Piece of Brother Allan's Soul: She blessed his heart and he blessed the world in return

I met a seminarian in the beautiful church of Naic tonight and he told me and my friends a very interesting story.  Let’s call him Brother Allan.

He was about thirty years old and had been in the seminary for 8 years and this was his year out into the real world for a final immersion back to its lurking evils and temptations before he finally becomes a priest.  Apparently, there is such a step that one takes so he can figure out if indeed the vocation was for him. We asked him how his calling came about. He said that he used to be a nursing student in UP-PGH so he was exposed to a lot of mothers losing their children to cancer, husbands who worry on how to pay the hospital bills for their wives who just gave birth, children who are crying over their parents who are in a coma, etc. Money was the number one issue of the people in those sad wards, money to pay for the running hospital bills and money for maintenance medication.

An old woman approached him one of those days to ask for Php20. Naturally, he asked what she needed the money for. The old woman said, “I haven’t had lunch. I have to stay and watch over my granddaughter who has cancer. If you can spare me just 20 pesos because I’m really hungry.” So, he handed her the Php20 bill so she could have her lunch. That was the time Allan finally and firmly decided that he was going to be a priest (he said he had little signs sent to him when he was in high school, but the strongest calling was this) so that he can be an instrument to move others to help people like the old woman since he himself had no enough resources to hand out lunch money for each poor soul that needed it. He was just one man after all, if he had the whole Church to back him up in making the world a better place that would be something big in his mind.

He also said that the hardest challenge was breaking his girlfriend’s heart whom he had already made plans with for marriage when they turned 25. Little did he know that one fateful Sunday mass, the priest in his parish whom he had confided his decision with, announced the secret he had not been able to speak to his girlfriend about just yet. Broken-hearted and in a state of shock, she walked out of the mass, crying uncontrollably. Allan’s legs froze and he was not able to chase her with explanation at hand. She had not spoken to him for 2 weeks, avoided his calls, texts and his visits to her home. The parish priest spoke to the scorned woman and made her understand that Allan was not replacing her for another girl. He was choosing to serve God. She understood, forgave and let him go.

Allan used to be very unhappy and discontent even with all the comforts at his feet via his parents who were very supportive and were willing to send him to law school since initially he wanted to pursue med school after his nursing course. He felt depressed and incomplete. His last words before our goodbyes were this, “What I’m lying on now is not a bed of roses but I am finally happy.

There are so much men and women alike who chose, choose and will be choosing to be under God’s wing through this ‘calling’ making  the sacrifice to do without the different aspects of their lives to keep the faith alive in this world of hatred and grief. I greatly admire them for I myself cannot imagine taking all the vows that they do and living by each one. I used to think it was so easy for people like them. Now, I look at them with a totally different level of respect. Thank you Brother Allan for unselfishly sharing your lovely story and I salute you for wanting to be one of the few who decided that their one and only agenda in life is to be ambassadors of God’s amazing love.