Jose Rizal, Philippine Hero as a Returning Roman Catholic

MANILA: In 1996, I started earnest research on Jose Rizal, buying books from the National Historical Institute (now the National Historical Commission), because I was going to write a book to enter the national PhP 1 million contest commemorating the 100th anniversary of the death of the national hero. I miscalculated and didn't even get to finish a complete rough draft. I was already then using the desktop personal computer for writing my drafts, which meant 2 things: one, I had not mastered the science of the desktop PC word processing app (via Microsoft Word 1997) and, two, I had not mastered the art of creative writing (via Edward de Bono's lateral thinking). Today, I'm using Word 2013, a laptop (Lenovo Flex 2 Multitouch), and starting Christmas Day I've been trying to write a chapter a day for another book (this is Chapter 7, which means I'm down by 2 chapters as per my target – not bad, 7 in 9.

While studying medicine in Spain and in his educational tour of Europe, Rizal drifted out of Roman Catholicism into the Protestant religious ethic. His historical novel Noli Me Tangere ignited the Philippine revolution of 1896 that became the downfall of the hero as well as the downfall of the Spanish hegemony in the islands. His Noli was a satire on the follies and foibles of the friars and at the same time the Filipino faithful – it was too strong it struck the Catholic Church that he was warned he was going to lose his head, which he did.

Nevertheless, ardently reading those Rizal materials, I learned so many things new about our hero and, among other things, I was able to publish a book of 187 pages of a total 108,500 words in December 2005: indios bravos! with the subtitle Jose Rizal as Messiah of the Redemption. I was also able to translate the hero's valedictory poem of 14 stanzas from Spanish to English, from Adios, Patria Adorada to Adios, Beloved Country, on 31 August 2006, and blogged it the next day (see my "Adios, Beloved Country," A Magazine Called Love, blogspot.com). I'm reproducing my translation here in full today, with a little revision for rhyme (in the 2nd to the last line, from "my boon companion, my joy" to "my boon companion, my bliss"), with my annotations and my new claim that this poem shows the author was a returning Roman Catholic in words if not in deeds.

A patriot, he wanted to give his life for his country, and he did. The Spanish conquistadores made sure that he did, on 30 December 1896, at the Luneta in Manila. It was for the good of his country.

Adios, beloved country, EarthLove of the Sun,
Pearl of the Sea Orient, our Eden made bad!
Glad am I to give my life shrunk and forsaken;
And were it more radiant, more fresh, more floral then,
Would for you give I still, still I give for your good.

How does it matter how one dies if it is for one's beloved country?

In the fields of battle, struggling with delirium,
Others give their lives, without doubts, without regret;
Site matters not; cypress, laurel or lily bloom,
Gallows or open field, fight or cruel martyrdom
Notwithstanding, if but hearth and country request.

He was willing to give up his life so that his blood would be poured and highlight and be highlighted by the early morning rays. He knew he was going to be shot as the morning sun came up the sky. That was a metaphor for a new dawn of freedom in his country.

I die as I see the sky flushes with color
And announces day at last, after a dark night;
When a scarlet you need to tinge its aurora,
Spill my blood and pour at such beneficial hour,
And so gild a reflection of the nascent light.

He wished that the Filipino youth would someday, like him when he was a student at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, which was run by the Jesuits, and behaved well towards his studies as he did towards the Virgin Mary, hold their head high not in egoism but in racial pride.

My dreams when I was just a boy adolescent,
My dreams when in youth I had vigor in fullness,
Were to watch you one day, Gem of the Sea Orient,
With those dark eyes now light, head now held eminent,
Sans frown, sans furrows, sans smudges of shamefulness.

He was thinking that when his body would fall to the ground, the Filipino would rise to the sky, emboldened, enraptured.

Dream of my life, my ardent living fantasy:
Salute! Cries out the soul presently to depart!
Salute! Ah, how lovely to fall so you may fly,
To die so you may live, to die beneath your sky,
And sleep eternally in your enchanted earth.

He believed in life after death.

Should one day you see over my sepulcher burst,
Amidst the thick grass a single humble flower,
Bring but near your lips and you shall kiss my spirit;
And I on my face shall feel down in the cold crypt,
In your tenderness a touch, in your breath ardor.

He was singing of peace.

Let the moon strew over me its light calm and suave;
Let the dawn spread over me its resplendent rays,
Let the wind expel over me its murmur grave;
And if on my cross a bird descends with resolve,
Let that bird there intone its canticle of peace.

And then he intimated that he had returned to his original Roman Catholic faith in these lines, the 8th stanza:

Let the passionate sun the rains evaporate
And give back to the sky pure with my last cry heard;
Let a friend weep over my inopportune death,
And in serene evenings, a prayer for me state;
Pray too, oh country, I may be at peace with God!

"Let a friend weep …" His best friend was Austrian-Hungarian German-speaking Ferdinand Blumentritt, a diehard Roman Catholic. "And in serene evenings, a prayer for me state" must refer to the Angelus, the Catholic prayer at six in the evening, a prayer to God through Mother Mary (he had been a Marian):

"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

He was asking also for other prayers:

Pray for all of those who perish without gladness,
For all those who suffer torments without equal;
For our hapless mothers who wail in bitterness,
For orphans and widows, for captives in distress,
And pray for you to see your redemption final.

Incarnated, he would be singing as the wind:

And when the dark evening shrouds the cemetery,
And the dead alone in vigil lone keep watching,
Disturb not the repose, disturb not the mystery;
Perceive a note of zither or psalter you may:
‘Tis I, cherished country, ‘tis to you am singing.

Dust thou art, and to dust you shall return.

And when where I fall by all is recalled no more,
Neither cross standing nor stone indicating place,
Let man by plow work on it and by spade scatter,
And before my ashes to nothing they return,
Turn powder on your floor to carpet your surface.

In fact, he shall be variously note, aroma, light, colors, murmur, melody, moan, constantly repeating the essence of his faith. And what faith is that? Faith in God, faith in his fellowmen, faith in his country, faith in the Catholic Church.

Then it matters not I am pushed to oblivion:
I shall cross your valleys, your atmosphere, your space;
Vibrant and clear note shall be for you to listen,
Aroma, light, colors, murmur, melody, moan,
Constantly repeating the essence of my faith.

He is going to be free of being oppressed:

My country idolized, despair of my despairs,
Dearest Filipinas, hear now my last adios.
I bequeath all to you: my elders, my amours;
I go where are no slaves, hangmen nor oppressors,
Where faith does not kill, where God is the Lord of hosts.

This is his final goodbye:

Adios, parents and kindred, fragments of my soul,
Friends from my childhood then, all in that damaged house;
Give thanks I lay me down from the weary day’s toil;
Adios, sweet stranger, my boon companion, my bliss;
Adios, loved ones all. To die is to repose. @