my back. I still constantly prayed as I were, and participated actively as before for I knew this was the true Church. But alas! Fate ran its course, for the three of us family members became suspended for a trivial non-Biblical crime blown out of proportions by a paltry doctrine unrecognisable even to Christians in the early part of the Church: I had gone against IDKHHSK teaching of the forbiddances in trimming one’s hair. I was a sickly child so I had to resort to committing ‘the crime’, and I indicted my mother for that single deed brought about by her overwhelming compassion over my travails. We were barred from contributing cash to the ministry, or even giving material help to the church. We had to work our way up again to lift the suspension;  and consequentially, the said move made me utterly depressed especially when I realised my mother’s overpowering concern over my welfare. Oh was I humbled during those moments of bitterness. My heart could not contain the sorrow and guilt that traversed my soul, cutting it into half especially upon seeing my relatives devastated over my telling on them to the ministers! I then began to meditate (for the first time in years) about what Scripture said about mercy: that the Lord desires it more than sacrifices.

Recollecting over my blind adherence over the past two years that I was a full-fledged member of IDKHHSK, and the matter of sermons promulgated by dear old Soriano, was my contrite acknowledgement of personal pride and an overwhelming flood of guilt of on how I could gamble my soul in exchange of salvific knowledge. It was a promise, but now all I felt was a soul’s emptiness etching itself out from a quagmire of nothingness. Again, for the first time in years, I cried in my sleep “DE PROFUNDIS”: Out of the depths, I cry out to Thee Oh Lord. I was there in one corner, remembering all the sermons uttered by whom I looked up to as a seer, talking about hidden knowledges worthy only to those who belong to the IDKHHSK, even proclaiming for once that men can become gods–which was quickly to my astonishment. As these occurrences reeled their way through my mind like a movie, all the more did I felt wanting of that peace which the world cannot give. I reflected. I pondered. I wept. I longed for something that could make me once more feel the joy of knowing God during my childhood days, and I sat there dumbfounded. Nothing emanated from my mouth, nor did anything pour forth from my once talented persona. An unimaginable silence induced by years and years of searching in vain took hold of me so now all I could do was sit. Sit. Then–

Epiphany!

Unknown to my mind was a Conscience speaking directly to my heart. But this Conscience was very different in its speech for it lacked obscurity and was all the while straightforward. It spoke, and though I tried very much to veer away from focusing on it still it persisted. With two single words, a time warp was commenced along with the hope that I can pick up the pieces of my shattered self. Those two single words, ever ancient ever new but never knows an end:

THE MASS.

The epiphany was grand but at first seemed impossible. I feared for eternal damnation, for the Mass was all that was needed for me to be cast into the lake of fire. This ignominious slander of God! A personification of idolatry that I have rejected. Nevertheless did the call become stronger, louder, more evident. I should take hold of it else I die with my own hands! I got up; and during the next day did I heed the call to approach Our Lord in His altar. All I did was glance at the Tabernacle and peace swept into my soul, inducing my tears to stream forth like rapids. I sat throughout that Mass; yet it was as if the Lord accepted me with open arms, motioning me to come to him and embrace His loving hands. For a moment my mind shot upward and acknowledged His mercy; and deep within me was a surprise chanting of the Miserere excited by my own desire to renew my wrecked life.

[end of part 1]