THE COMMUNITY OF SAINT DOMINIC’S PRIORY WISHES ALL OUR BROTHERS

GOOD BYE FR. LUCIO – WITH THANKS

On December 21, 2013, Fr. Lucio Gutiérrez was taken by the Lord from this life. He was seventy five years old (1938-2013), including his fifty years as a Dominican priest, which were spent for the Kingdom almost exclusively in Manila except nearly one year in Macau.

Fr. Lucio was born in Caleruega, Spain, on October 25, 1938. By the way, Caleruega is the birthplace of St. Dominic of Guzman, the founder and father of the Order of Preachers (OP) or Dominicans. He was ordained a Dominican Priest on June 30, 1963 in Valladolid, Spain. Besides finishing the courses in philosophy in Spain (Avila and Madrid) and of theology in England (Oxford), he pursued postgraduate studies at the Gregorian University (Rome), where he obtained his licentiate and doctorate in Church History.

Through his life, Fr. Lucio was a great teacher of Church History and preacher of the Word. He spent the greatest part of his Dominican life at the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, where he held various administrative positions, including Dean of the Faculty of Theology, Editor of Philippiniana Sacra and Regent of different colleges. He authored many books on history of the Philippine Church and had an incredible memory. Fr. Lucio taught Church History at the Faculty of Christian Studies of the University of Saint Joseph Macau, the academic year 2009-2010, where he came to be the Master of Students at our Priory in Macau. As requested, he continued teaching Church History at the University of Santo Tomas, Manila for the school years 2009-2010 and 2010-2011.

He was a good teacher, particularly of Church History. His students loved him. In November-December, 2009, he taught at UST Faculty of Theology. His first year students for the Bachelor’s degree in theology put together his written notes and bound them. They wrote on first page: “’Every good deed and charitable deed lasts forever.’ For the good and charitable deeds you have done to us Father, rest assured, they will remain in our hearts and you will be always in our prayers.” His Manila students called him “the smiling priest,” and “the dancing priest.”

When he came back from Manila in August 2010, he appeared very tired. We began to doubt his health. He had a persistent problem with apnea. I asked him: “Lucio, have a checkup.” He answered me: “No need. I am a servant of the Lord; He will take care of me.” He did have a checkup the result of which was not good. Still in Macau, on September 10, 2010, he told a friend: “I feel lost in the forest.” A few days after, he began to lose his mind and memory. He was taken to the UST Hospital, Manila on September 17, 2010, where he was hospitalized for three months. Little by little he became worse: the mental moments of lucidity began to decrease until he lost completely his mind and became semi-conscious or semi-comatose. The last day he recognized me was September 27, 2010, when he greeted me, “Hola Fausto,” and said good bye with the words “adios Fausto.” The doctors did not know what he really had: at first, they suspected a stroke, and afterwards: cerebral viral infection, encephalitis, herpes simplex, heart attacks… Nothing totally sure! After some days in the UST Hospital, Fr. Lucio was intubated: ventilator and nasogastric tube. On December 14, 2010, he was transferred to the Saint Martin de Porres Hospital in San Juan, Metro Manila, where he was bedridden for three years.  This hospital of the Dominican Lay Fraternities had all the facilities Fr. Lucio needed and was a few meters away from our Convent of the Holy Cross there. Our brothers took excellent care of him until the good Lord took him to his Kingdom on December 21, 2013; just four years after his Macau journey properly began.

On his first monthly lecture as Master of Students (December 16, 2010), Fr. Lucio tells them: “I am your Master, but I have not come here to command you, nor to keep vigil over you, nor to be with you all the time, but to walk with you, to journey with you. At most I am here to facilitate your full development as Dominicans, to allow you your free space, your freedom to act responsibly, to make decisions of your own.” He was fascinated by Jesus, his first love. In a lecture to the students he says: “Preaching, teaching, the apostolate… if not in communion with Jesus, we are walking in the wilderness. Whom do we preach? We preach Jesus and only Jesus – with love and joy and zest!” He was in love with Dominic whom he knew very well and also with our missionaries in Asia.

Besides being a great teacher and writer, Fr. Lucio was above all, a man of God – prayerful and compassionate. He was a prayerful priest and Dominican. He recited the complete Divine Office every day, celebrated Mass daily, prayed the five mysteries of the Rosary of Mary at least once a day, went for his individual confession frequently (after receiving absolution, he always states in his agenda the date and time and commented: “I was reconciled; Lord, thank you,” or “Señor, gracias”), read the whole Bible once a year (some chapters every day), and celebrated at least one Mass in a parish every Sunday and day of obligation. He could not say no to invitations to say one more Mass to the point that some Sundays he celebrated five Masses. We told him: “Lucio, that is too much!” He just laughed and continued doing it.

People in Manila remember Fr. Lucio for two special traits: his love for the sick and his concern for the poor. He was the infirmarian of the Saint Thomas Aquinas Priory, where the Dominican brothers ministering in the University of Santo Tomas reside. When a brother or priest was sick, he visited them every day. He extended this custom to many other patients in the hospital. Always a preacher, he could not escape any occasion to preach. Once, a brother Dominican priest was at the end of his earthly life, and conscious. So Fr. Lucio sat on his hospital bed and began to preach to him about Christ, the Cross and the Resurrection. When he had finished, the father looked at him smiling and said: “How well you have learned the lesson!”

