Abiding Gaze

Chiara wasn't feeling well these past few days and this may be due to the side effects of her most recent vaccine.  Gone were the days when she was a little baby that her Mom could hold and won't move but just cry when pricked by the injection. She's now more sensible - by the time she sat on her Mom's lap and I hold on her thigh, she started to say "No!"
Early this morning, she woke up crying, looking for her Mom (who was on night duty).  I have to cuddle her so she could go back to sleep.  For some reason, I couldn't sleep even when she was already snoring!  I suddenly recalled what my own mother once told me. When I was still a little boy and was ill, my late aunt Rosalina 'Mommy Rosie' Samaniego looked after me.  What touched my heart was that, according to my Mom, Mommy Rosie didn't sleep the whole time she was there for me! How she managed that is something I couldn't make sense of the first time I heard of it.  Incidentally, today is her 14th Death Anniversary.

Mommy Rosie's sterling dedication, not only in that incident, but in the many other incidents that perhaps I must have written in previous articles, reminded me of two great men called to look after the community of Jesus' believers, the Church: the Apostles Peter and Paul whose feastday is also celebrated today.

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter led the Church as its first pope while Paul was its ambassador spreading the Good News through the many countries he travelled to. Their formidable tandem has been instrumental in the life of the early Church and even in our present times. They were human beings with their own frailties, but because they put their trust in God they faithfully carried out their roles till the end.

In at least two churches I've seen in the Philippines (one in the parish church of Kawit, Cavite and another in Sta Cruz, Manila), the statues of Saints Peter and Paul stand on each side of the church's patron as though they were its honour guards or trustworthy companions.  (I once dreamed of having their statues put on each side of St Joseph's statue in the main altar of Gagalangin.  Imagine the two princes of the Church flanking the patron of the Universal Church!)

Mommy Rosie has kept a watchful eye on her family to the point of forgetting herself.  She was always there for us, a help close at hand.  She didn't rely on her own efforts, but more so on the grace of the Lord that she has served faithfully.  I'm pretty much sure we could count on her abiding gaze now that she is enjoying the bliss called heaven.