Walk with the saints. This was the challenge posed by Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma to Cebuanos during the second anniversary of San Pedro Calungsod’s canonization yesterday.
Clad in red liturgical vestments, the 63-year-old prelate told a crowd of about 700 people attending the 10 a.m. Mass inside the Chapel of San Pedro Calungsod at the South Road Properties in Cebu City that life’s journey is not easy and is never a walk in the park.
“We experience many trials and problems each day,” he said in his Homily.
“But as Pope Benedict said, the saints are the best interpreters of the doctrines. And so, as we journey in life, let us walk with the saints. We must be reminded that life begins and ends in God. We gain strength from the Lord. And we know that God will never abandon us.”
Cebuano Bishop Vicente Noel and more than 70 priests concelebrated the Mass with Palma inside the chapel whose modern design features 100 walls of different heights and width.
At the right of the altar was Calungsod’s image which was brought in Rome for the canonization activities two years ago.
Palma urged the faithful to perpetuate the devotion to the first Visayan martyr.
Calungsod was between 12 and 13 years old when he left for the Marianas Islands in 1668 to join a Jesuit mission to evangelize the Chamorros.
On April 2, 1672, Calungsod and Fr. Diego de San Vitores, whom he served as lay catechist and helper, were speared and hacked to death by two angry villagers in Tumhon where the priest and Pedro were baptizing a baby.
“We don’t just keep San Pedro Calungsod within us. We need to share him to others. What we received, we ought to share,” he said.
Young people, he added, should also draw inspiration from Calungsod who offered his teenage life to God.
“Young people are the present and future of the Church, considering their number and enthusiasm. Today, we gather to thank God for having given us a young saint from the Visayas,” he said.
Palma said the Philippines, particularly the Visayas, is blessed to have been given an intercessor in heaven.
“Out of the 42 persons who were beatified on March 5, 2000, only Pedro Calungsod advanced to be declared a saint. And of the seven saints who were canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 21, 2012, only Calungsod has an image, in the form of a mosaic, inside the St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome,” he said.
After the Mass, devotees sang the hymn to Calungsod as they gathered to touch the glass case that contained the image of the Visayan martyr.
Calungsod is the country’s second saint after San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila.