‘Living a joyful life’ with Fr. Gerson

Some treasures are buried in unexpected places. They wait to be unearthed to bring priceless and indescribable joy to those who find them.

Fr. Gerson Ortiz, a Venezuelan priest doing missionary works in the Philippines, stumbled upon these treasures at the tender age of 17. For the past 22 years as a missionary priest of the Fraternidad Misionera Verbum Dei, Fr. Gerson has been spreading an immeasurable kind of joy.

He spent his childhood in a family farm in San Cristobal, a city located in a mountainous region of Venezuela. His father Segundo Ortiz managed their farming business. His mother Carmen was a homemaker.

The young Gerson, his brother Manuel and sister Doris were raised in a Catholic home. His parents persevered in teaching them to live their faith. Every day they were rounded up to pray the rosary together as a family. The Ortiz children didn’t enjoy this activity that much but they had to obey their parents.

When he was 17, his mom coaxed him to join a silent retreat facilitated by the Verbum Dei missionaries who happened to have their mission house near the family farm. He was then planning to go to another city Barquisimeto (800 kilometers away from home) to study Veterinary Medicine but his mother said, “My son, I have never asked anything of you. But this time, I will ask one thing:  Please, bring God with you.” He was not really willing to listen but because it was his mom, he agreed. To the retreat he went with a heap of reservation.

To his surprise the silent retreat would be held for 10 days. He made a deal with his mother thinking this would be impossible to finish. He would join only on one condition — to leave as soon as he got bored. In the retreat, he felt so out of place — he was not interested in the experience. So the following day, ready to present an alibi, he approached Fr. Carlos Mario, the retreat guide and a Verbum Dei missionary priest from Colombia, and told him: “I have to go now for the birthday of someone special — Gatina, my cat!”

The unfolding of that conversation with Fr. Carlos turned out in a most unexpected way.  “He did not accept my excuse. Somehow I ended up sharing with him all my life, in a deep way including even my ‘ugly’ side like my faults and failings, which I never even shared to my friends.”

Fr. Carlos attentively listened to Gerson. “In the end, Fr. Carlos told me, ‘That is the best confession I ever heard’ and he gave me absolution. I received the forgiveness and returned to my room. In that moment, I was overwhelmed with serenity and inner peace,” he recalls.

The following day, Gerson approached the priest again. Fr. Carlos was surprised that Gerson was still in the retreat as he thought the latter was leaving!

Fr. Gerson remembers, “I told him I did not know what was happening inside my heart but that I did not want this experience to end. I begged him to teach me how to live with God and how to know Him more. I realized that I didn’t know Jesus. I did not associate faith with fullness of life until that experience. We agreed to meet twice a day in the retreat to share our prayer. We did this until the end of the retreat.”

Looking back, Fr. Gerson summarizes his whole experience with a passage from the Bible: “The Kingdom of heaven is like the man who discovers the treasure and out of joy leaves all.”

“I realized the treasure was the friendship with Jesus and that many churchgoers were unaware of this treasure. I felt the call to follow Jesus and to share the treasure of his friendship with so many people,” Fr. Gerson says.

After the retreat, he was resolved to become a missionary and his parents thought it was just another one of his many whims because at that age, he was constantly changing his mind. As the months passed, he stayed firm in his resolve to follow Jesus and become a missionary. His parents were concerned and thought he was brainwashed by the missionary priests. To dispel doubts, they brought him to the local bishop!

“Can you imagine I was only 17, in front of the bishop, accompanied by my parents? I felt it was like the inquisition!” Fr. Gerson remembers with amusement. “I was asked by the bishop, ‘Que te paso muchachito (What happened to you little boy)?’ I answered without hesitation, ‘I have found a treasure and I don’t want to lose it’ and I started to cry. In front of my parents, the bishop said he was going to call the police and I was terrified. He then looked at my parents and told them, ‘I will tell the police to bring you to prison. You have a son who is being called by Jesus and you are preventing him from following the call of the Lord!’ The bishop then said. ‘Let the muchachito fly’.”

So he went on to study priesthood. In 2000, he finished his theological studies in Madrid. In the same year, he was sent to the Philippines for the first time spending two years in Cebu and then one year in Cagayan de Oro. Later in 2008, he was sent back to Quezon City to open a new mission house there.

“I felt that during nearly nine years in the Philippines, my vision has been enhanced and my faith deeply enriched by the faith of the Filipino people. As a missionary, I am blessed to work and be in contact with all kinds of people — people of strong faith and people with weak faith, the healthy and sick, the young and old, the rich and poor, people from rural areas and others from urban areas, married and single. It has been a very enriching human and spiritual experience for me,” Fr. Gerson says. 

He is now the Superior of the male branch of Fraternidad Misionera Verbum Dei in the Philippines. His mission is dedicated to the empowerment of the lay people enabling them to assume an active role in the Church’s mission of evangelization. In line with this, one of his pet projects is to build “The House of Prayer for All Nations,” a permanent place where Verbum Dei can teach the word of God, plant their charism and further develop their mission. 

“I am grateful for the undeserved gift of being a missionary. And very grateful for the gift of the faith of my parents and the faith they planted in my heart especially when I was so reluctant to accept it. Also, I am deeply grateful to God for the gift of my missionary community Verbum Dei where we treasure and cherish the gift of the missionary vocation of one another,” he says.

He is in demand as a speaker and Bible class teacher. He has an innate gift for speaking about the Scriptures and making them come alive so much so that his listeners are spellbound.

He tells us at his “Living a Joyful Life” lecture at the chapel of the Assumption in San Lorenzo Village in Makati: “Parents, don’t be discouraged by your children. Please teach your children to pray. For this you must commit all your efforts and persevere! This will be their greatest source of real joy!”

Every day, Fr. Gerson prays for a living faith and a close and intimate relationship with Jesus.

He says: “I dream that many more people can discover the joy of following Jesus — the most fascinating treasure in this life and in the life to come.”

Amen!

(Would love to hear from you at miladayjewels@yahoo.com.

Fr. Gerson will have one more lecture on “Living a Joyful Life” on Oct. 3, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the chapel of Assumption in San Lorenzo, Makati City. For more information on Verbum Dei in Quezon City, visit verbumdeiqc.blogspot.com.)