EDITORIAL – The teenage saint

PEDRO CALUNGSOD, the second Filipino to be canonized, the first being St. Lorenzo Ruiz, met his martyrdom when he was just a minor.
St. Pedro Calungsod, said to be from Cebu, was a teen missionary, who was killed by pagan natives of Guam and thrown to the sea along with a Jesuit priest, Fr. Diego Luis de San Vitores, on April 2, 1672. Not quite one of the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) that we know them today, San Pedro Calungsod was a teenage lay Catholic who served the Jesuit missionary in that foreign land as catechist and helper and was probably the youngest martyr of the Catholic faith at the time of his killing in 1672.
On that fateful day, Calungsod was with San Vitores at a village in Guam baptizing natives, when two incensed villagers hacked them to death. The young catechist tried to prevent the assailants from harming Fr. Diego, but was killed instead. The priest was in turn killed like him.
Not a few Filipinos are saying that San Pedro Calungsod would be a good role model for the young in our country. There is no gainsaying the fact that we have a surfeit of wayward teens who are leading a life of immorality and crime due to various factors which were not there during his short life.
Indeed, the supreme heroism of San Pedro Calungsod is worthy of emulation by those of his countrymen who have embraced the faith. But the young Pedro Calungsod, being pure of heart and possessed of dauntless courage, perhaps it would be too much to ask, nay, even expect our present day youth to aspire for, much less attain his greatness.
The world has changed so much from the young Calungsod’s time in terms of circumstances that were extant then and those that mark our 21st century, that only another miracle of faith could produce a third Filipino saint.
But who knows? Miracles do happen. And when that time comes, you and I won’t be around to savor the same feeling and inspiration he has bequeathed to our generation.