My Encounter with the Universal Church

This encounter was neither planned nor deliberate, and to understand the circumstances that brought this episode, one has to read first my blog entry entitled “My Blessed Testimony,” which is conveniently posted in this blog. If you already have been through that piece, here’s how I got entangled with the most powerful church on earth.

 After my wife and kids left me to get away from the trouble that was caused by my ‘heretical’ stance in the church, I was forced to vacate the physician’s house where I reared my kids for 15 years to move to one of the rooms in the company guesthouse. This meant that I would be isolated from the rest of the ‘holy’ Adventists in the campus without the luxuries of home and the companionship of family.

 It was in this guest house where one afternoon the phone in the receiving room rang. A priest who checked in earlier and happened to be near the phone answered it and called out that it was for the doctor. After talking to my clinic staff I put down the receiver and went straight to my room, but the priest blocked my path and cordially extended his hand introducing himself and asking to be my friend. Trying not to offend him and yet avoiding a conversation, I hastily shook his hand, introduced myself and apologized that I had to go.

 I may have appeared rude that morning, but you can’t blame me for my attitude if you are aware that I was brought up in the church of my birth with the doctrine stating that the Catholic Church belongs to the “beast” and that its priests in the last days will torture and persecute the Adventists. This though was not exactly the reason why I was avoiding him, and in retrospect I could surmise that his frankness and overbearing was what turned me off.

 Later that day he was at the foyer when I came ‘home’ and this time he managed to trap me for a “short conversation,” which carried over through dinner. This time I was a bit relaxed and receptive while he maintained his pomp and poise. He said that he was ordered by his boss to take a leave for meditation and soul-searching with all expenses paid, and he chose to come to this scenic mountain retreat where it was laid-back, quiet and cool.

After a rather slow dinner I had another call from the clinic and so I invited Father Allan – as I was starting to address him with some reluctance and revulsion, to take the stroll with me to see a patient. The walk would take us some 500 meters through the whistling pines with a pale moon slowly hurdling the crest of a distant mountain range.

The conversation during our meal covered a wide range of topics, but as we started out for the clinic our talk shifted to religion, which obviously both of us were trying to hopelessly  avoid or lay off. On impulse and out of my recent rebirth, I asked, “Father Allan, do you have the Holy Spirit?” You should have seen the look of shock and surprise on his face. Just imagine a lowly protestant pressing this question on an esteemed catholic priest. Father Allan later confessed that it sent his adrenaline rushing and that he had to quickly suppress a violent reaction to avoid making a nasty scene.

After an uneasy minute of silence he recoiled from the initial shock and switched from anger mode to bewilderment after he realized that he didn’t have any experience or knowledge to venture on the unfamiliar topic. His face turned from deep crimson to a pastel pink and he silently shook his head and uttered an almost inaudible “no.”

I should have learned my lesson on politeness and diplomacy at this point, and yet I was prompted by an unseen power to push some more. Adding insult to injury was not my honest intention, it was just that I couldn’t hold back my next question – “are you telling me that you call yourself a holy man of God and yet you deny having the Holy Spirit?”

If my first question made a crack on the dam, the second one broke it leaving Father Allan high and dry. He looked at me speechless, like a toddler whose ice cream had just splattered on the floor. I let the question hang as we trudged on while he held on to my shoulder in silence. After a few dozen steps he finally broke the silence saying that he was not feeling well. He complained that the hairs on his nape were bristling and that he had goose bumps on his arms and back.

We had just got to the clinic where I unhurriedly looked over a sick kid, prescribed the medicines and then turned my attention to my new found friend who by now was less poised and less composed. He reiterated why in the world was his skin and hair misbehaving, saying that this was the first time he felt this way. I assured him that it was God who made our bodies and that he intentional placed the millions of nerve endings in strategic areas so that we sinful beings could know when he is about to seize us.

 He gave me a weird and frightened look and suggested that we hurry back to the guest house because it was getting pretty late. We retraced our steps to the inn, but before entering I asked him if he would allow me to explain to him more about the Holy Spirit directly from verses in the Bible. Maybe to appease me or the unseen one that was causing his hair to stand on end, he consented while offering his room and bible for the occasion.

 We got into his room and he produced a red leather-bound bible from the bottom of his bag. He confessed that he had this bible since time immemorial but didn’t dare open it or read from it and that he just brought it along as a fetish. With the bible in hand he sat beside me on his bed looking eagerly at me for instructions on how to navigate through this strange book.

 I started explaining about the Trinity while he gave occasional nods showing his approval. Then I got to the specifics of the Holy Spirit and its function as portrayed in prophecies in the Old Testament. To connect my talk to the bible I asked him to open to the book of Jeremiah. He split open the bible randomly and, presto, there was Jeremiah. Father Allan gave me a look of surprise and proceeded in reading the verse. After that it he closed the bible and I continued my explanation.

