A song remembered

There are many weighty and discouraging subjects on which to discourse in a pretentious opinion column like this – in truth, too many to know where to begin the scolding, wailing, and recriminations.

But on a Sunday morning, following the Sabbath, perhaps it’s time to take a moment not to address our "fiscal" but our spiritual deficits. (Of which, mea maxima culpa, this pecador has so many.)

If you ever doubt how deeply religious our people are, just go to Sunday Mass. That’s the good news; namely, that the "good news" our Christian faith’s testament remains alive and vibrant, despite – or possibly because of – disappointments, trials, tribulations and betrayals that are our sad daily diet.

Our churches are full. (Not to sneer by offering a comparison, churches and even great Cathedrals are more than half empty in much of Europe, in the former bastions of the faith.)

In a country desperatey poor, we continue to be rich in patience, hope, and optimism. Rabble-rousers may cry havoc, rant about doomsday and revolution, but hearts – even in the squattervilles of despair and crime – seem to still be raised to God. No wonder Karl Marx and V.I. Lenin angrily scoffed at "religion" as the opiate of the people. Our nation’s faith is the despair of the atheists, communists and malicious organizers of mayhem.

The irony is that, at times, the "poor" even have more faith than many of our Churchmen.

End of Sunday sermon. If Jesus forgave Simon-Peter for denying Him thrice, there’s hope for this old reprobate anyway.

* * *

It’s amazing, for instance, what a reaction to what we wrote in this corner last August 18, The Song of Bernadette, provoked from all points of our archipelago. We were deluged with texts, e-mail, faxed letters, truly a "Song" so fondly remembered.

When I complained that I had searched the world in vain for a VHS or DVD of that wonderful movie starring Jennifer Jones based on Franz Werfel’s unforgettable book (which I had read in high school), The Song of Bernadette, there came a torrent of offers from readers to send me one. I really felt a bit stupid to discover that I could have ordered one from Google, or the website, or from 20th Century Fox suppliers. But the response was not just overwhelming, it was heart-warming.

My Cebu Bureau Chief, Valeriano "Bobbit" Avila, even texted me, in half-sarcastic fashion: "You searched the world, Sir Max? I went last week to the carbon and bought one." The carbon is what they’ve traditionally called the downtown Cebu City market, long before I worked there just after graduation from the Ateneo (on detail by the Knights of Columbus – not "Columbus at Night," would you believe?)

Anyway, I noted Bobbit’s remark in my succeeding column. Avila returned to the carbon that same day and discovered that every "copy" had been snapped up within hours of The STAR’s appearance. Bobbit texted me: "Sir Max, you’ve been outfoxed by your own readership. No more Bernadette DVDs anywhere in the market."

How did those DVDs of the once-rare supermovie suddenly appear the last few weeks? I got the answer when a kind lady sent me a DVD of the movie, with the following handwritten note, signed simply, "A family from Calamba, Laguna".

She wrote: "I am a 42-year old housewife and my family reads your newspaper daily for many years now. You mentioned in your column three weeks ago before the Feast of the Assumption that you are desperately looking for a copy of the movie, ‘The Song of Bernadette’ starring Jennifer Jones. We chanced upon a copy last Sunday while malling in Greenhills with my family and my husband bought it for you. Here it is, but our apology since it is a pirated one. . ."

What a terrific gift it was! Curious, I tried it out on my DVD player and it was clear, vivid, and as "perfect" as any DVD original. How fascinating that Bernadette’s inspiring story is being widely circulated anew, after years of oblivion, by the "pirate" makers! Betya the ones in Cebu’s carbon were of the same dubious manufacture. But the song comes across clear as a bell on those . . . er copies. (The FLASH in this column is that, by coincidence, the Virra Mall’s "pirate" stalls were suddenly raided yesterday by Edu’s Rangers – nope, I didn’t rat on them, I hasten to declare – and those Muslim traders who man them have temporarily . . . well, gone out of business. Don’t worry, I’ll wager they’ll resurface very shortly.)

I’ve also received very authentic VHS copies, also clear as a bell. One set was sent to me by retired architect and former Professor Renato C. Sindiong all the way from Dumaguete City. He even sent me, The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima.

His note had his telephone number and I rang him up to thank him. Mr. Sindiong recalled he had heard me speak in a symposium in The Luce Auditorum when he was a faculty member of Silliman University, where, by the way, my daughter Marinella had studied. (She now lives abroad).

Among dozens of other letters, one came from Ms. Reginita B. R. de Luzuriaga in Bacolod City.

She said: "It was a refreshing whiff of spiritual breeze you gave to your readers in your column . . . ‘The Song of Bernadette.’ You see, I am a devotee of Our Lady of Lourdes and I had been using the Lourdes Habito for almost 59 years now. I too have seen this wonderful movie of Jennifer Jones in my teens. Thus I was so elated when I came upon this movie again a few years back on cable TV, the Sky Cable Network in Bacolod City."

* * *

My sister Mercy S. David came home from New York a few days ago. She, too, brought me a VHS of the Jennifer Jones movie, complete with "proof of purchase #1034" from 20th Century Fox "Home Entertainment" division.

