Gentle giant

He was different from the stereotypes. For instance, the stereotype of giants. Unlike the giants of legend and unlike the biblical giant Goliath whom David slew, John Krebs (a giant in height) was gentle, soft-spoken.

Although born in the United States, he was German whose parents were German immigrants who preserved their German culture. John grew up speaking both English and German but he did not have the traits that the stereotyped image (justly or unjustly) attributes to many Germans and Americans who come to our shores. Not domineering or self-centered, John was unassuming, humble, kindly and with a quiet sense of humor. "Gentle giant" was the description given by one of his Filipino associates.

Educated in Catholic primary schools and then in a Jesuit classical high school, John Krebs entered the Jesuit novitiate at Poughkeepsie in New York State, after which and further classical studies there, he came to the Philippines as a young scholastic to begin the study of philosophy . After three years of that, he taught, also for three years, in the high school of what was then called the Ateneo de Cagayan, later Xavier University.

He returned to the United States for the four-year-old program of theology, and then already ordained a priest, he returned to the Philippines to spend the rest of his active years as a missionary in Bukidnon province, Mindanao. His early bilingual upbringing in English and German must have been one reason for his easy adaptability to Phi-lippine culture. He learned Visayan, and thus with apparent ease spent many years doing humble priestly work in remote mission stations.

He was particularly kind to an American Jesuit colleague who was handicapped by his inability to learn the language of the people and who was, in other ways, eccentric.

When John got sick he joined the Jesuit community in Cagayan de Oro, but mostly as a patient in and out of the hospital, spending months at a time in the Intensive Care Unit. Perhaps that long illness was his purgatory – for even the best of us must undergo a certain a mount of purification before we are ready for the Beatific Vision.

At his death he was waked, first in Cagayan, then in his last parish, then in Malaybalay where he is buried with other Jesuit missionaries. Thus ended a quiet, seemingly uneventful missionary life, undistinguished from a mundane viewpoint.

The great German theologian Karl Rahner has said that the kingdom of God is advanced not so much by outstanding acts that win medals and awards, but by humble, quiet unobtrusive service that helps souls.

Judged by that standard, Father John Krebs lived a very happy and useful life.