He was a friend of many poor families and persons, including lepers, street children and old people living in the Metro Manila area. Even after being semi-comatose in the hospitals, people came to ask him for their monthly allowance from Fr. Lucio. He helped a family of lepers to build a house. In his agenda, he put the amount spent in cement, bricks, wood… Lovely! Where did he get the money? Mainly he got it, with the permission of the superiors, from donations and his extra work in parishes, his royalties from the publication of books, and the allowed individual Mass intentions.

He was a great long-distance walker. He knew well all the streets of Manila (and the name of thousand towns in the Philippines). He also knew Macau well: it took him three hours to walk around the whole Macau. Even while walking (in Manila), he tried to be helpful, at times with danger to his life. Once he saw two men fighting in a street in Manila. He approached them and tried to separate them, but both resented his help and became very angry at him – even threatening to punch him!

Fr. Lucio was a joyful friar. He loved to tell, and re-tell stories and jokes. One close friend told him at times:  “Lucio, again? Never mind, say it again” and Lucio consented joyfully and narrated the repeated story once more – as if it were the first time.

I am not trying to make Fr. Lucio a saint. He would not like that, I am sure. I am just a close friend who knows him a little and owes him much gratitude for his generosity, for being there when the going was a bit rough. After knowing that Fr. Lucio had passed away, a common friend told me: “This will be the first Christmas of Fr. Lucio in heaven.” I do think so. He was a good man of God, a joyful friar, a dedicated Dominican, a friend of the sick and the poor , He would tell me, for sure, “ That is not true, Fausto,” and add, “I am a great sinner!”

When St. Clare was dying she says: “Thank you, Lord, for creating me.” Thank you, Lord, many, many thanks for creating Fr. Lucio and giving him the Dominican and missionary vocation! Lucio hermano, may you rest in God’s peace! Requiescat in pace!

Fausto Gomez, OP

St. Dominic’s Priory

Macau, December 27, 2013.

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS TO ALL FROM MACAU

Dear Brothers,

It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the most profound unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. God became man. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as the truth of the incarnation.

May the Lord Jesus make all your dreams, aspirations and wishes come true and may his blessing be with you forever.

Community of Saint Dominic’s Priory

A BLESSED CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

In a few days we shall be celebrating joyfully the Nativity of Jesus. Until that day, we all have different programs and parties. Members of our Priory will attend and participate in different Christmas gatherings. On December 18, our community joins the religious men in Macau for a fraternal party at the Jesuits’ Retreat House in Coloane. On December 19, we shall celebrate Christmas at noontime with Mass, agape and Christmas Carols with professors and students of the University of Saint Joseph at the St. Joseph Seminary, Macau. On the same day, we shall also join our brothers working at St. Paul School for their Mass in the morning with program, and banquet in the evening. Just before Christmas, the members of our St. Dominic’s Priory will gather together in our community room to greet Marry Christmas to our Prior and enjoy each other’s company. We shall celebrate the Nativity of Jesus at midnight Mass to be followed by a fraternal agape to be shared by all.

The staff of our web page is grateful to the many people who encourage us and those who help us in different ways. The staff is particularly grateful to Brother Lawrence The Reh, OP, who is always there to enter competently the different items, news and illustrations.

We greet our dear readers and friends of this modest page wishing you all A BLESSED CHRISTMAS. We read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Only when Jesus is formed in us will the Mystery of Christmas be fulfilled in us” (CCC 526).

May Jesus continue to grow in our hearts and families and communities! And may those around us notice it by the way we treat them with kindness and compassion.

May Our Lady, the Mother of Jesus and our Mother bless us!

(dominicansmacau.org staff)

CATHOLIC FROM MYANMAR TO BE BEATIFIED

A leading archbishop in Myanmar has hailed the upcoming beatification of the south-east Asian nation’s first native son as a sign of the Pope’ love for the Church in Myanmar, formerly Burma.

“We are delighted to know that the first Burmese Blessed will be Isidore Ngei Ko Lat. The Holy Father is close to Myanmar and this first Blessed is the sign of Pope Francis and the Holy See’s love and attention,” said Archbishop Charles Bo of Yangon.

His remarks came soon after Pope Francis on Monday authorized a decree recognizing the martyrdom of Italian priest Fr. Mario Vergara of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME ) and Isidore Ngei Ko Lat, a lay catechist, martyred in Shadaw (Myanmar) May 24, 1950.

The recognition of their martyrdom was among 12 decrees, including a miracle and 10 heroic virtues, that Pope Francis authorized. The other upcoming beatification is of 19^th century Italian nun, Giovannina Franks, through whose intercession a miracle has been recognized.

Speaking to AsiaNews, Archbishop Bo described the “great joy and happiness,” of the Catholic community, caught by surprise by the long-awaited announcement. The journey began in May 2008, when the Catholic Bishops’ Conference wrote a letter to Pope Benedict XVI to “humbly ask the Pope to authorize the study of the cause.”

The beatification of Fr. Vergara and his catechist, the bishops wrote, will be a source of ” encouragement” for the whole community to live” a faith more in line ” with the Gospel and to witness to it “in a brave and heroic” way, even at the cost of dying because of hatred for the faith and giving their lives “for the Gospel.”

Archbishop Bo said the Church in Myanmar is preparing to celebrate 500 years of history and hopes for a visit by Pope Francis to the country. He said that the beatification is a first step on a long journey and “there are many others”, because they have many martyrs in Myanmar, who deserve sainthood. (From ucanews, December 11, 2013)

Source: Vatican Radio

INVITATION TO THE SOLEMN PROFESSION AND THE DIACONATE ORDINATION OF OUR TWO BROTHERS