Whatever impressions there may be about the well-heeled being among the most indifferent and unresponsive to counsel delivered by the clergy was dispelled during the prestigious Rotary Club of Manila’s meeting at the Turf Room of the Manila Polo Club in Makati on 21 March 2024.
For its last weekly gathering before the Holy Week, RC Manila had Society of the Divine Word missionary, Fr. Jerry Orbos whose natural gift as an inspirational speaker was apparent during his talk before Club members.
For nearly an hour, the audience alternated between laughter and intent listening as Orbos dished out wisecracks, made people face and tell each other, “Hope to see you in Heaven, but not anytime soon,” and reminded them to prioritize the heart, over and above the intellect.
“Many here are well-accomplished professionals,” Fr. Orbos said. “But let me tell you about these two professional killers hired to shoot somebody at 9 p.m. The set time came and went and their target was nowhere to be found. Said professional killer A: he’s not here yet; killer B said, yes, I’m getting worried; I hope nothing bad happened to him. There you are — professional but still personal, and that’s my wish for all of us: that’s we’re not just all heads, that we, too have hearts.”
Sacred Heart not sacred brain
He continued, “We may be proud of our intelligence and what it has given us, but do not belittle the heart. Ultimately, the only thing that matters is the heart. Our God is supreme intelligence. But He chose to be called the Sacred Heart. Not the sacred brain. Take a cue from that.”
Fr. Orbos spoke candidly about money. “Don’t identify yourself with money, you’re bigger than your money. It can be used for your salvation, or your condemnation,” he told members of the affluent Club.
“Ok, so you have this much, but let me ask, is it good money? Or dirty money? Was somebody hurt in getting this money? How much of it did you share? Those of us privileged to have so much should also be privileged to give much. If God raises our standard of living, we must also raise our standard of giving,” he added.
The RC Manila guest speaker also shared two miracles he witnessed in his life. One of these was the Eucharistic phenomenon that involved Korean visionary Julia Kim which he witnessed when he accompanied 33 Filipino pilgrims to South Korean in 1991.
On 16 May 1991, the group heard Mass officiated by Fr. Orbos in the church in Naju, Korea, the very same church where Kim had her first Eucharistic miracle on the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1988 after receiving Holy Communion from a Korean priest. Kim was present in that Mass said by Fr. Orbos. The latter had finished giving ears Communion to the churchgoers, including Kim, and was cleaning the chalice when Rufino Park, the man who had gifted Kim the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary that sheds tears and blood, approached Fr. Orbos to tell him that something was happening to Kim.
Fr. Orbos went to Kim who was kneeling down, trembling and crying.
“Remember she had just received Communion. I approached her and as I called her name, she opened her mouth and I saw the Host! Whitish, but very red, like newly cut flesh. All I could do at that point was say, “Oh Lord, if this is what is, thank you very much for the sign. I prayed over Kim for discernment. I also prayed, “Lord, forgive me, forgive us for the many times we took you for granted in Communion.”
A vision
The Filipino pilgrims with Fr. Orbos also saw what he saw in Kim’s mouth. He knelt down before the tabernacle and later Kim related to him that at Mass, during the consecration, she had a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary spreading her mantle around Fr. Orbos and the Fr. Ernie Santos (now deceased) who had kidney trouble. The pilgrimage rejuvenated Fr. Santos and he went back to his mission work in East Timor.
Fr. Orbos shared with Club members another story. In February of 2018, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. “Because of my cancer, I came to know of San Sebastian missionary, an Augustinian Recoletos, St. Ezequiel Moreno from Spain who spent 15 years in the Philippines. I didn’t know him, I’ve never heard about him, but after I was diagnosed with cancer, I was given a 3-foot statue of St. Ezequiel, who, I was told is invoked as the patron saint of cancer patients.”
One day, related Fr. Orbos, just before going to chemotherapy, he was seated in a rocking chair at the SVD mission house, looking at the statue of St. Ezequiel in front of him. “I looked at his image, and I saw what looked like perspiration; the next day, I saw the image perspire even more, and this time, I saw what seemed like a teardrop from the right eye. The saint was manifesting, and I knew he was telling me, ‘I will be with you.’ I prayed for strength; and in my mind, I could hear him saying, ‘focus on the humor, not the tumor.’”
“I continued with my chemotherapy, and after four months, the perspiration of the image of St. Ezequiel disappeared. I asked, ‘St. Ezequiel, do you have a message for me? I could hear him say, you are healed; help other people.’”
Cancer-free
On 15 January 2019, Fr. Orbos was declared cancer-free. It’s been five years since he’s been given a clean bill of health and there are no signs of the dreaded disease recurring.
Today, he says, “I thank God I had cancer. It’s a blessing. It cleansed me a lot, it made me humble and made me realize how beautiful life is.”
His brush with the life-threatening ailment had been a “game changer,” stressed Fr. Orbos. “it purified me not only physically but spiritually and emotionally. I have no more agenda in life but to spend the rest of my life the best of my life,” he said.
“Many of us here have come this far, and my wish for all of us is that as we come to the sunset years of our life, we will have peace: peace of mind, peace in our hearts. And the knowledge that we did our best and ours was not a life wasted.”