If you want to know – better take heed of this – there’s a travel advisory that US Customs is on "alert" for "pirated" VCD/DVD carrying passengers on airlines. If you’re caught entering or leaving the USA with that "pirate" stuff, you run afoul of US laws, including Intellectual Property Rights (anti-piracy) laws.

A warning received by e-mail, purportedly forwarded from the "US Embassy Warden, Manila" reported that the US Consular Section recently received a report that "the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) searched the bag of a Filipino entering the US, on Northwest 72 in Detroit. During the search, 70-80 compact discs, 30-40 empty DVD jackets and 10-20 DVDs were found. Since the travelers were not American citizens, their visas were cancelled and they returned to the Philippines. Had they been Americans, they could have been subject to arrest and criminal prosecution in addition to civil fines and penalties."

I’m quoting an advisory from the US Commercial Service, American Embassy Manila, attributed to Thess Sula.

There’s also a warning to "all nursing graduates who plan to take the NCLEX and CGF exams in the States not to bring in pirated books because there will be a penalty of automatic deportation as violation of intellectual property rights."

It seems the American Association of Publishers (AAP) has alerted American Customs officers to check for "pirated books". (Many medical and nursing textbooks, it seems, are being sold here and elsewhere in Asia, in "pirated" editions – because they’re much cheaper). Bringing them with you to the United States, on the other hand, could prove an expensive mistake.

The Travel Advisory even contains "a friendly reminder". It asserts: "If you have plans of going to the US, please take precautionary measures on all padalas " . . . or pasalubongs. Gee whiz. They’re not only paranoid about "terrorists" sneaking into the US, but Homeland Security and Customs are ready to shoot down other kinds of "pirates".

By the way, the anniversary of September 11, 2001 – the terrible 9/11 – is fast approaching.

* * *

You see? Alas, even when dwelling on uplifting and inspiring matters like the miracles at Lourdes and Bernadette’s "song", the mundane and the tawdry creep into the discourse.

I have to thank my friends, readers – and my sister, too – for the VHS and DVD copies of that luminous movie, which I hadn’t enjoyed for decades. They should show it again and again, on Sky Cable, or any channel. It inspires everyone, and what we so urgently need in these troubled times, plagued by the same type of scoundrels who strut through that movie (incidentally) tormenting Bernadette Soubirous and trying to declare her insane, and decrying her "apparitions" and "lies", is a strong dose of that simple faith that uplifted her – and has touched with its radiant afterglow the hearts of many millions around this troubled planet.

After all these intervening years, even to a journalist whose weary eyes have been filmed over by the scar-tissue of witnessing too many wars, tragedies, injustices, dirty deeds, and spectacles of cruelty and foul corruption, it brings a tear – better than that, sends a ray of sunshine into the darkest recesses of the heart.

"The Lady" did not promise St. Bernadette happiness in this life – but in the Next Life. And she bore her suffering – even that of being tormented in the nuns’ convent – with fortitude, even joy, revealing it to no one till almost the very end. How marvelous was the "newcomer", as she was described in the Hollywood blurb, Jennifer Jones, in that role! So young, so pure in her performance.

Later, she was to make another unforgettable movie, with William Holden, remember? Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, based on the life of Han Suyin, containing the song of that same name – which my wife and I so prized when we were courting.

Of course, she went on to . . . sadly, but inevitably, raunchier and naughtier roles, like Duel in the Sun. And so on. An actress (as Ingrid Bergman demonstrated after Joan of Arc and Casablanca) cannot be St. Bernadette, I suppose, forever. We are all – all, except the Immaculate Conception – children of Original Sin.

Even older readers may have forgotten the superb cast of that first, completely compelling movie of Jennifer Jones (in a role of which she must always be loved and remembered): Charles Bickford, Lee J. Cobb, and Vincent Price (the latter to become "immortal" as Dracula!).

The 1943 motion picture, won four Academy Awards, including Best Actress (won by Jennifer) and Best Score. It was directed by William Perlberg, directed by Henry King, and backed by the legendary David O. Selznick – much later to become Jennifer Jones’ husband.

And its story shines through the ages – that of a 14-year old peasant girl, from a poverty-stricken family, seeing in a garbage dump on the outskirts of the little town of Lourdes, in 1858, a beautiful Lady – and on the site of that grotto, there sprang from the ground a miraculous spring.

Poor Bernadette was subjected to many inquisitions, repudiations, and even sessions of near-torture, but she remained steadfast in prayer – and in her tale of the beautiful Lady, the "Immaculate Conception".

Almighty God, and our Blessed Mother, heal everyone of the millions who flock annually to Lourdes, singing in hope and even in despair, Ave Maria. But most importantly, I believe, the healing is in the soul.

Bernadette, the young peasant girl, kneeling in ecstasy in that grove, in the mud, and among the detritus and shreds of garbage, holding up her Rosary, her face upturned in faith – that’s the Miracle of Lourdes. When will the glory of that faith fade? Never.