 The next verse that I wanted him to read was in Joel. He flips open the bible and again… voila! it is the book of Joel instantly. By this time I was fully convinced that God was seated in our midst and I was rejoicing inwardly. Father Allan gives me a look of bewilderment and stammers while trying to explain that it was impossible for the same thing to happen again. At this point I could notice some fine tremors on his hands as he held the bible. There were also some tiny beads of sweat forming on his forehead, and I ventured forth a question, which proved to be the last one for the evening.

 “Father Allan, do you want God to give you his spirit?” Our eyes locked on for a moment and he drew a deep breath and nodded a convincing yes. He then went on to explain that all his life he had a void in his heart and that joining the priesthood only increased that emptiness, contrary to his expectations. He confessed that his purpose to come for prayer and meditation was partly in search for God and the elusive assurance of salvation. He knew that God was up there, but was short of knowing how to get God’s spirit into his pining heart.

 After his explanation I asked him to open the final verses – Ephesians 1:13&14. I told him that these verses had the clear instructions on how to acquire the Holy Spirit while it too held the promise that God would give his spirit to anyone who believed. Father Allan gingerly opens his bible and smiles when the book of Ephesians is right before his eyes. He goes on to read the verses once, twice, three times, and all of a sudden he stands up shouting – “I found it! I found it! It’s here! It’s here!”

 Then he started jumping up and down with his hands flailing in the air. He grabs me and gives me a big and tight hug and exclaims – “I have the Holy Spirit!” His tears were flowing freely this time and he was panting like an excited mutt. I was crying too and was almost afraid that the overweight priest would pop an artery anytime. Here was a dignified Catholic priest behaving like an excited, spirit-filled Pentecostal Christian. I embraced him and excused myself as it was way past midnight and flopped down on my bed for the sweetest sleep in many nights alone in my room. In the other end of the guesthouse Father Allan continued his blessed encounter with his new found spirit and didn’t care about missing one full night of sleep.

 What do you expect when a catholic priest who has served for many years in the church that claims to be God’s authentic representative on earth, suddenly decides to open the bible for serious study for the first time and shockingly understands what it has to say about the salvation of man? This was now the predicament of my robust friend. He found it hard to reconcile the bible truths with his upbringing in the doctrines of the church.

The days that followed his baptism in the Holy Spirit saw Fr. Allan swinging from the bible truths in the tip of the spectrum to the doctrines of the church on the other opposite end like a dizzying pendulum. The personal inward struggle was manifested by hours on his knees and hands beating his chest coupled with muffled moans as if in deep pain while trying to come to terms with the reality of God’s word. This pain was magnified by the thought of losing his position, friends and love ones if ever he would have to submit to the bible.

He needed someone beside him through those trying days and I knew that God wanted me to be available for him. He decided to prolong his stay indefinitely in spite of the frequent phone calls from some colleagues who were concerned about his delayed return. Anyone could imagine the hundreds of questions that came to his mind and God graciously supplied the answers through the bible. His enlightenment was at an incredible pace and yet it paled in comparison to the magnitude of his hunger for the truth.

God did not hold back wisdom for his predicament for long and in the fourth day he finally  came to terms with his future. He decided that he would continue in the church as an agent of the truth until God wanted him out or dead. To celebrate this decision we decided to hold holy mass on the fourth night at the guest house living room with his only audience – me. It was done when the other guests were either dreaming or fighting off insomnia, and he could do it undisturbed.

I have witnessed holy mass many times as a student under the Jesuits at the university, but this one would be very special because I wouldn’t understand a single word of it. Latin has a strange and eerie way of creeping into the subconscious and making the imaginations run wild, and that night was no exception. I sat entranced as he went through the motions of the whole set of incantations, and all the while crying like it was his last mass alive. He confessed latter that night that peace finally settled on him like he had never experienced before. He could feel God’s soothing arms around him and there was that inimitable assurance that only the Holy Spirit could give.

The fifth day dawned and it was time to say goodbye. Fr. Allan looked fresh, energetic and vibrant as he boarded the bus for Cagayan de Oro City and I breathed a prayer for his safety and deliverance. I didn’t have to wait the whole morning to get a call from him, but what he said from his mobile phone shocked me. He said in a weak unsteady voice that he just woke up, and then he went on to describe the quiet and queer smelling room that he was in and the busy people in white scurrying around him like a swarm of bees. He complained that a needle was stuck in his arm, a breathing tube in his nose, and that he just overheard a nurse in hushed tones say, “200 over 120.” His words were abruptly cut short and my attempts to get him back on the phone proved futile.

