Fr. Jesus Fernadez of the Society of Jesus has devoted his life to one of the priesthood’s main missions: Evangelization, the spreading of the good news of God’s love. He is an active leader of the Marriage Encounter in the Philippines, the Christian Family Movement and the Ephpheta Foundation for the Blind Inc., the embodiment of his lifelong mission.
Now 75, Fernandez came to walk this path out of obedience. "I obeyed my superiors who told me to study communications," Fernandez says with a low chuckle. "Obedience is a path of freedom as well. It is this obedience that frees you to do God’s work."
While many good works occupy his time, Fernandez has a particular soft spot for the Ephpheta Foundation, which aims to improve the quality of life of the blind and to integrate them into the mainstream.
Ministering to the blind, Fernandez said, "is the most fulfilling thing I have done because it takes so little to make them happy, yet the smallest investments bear such good fruit."
Beyond Ephpheta, Fernandez also served as president of the Council on Blindness Inc., an organization composed of medical and allied professions that serves as the umbrella organization for the prevention of blindness.
"We who are sighted often fail to see our blessings," he adds. "The blind count their blessings instead of looking at what they do not have. They count their blessings and try to see what they can do to make these blessings grow, how to thank God for these blessings they are given."
No longer teaching, Fr. Jess says that it gave him time to reach out beyond the seminary into apostolates which simply grew. "God was leading me to an apostolate I have come to love–the family apostolate. I became very active in the Christian Family Movement and the Marriage Encounter."
He adds that "it was the couples and families who taught me and supported me in a common outreach –our preferential option for the poor–the blind."
Fr. Jess began this ministry by helping blind students in Pasay City, then he went on to gather blind beggars from Project 4 in Quezon City to train them in livelihood projects. From there, Fernandez "formed a choir and presented them in a concert in a hotel."
Eventually, the Department of Social Welfare and Services (DSWD) leased part of the department’s land in Project 4, and the Lutheran church group Chistoffel Blindemission (CBM) set up a rehabilitation and training center where 40 to 50 blind trainees undergo five months of skills training each year.
Working with the Lutherans, a Protestant group, has shown Fernandez "that Christianity has no borders, that if we all work together to do the Lord’s work, there is no dispute."
CBM also underwrote the construction of 100 housing units for the blind in Bagong Nayon, Antipolo City, plus a soap factory.
Caritas Germany helped set up a Home for the Aged Blind in the town of Hermosa, Bulacan on land donated by one of his contacts in the Marriage encounter, Fr. Jess adds. Ephpheta has also been tapped by Kansas’ Christian Foundation for Children and Aging to coordinate a sponsorship program in the Philippines.
According to Fernandez, there are now over 20,000 children and aging blind folk in Metro Manila, Rizal, Bicol, Pampanga, Zambales, Aklan, Pangasinan and Isabela who are sponsored insofar as their healthcare, nutrition, clothing and educational needs are concerned.
"Reflecting on this work, I’m quite convinced that when the Lord wants something done, he’ll make it all possible," Fernandez said.
The choice of entering the priesthood was not difficult for Fernandez, a native of Libon, Albay: "I had no large possessions to give up, nor a heart to break; I was more interested in basketball and the glee club. Indeed, I wonder what the Jesuit saw in me, but I allowed myself to be guided and led along."
Fernandez is an alumnus of the Ateneo de Naga. He joined the Jesuit order in 1950 and went on to acquire his master’s degrees in philosophy at Berchams College in Cebu City.
He taught high school students at the Ateneo de Manila before pursuing theological studies in West Baden in Indiana, North Aurora in Illinois and Auriesville in New York.
After his ordination in 1964, Fr. Jess went to Marquette University in Wisconsin for a master’s in communication. He also trained at the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures in New York.
His training in communication gave him the skills needed for his ministry of "broadcasting and communicating for God." He did a religious broadcast for radio station dzRH for two years and writes a regular column, God’s Word, for The Philippine STAR.
He has been able to achieve much in his advocacies "because my superiors allowed me to do full time work in the Marriage Encounter and Ephpheta and freeing me from other assignments... I have become a member of each family I worked with... but belonging to none," he says.
Fernandez acknowledges that there is much work yet to be done in God’s vineyard: "The Filipino family is confronted by problems of poverty, hunger and injustice. Eighty percent of Filipino households are wracked by food insecurity. Civil Society seems indifferent to a corrupt and grossly ineffective and inefficient government run by corrupt officials and politicians."
As a teacher, Fernadez expresses dismay over the fact that "the quality of education keeps declining. Ninety-eight percent of (students) tested in high school do not reach the passing mark."
These problems that plague the people, he says, is where the Church and its leadership must focus.
"The Church must provide leadership and guidance," he adds, so that leaders will serve as "good examples of strong political will, a direct, grassroots-level action to reach out, to discipline and an honest system of government.
"We need strong, honest and benevolent leaders from the government, the private sector and the Church. We need re-education of our values to instill legitimate and good values in our young. We need to adopt a work ethic to keep pace with the world. Give them jobs. Improve family welfare by creating more equitable educational and professional opportunities. Encourage community foundations to finance projects for the poor, such as livelihood and housing."
He does not spare the Catholic Church or her clergy, either: "We need a Church that is more relevant and responding to the needs of the times. While intensifying spiritual renewal programs, the Church must do more than that if it aims to establish a just and humane society."
I guess, at my age, there are a lot of reasons to give thanks," Fr. Jess says, his tone one of reflection. "Not only for happy moments, but especially for people lovable and unlovable, for moments of tension, of failure, of disappointment. I realize more and more that these are all part of me, that this has molded me into what I am–not that I’m complete already–God is not yet through with me."
Fernandez’s acceptance of God’s will, at a time when society increasingly seeks control over its destiny, may seem inappropriate or quaint, but he adds that: "Now is a time, as good as any, that we must keep our faith, that we must believe that God will provide for our needs, because He does."
He lives by his beliefs, saying that "God has made a covenant with me. He chose me to be a priest. He chose me to be a Jesuit. He chose me to work with the blind. He chose me to work with families. And He has proven to me that He can be extra-generous with His grace."
Fernandez shares with STARweek the pact he made with God about his apostolates: "You take care of my blind, I take care of your families."