Posted by The WORD in other words (2009) by Fr. Anthony Salas, SVD – JPIC-IDC, Cebu City
Thursday 3rd Week of Easter
Binucayan is a small and remote SVD parish in Agusan del Sur. The road that connects the place to the center of commerce is passable only during dry season. Because of the bad condition of the road, the price of the basic commodities is higher than the regular price by about fifty to a hundred percent. And the money the farmers earn from the sale of their farm products is pitifully low. The parish priest, together with more than twenty parishioners, initiated the establishment of a farmers cooperative through a sari-sari store to respond to their needs, using their P4,800 initial capital.
In today’s first reading, the Spirit led Philip to journey with the Ethiopian eunuch. That encounter became instrumental not only to the eunuch’s understanding of the passage of the scripture that he was reading but also to his conversion. Philip’s intervention in the conversion process of the eunuch was brought about by a concrete and honest expression of his need to understand.
There are many social and economic programs either initiated by the church or the government which ended up being a waste or failure because the said programs were conceptualized without if not very little, regard to the real need of the people. The different scandals that racked our country were caused by those projects which were supposed to benefit the majority of our people but ended up making the proponents millionaires because of kickbacks.
The pastoral agents of Binucayan–the SVDs, the catechists, lay ministers, lay leaders–journeyed with the entire Christian community. They suffered difficulties at times and yet they tried to be sensitive to the presence of the Spirit in the concrete human conditions. They contributed to self-understanding and the deepening of faith of the people which brought them to make concrete steps towards integral human liberation.
Ten years after that initial intervention, the P4,800 initial capital of the coop grew more than two million in asset and capital. And more than 400 families now enjoy the benefit and services of their cooperative. This is but a little sign of hope and a glimpse of the eternal which is possible through real conversion, a change of heart, just like the Ethiopian eunuch of today’s first reading.
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