Later that day my phone rang again and this time a calm and more composed Fr. Allan was on the line. He said that he was now in the ICU of a bigger hospital in Cagayan de Oro City with two demure nuns keeping a watchful eye on him and quick to get anything that he wanted. He also said that at about 9 pm he was going to be airlifted to Cebu City so that he could be under the supervision of the catholic medical specialists there. I am well aware of the daily flights out of the Cagayan de Oro airport and for him to claim that he would depart from that airport at 9 pm for Cebu city was not within the existing schedule of the airlines serving this hub. This meant that he was going to be taken out by private plane.

At 8 pm he called again and our short chat was punctuated by a siren’s piercing wail as the ambulance sped towards the airport. At this point a shroud of mystery started to cover my new found friend and my mind went asking as to the true identity of this guy. How could he afford a chartered plane? Why so much attention from the local diocese in Cagayan de Oro and the close watch of the doting nuns? I didn't get the answer until after three long days and numerous failed attempts to contact him.

In the short span of time that we were under one roof, Fr. Allan gave me a little peep into his identity – not gender. He sported a silver wedding band, I asked about it and he said that he was married but that he was not always with his wife. I have been hearing a lot about married Catholic priests in the recent years so this one did not surprise me at all. I asked him about his calling and present assignment and he revealed that he was not under any mission, office or Catholic officer in the Philippines – not even the Cardinal. At more than one instance I heard him talking over the phone. He was addressing someone as “Monsignor,” as he argued that he had some urgent business to attend to, hence his delay.

Before he left on that fateful day, Fr. Allan asked me for a copy of the manuscripts of my thesis on salvation and the Holy Spirit. He said that he wanted to share them with the Catholic big brains in the university. He also told me to prepare for an unscheduled, all expense paid trip to a remote beach house in some hideout where about 5 priests would meet in secret to hear me expound on the Holy Spirit. Before he boarded the bus I reminded him to text me his email address, and in a short while I received it and it stated, inquisitor___@___.com. These facts plus the twist of the events that day made me ponder on a scenario that was akin to some scenes in the movie – “The Da Vince Code.”

Anyone who knows Catholic Church history is acquainted with the infamous Papal inquisition of the 12^th century and the hundreds if not thousands of ‘heretics’ or enemies of the church tortured and burned at the stake. I did some research and noted that this notorious Inquisition of the Catholic Church still exists today under the title, “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.” 

With this in mind I imagined a zealous Catholic inquisitor with one foot in the church and the other firmly planted on the truths of the bible – now battling for his life. It also dawned on me that his trip to the Seventh-day Adventist mountain enclave had other sinister motives aside from the alibi that he stated.

After our last chat on the phone whilst on his way to the airport, I made it a point everyday to send him some verses from the bible and to cheer him up through SMS. I wasn’t aware of his condition, but I noted that his mobile phone was working perfectly well by its ring every time I dialed his number. My calls were left unanswered until the third day when an irritated female voice demanded that I stop bothering Fr. Allan who was still in the ICU. She angrily asked who I was and why I didn’t show respect to the priest in the way I sent my messages. I explained that I was a physician who recently befriended Fr. Alan and inquired who she was. She replied that she was mother superior so-and-so and that she was supervising the treatment of my friend. She assured me that he was getting better but at the moment he was not allowed to use the phone.

I finally got to talk to my friend after a week and he settled the questions in my mind when he said that he reported only to Pope Benedict XVI who was the chief of the Inquisition before he was elected Pope. He said with this recent shift in his beliefs he was certain that the devil wanted him dead and that the recent medical emergency made him realize that his life would be marked by peril and danger after his decision to follow the bible. Some weeks later I got a congratulatory message from the priests at the University of San Carlos saying that they were pleased with my dissertation on salvation and the Holy Spirit, and that it contained nothing blasphemous.

That was the last that I would hear from my friend and my efforts to get to him by phone and email were unsuccessful. After 2 years he suddenly pops up in my website wishing me the best on my birthday. He tells me that he is well and that all the time he has been living in the heart of the Vatican, and that he now has a doctorate degree and is arrayed in a scarlet purple robe.  He also assures me that the Holy Spirit has not left him and that he has blessed his other colleagues through the bible.

I admit that it was I who gained the most from this encounter with the Catholic Church, and I praise God for allowing me this grand opportunity as a conduit of the Holy Spirit. I am quite certain that Fr. Alan has many thrilling experiences to relate about his life in the heart of the Vatican and how he may have allowed the Holy Spirit to work through him. I’ll make sure that we share the same roof again when we get to celestial hill.