Thank you, Fr. Tritz, for your gift of love

Fr. Pierre Tritz, SJ always believed he was fighting a war. But, he would always explain, my war is not to kill people, but to save them.

Fr. Tritz is regarded by many as our nation’s very own Mother Teresa. He passed away last Sept. 10 at age 101. And to say that his was a life well-lived is an understatement. At 60, Fr. Tritz decided to establish a non-government organization to assist dropouts and send them back to school.

He named his army the Educational Research and Development Assistance (ERDA) Foundation. His compassion for poor Filipino children did not stop there as he founded two other NGOs and a technical-vocational high school. The latter was where I worked for three years as a language teacher.

To be honest, since I got to know him only during the last years of his life, it was hard for me to find him inspiring. Because of his advanced age, slurred speech, and failing memory, I could only make sense of three words which he kept repeating over and over again: ERDA, education, and the poor.

Although he might have lost his ability to give inspiring messages, I was fortunate enough one day to witness remnants of his famed charisma.

It had been an annual tradition at his school for students to prepare a simple program for their founder. One very hot afternoon in 2008, I remember the entire community waiting for 30 minutes in a poorly ventilated multi-purpose area at the topmost floor of the institute’s five-storey building. Just as I was sensing a restlessness that was about to bring out the worst in our students, suddenly, out of nowhere, there was thunderous applause. Without any kind of cue or prodding from their teachers, the students respectfully stood and gave a frail, old man in a wheelchair a minute-long, standing ovation. No, it was not the contrived welcome, which we often see during various events for a guest of honor. It was a spontaneous expression of respect and gratitude for a man who has touched many lives.

It was a mystery for me to experience that kind of welcome for Fr. Tritz. I doubt, too, that my students were already appreciative of the education they were receiving. After all, many still question why they have to undergo tech-voc education when they could have had an easier time at a nearby public school. But the love and appreciation for their school’s founder was palpable that afternoon. It felt like the students were hugging Fr. Tritz through their warm applause.

Where did that sense of gratitude come from? Fr. Tritz has not yet changed their lives. Poverty was still a daily, cruel reality. Yet, Fr. Tritz had already won their gratitude and love.

Thinking about this, I remember Mother Teresa. A few days before her canonization, several news articles circulated online questioning Mother Teresa’s sainthood. For critics, her methods never really solved poverty. For them, they were glorified, band-aid solutions that at best only alleviated but never addressed the roots of these social ills.

What the critics do not understand is that there are different standards of being a good Christian that are beyond the realm of exact science. And these standards, I saw in the many tributes and heartfelt messages for Fr. Tritz. There were no citations for the total number of students assisted or for the progressive curriculum they underwent in school. Rather, they thanked Fr. Tritz for simply loving them when no one else would, for the gift of his presence in a society that has grown cold and impersonal, and for being treated like persons worthy of attention and service. It is clear that the work of Mother Teresa and Fr. Tritz cannot be simply reduced to an accomplishment report. For them, what was primary was to restore the dignity and self-worth of those whom society only treats as numbers to be solved or, worse, eradicated.

As I paid my final respects to a great man whom I only knew in his final years, I remember once again the few times that he talked to me, the repetitive ramble that, at first, didn’t seem important as I only understood three words: ERDA, education, and the poor. But then, I found myself asking, in the twilight of my years, when all knowledge and wisdom would have slipped from my mind, what words would remain and what would I keep repeating to other people?

For Fr. Tritz, it was those three words: his work, his weapon and the people he fought for. I have met a lot of inspiring and admirable people in my life, but I have not met anyone as loving as Fr. Pierre Tritz, who, in his last years, had lost the memory of many things but never the mission entrusted to him.

He said his war was to save people. As they laid him to his rest, the people he helped wished to say that by simply feeling loved, they have already been saved.