"It has been a particularly difficult week. Sore from having sinned, and having been sinned against, I rode my bike, dog in tow, to church, hoping to get soothed somehow.
"Sat at the back. Didn’t receive Communion, having felt I haven’t earned it. After Mass, on my way home, I was hailed by a semi-urchin, whom I knew.
"Bag of pan de sal in hand, he was walking home. A tricycle ride would have cost him the bread he was to bring home. I pulled over, and promptly he hopped onto my Virago.
"He had rags for clothes and his skin was soiled. He was grown up, but he was short and stunted, Palate cleft, his speech was hardly intelligible. His messy teeth pointed at all places of his disfigured face, that bore still the liveliest of smiles.
"He clung to me as we rode off, until I would drop him off close to where he lived. I had only a dog with me on the way to church. Jesus rode with me on the way back.
"NAPAKA SWERTE KO NAMAN."
And an elderly woman wrote to me, also from a distant province. This is what she said:
"The brother of our housekeeper, as a young boy, was on drugs. And on alcohol. He was a problem in their family. In July of 2002 he had an intestinal obstruction, and was brought to the hospital, for an operation.
"He was released from the hospital, but only a few days later he was brought back to the hospital, for his second operation. Eventually he was out again, but he was not yet well. He went back to the hospital for his third operation.
"The doctor told his family not to bring him back, because the doctors could not heal him anymore. His intestines had tubes alternating with his intestines, because of the disease.
"Then a man collecting for my donation for a dawn rosary by radio at four in the morning came and gave me three little bottles of rose petals from Lipa, immersed in oil.
"I gave one little bottle to the sick man, to put on his wound. And – believe it or not – he got well! It was little by little, but he got well!
"The doctors were amazed. The cure became the talk of the barangay. I also gave him water from Lourdes, and he would hold the bottle, even when he was sleeping.
"He is now sweeping the garden. And he is well!"
She adds: The dawn rosary was begun about thirty-five years ago. It is broadcast by radio at four in the morning. It is still continued.
She also wrote about another woman, whom she knew at close range:
"After she was married, at the age of twenty-three, she and her husband lived in the ancestral home where the other in-laws also lived. She was pregnant with her first baby, when her sister-in-law suddenly gave birth.
"As it was unexpected, she helped her sister-in-law, who was bleeding profusely, until the doctors came. She lost the baby she had conceived, and for the next twelve years was losing the child whenever she got pregnant.
"At last, after thirteen years, she conceived again, and the baby was ten months in her womb. The family decided to bring her to Manila, to be helped by Manila doctors.
"She gave birth in San Juan de Dios Hospital. The baby was delivered almost dead, and whatever the doctors did, the child would not cry. So her cousin, who later became a Carmelite nun, baptized the baby.
"Only then, the child came alive and cried. They thought the baby was born dead. The child was only three and a half pounds at birth, just skin and bones.
"The child was named: LOURDES"
The Filipino is accustomed – almost naturally – to think of himself as inferior to the wealthy Americans, the wealthy Europeans. But the only wealth that the West hold dear is money!
It is true: The people in the United States, and in Europe, have more money than the people in the Philippines. Economically, we are poor. But, spiritually, we are rich!
What can money buy? A house, a car, a tour around the world, even the services of a prostitute: But money can not buy love. Money cannot buy happiness. Money cannot buy laughter, or even a smile. And money cannot buy life! Money cannot buy peace. Especially, money cannot buy peace of soul.
Just think of those three people in the letters: the young doctor seeing Christ Our Lord in the street urchin, with the cleft palate, who was hanging on to him, in the back of his motorcycle. The gardener holding the water from Lourdes, even in his sleep, knowing that the Virgin Mother was looking after him. The generous, sacrificial, long-suffering mother, calling her baby "Lourdes", in gratitude to God and to the Virgin.
These are Filipinos. And they are rich in the treasures of the spirit. Rich in life, rich in love, rich in their possession of God.
Personally, I think that – if ever the Philippines becomes rich – that will be a bad day. With our poverty comes joy, laughter, life, love, patience, courage – everything!