The priest who turns Mass into a 'party with God'

Inside the small chapel I built for my Nanay Lesing within the premises of my humble rest house in Lipa City, I had a birthday Mass attended by my family and officiated by a young priest, Fr. Allan Samonte. The chapel can accommodate 12 to 15 people depending on people’s sizes. It is surrounded by fruit bearing kalamansi trees and all kinds of vegetables. A few meters away is the Kalamias River. It was also Fr. Allan who blessed the chapel last September. Nanay likes Fr. Allan. She smiles at him like he’s someone related to us. Nanay is comfortable with Fr. Allan. It’s different with my friend Nini. She likes Fr. Allan in a different way. She has a crush on Fr. Allan who can pass for a runway model or a movie star. He is a looker and “muy cariñoso.” But it’s a harmless “crush,” Nini defensively purred. Fr. Allan lost weight since the last time I saw him in September and this time he fixed his hair like how Gerald Anderson would.

But the moment the Mass started, the gorgeous Fr. Allan transformed into a holy, good-looking priest. His voice was clear, his gaze sacred and penetrating. We all paid attention to him. (Nini who was in shorts turned into a well-behaved “manang.”) He officiates the holy Mass in a way that it’s easy and fun. He makes people at ease in the presence of a kind, loving God. A Mass with Fr. Allan is not tedious at all, instead, it becomes a “party” with God. I enjoy the Masses I’ve had with Fr. Allan. Honest. Not because he’s good-looking but because he has a presence that draws me to God and to others.

In his homily, he spoke about “walking the talk.” That as priests, as broadcasters, as teachers, as children, as parents, we should mean what we say. We should practice the good that we talk about and that we must be fair to other people. It reminded me of the Confucian concept of forbearance. It was said that one of the students of the great teacher asked that if there is only one rule that a person has to follow, what would that be? “Shu“ was the answer, which translates to forbearance which means that “Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire. That is, you must not force other people to do the things you don’t want to do yourself. If a person can do this throughout his life, that is enough.”

As an example, Fr. Allan talked about how he would fulminate “to thy kingdom come” when a bus driver would mindlessly cut him on the road. His knee-jerk reaction when he was younger was to chase the killer bus and also cut it. But that has changed according to him. Today, he would tell himself that the boorish driver must have a pressing reason why he flies with his bus. Fr. Allan has become tolerant. And I’m sure he would pray for the bus driver and his passengers to be safe and for traffic authorities to do their job by apprehending the erring bus driver. It takes a lot of courage, patience, tolerance, humility, maturity to get to where Fr. Allan is mentally and spiritually. After all, “tao pa rin tayo.” Sometimes it’s tough to behave like one.

He also mentioned my decision to take a break from my talent management chores. Now Backroom, the small but fierce talent management house I built, is owned by its employees. I had to do it because I needed to spend more time with Nanay and my most senior employees deserve the “break” to shine on their own. And right now, they’re doing very well. I said it, I did it, was the point that Fr. Allan was trying to drive at.

Fr. Allan also spoke of the story of Steve Jobs to strengthen his discourse about “walking the talk” and “walking the tightrope” in a world that has become so wired, relationships and families are constantly battered and butchered. The story goes that when Walter Isaacson, Jobs’ biographer asked Steve Jobs, why he was open about his life after having ferociously guarded his privacy for decades, Jobs was quoted to have said that he wanted his children to know him, that he was not always there for them and he wanted them to know why and to understand what he was doing. After giving the world some of the most powerful technological gadgets like the iMac, the iPad, the iPod, and the iPhone, towards the end of his life, what mattered the most to this brilliant, volatile, eccentric genius was for his children to know him well and to understand why he was not always there for them. In his heart of hearts, Steve Jobs knew that, love, unlike the iPad cannot be invented. Neither can it be bought.

After the Mass, Fr. Allan prayed over Nanay, Bong and me. He put his hands on my head and prayed for my safety and well-being.

Believe me, it felt good.