Liezel and Felmer Ponsaran, a married couple from Sigma, Capiz, share an experience about establishing relationships and building unity with the different groups within their parish. Here they speak about how they lived the spirit of communion in their parish.

 Liezel: “The Focolare community in Sigma had been encouraged and recognized by our parish priest, becoming a member of the Parish Pastoral Council in 2013. Since then, the priest allowed us to hold the meetings of children and youth as well as other big activities of our community, in the parish hall.

Felmer: Our parish priest had noticed how many children and youths had been attending our meetings. So, in a meeting of the Parish Pastoral Council (PPC), he publicly requested myself as the Focolare representative, to spearhead the launching of the first March of the Saints in the parish, and in the whole archdiocese. And he proposed doing it on October 31^st of the following year 2015. I was very happy, and replied positively, as we were glad to be of service of the parish.

Liezel: The idea of launching a March of Saints came up because the priest wanted to start educating the parishioners about the true meaning of Halloween. We all know that every October 31^st, the people are used to celebrating a Halloween party when they don scary masks or costumes, but this practice creates confusion in the minds of the young and even in adults. According to him, Halloween means “holy eve”. Originally it stood for “hallowed evening” or “holy evening” from a Scottish term for All Hallows Eve, or the evening before All Hallows Day or All Saints Day on November 1. Therefore we must observe this date as holy. Another reason was that the month of October is dedicated to the devotion to the Holy Rosary, and so, to culminate the month-long devotion, a March of the Saints was most appropriate.

Felmer: We came up with proposals for our parish priest in a subsequent Parish Pastoral Council meeting, which included the holding of workshops for the participating representative of each Basic Ecclesial Community (BEC), religious organization, movement and ministry to help them with costume preparations, employing used materials.

Liezel: At first, some organizations were not able to commit themselves because of their busy schedules, and also some relational problems among parish groups, but we persevered in the dialogue with everyone under the guidance of our parish priest. We conducted two workshop sessions with two different schedules.

Felmer: The leaders of our barangay chapels didn’t know how to prepare the costumes, this was why we proposed a workshop to guide them. It was also aimed to help the groups spend less for the costumes. We involved their officer/representative during the workshops so they would know how to facilitate the costume preparations of the saint they were to present. These workshops had a positive effect as they were a chance to build relationships among the parishioners.

Liezel: The day before the big event, the parish priest contacted us, informing us that the bishop was so happy about the scheduled activity, that he had written a pastoral letter to all, urging all the parishes in our province to do the same.

Felmer: In the preparatory phase, our parish priest even offered to help with the translation of the story of the saints in Hiligaynon and provided some logistics for the materials to be used, like bond paper, printers, and others. That was also a moment where we felt even more united with the Parish Pastoral Council members. We looked up 49 stories of the saints, translating them from English to the Sigmahanon language. We also made dubbings or taped recordings of those 49 stories with a power-point for each saint which was shown to the parishioners simultaneously with the presentation.

Liezel: Finally, on October 31, 2015, the March of the Saints was held with the youth participants dressed-up or wearing costumes to depict the saint they represented. Before the parade, Mass was celebrated by the Archbishop of Capiz, Most Rev. Jose Advincula, and attended by more than 800 parishioners. After the mass, they also joined in the march around the center of the town square in Sigma. In his homily, the archbishop congratulated the parish priest, expressing his joy about the March which was taking place simultaneously with the close of the devotion of the Holy Rosary, with BEC day and All Saints ’ Day celebration, a March that involved all groups in the parish. We were very happy about his announcement, and to our surprise, he also came over to thank us personally for the event’s success.

Felmer: During the actual March of the Saints, there was an afternoon activity that had been entrusted to the Focolare Youth and the Parish Youth Ministry. In one of the games we played, there was a Bible phrase, which according to one parish leader, sounded negative. So the blame fell on us, the main organizers, for choosing that biblical verse. This leader wanted the phrase eliminated. We later heard that it was one of our Focolare youths who had chosen the phrase.

Liezel: We felt bad and questioned this youth member as to how come such a biblical verse had been chosen without consulting us. However, since we didn’t want to lose the presence of Christ in our midst by lacking in charity towards a fellow worker, we later verified what had really happened. We learned that it was not this youth who had prepared the phrase. In order not to cause disunity with the one who had complained and with the one who had chosen that phrase, we just kept that fact to ourselves and agreed to forgive both of them.

Felmer: It was really the work of God that enabled us to work harmoniously with the different groups in the parish. After that first experience in 2015, the following the parish priest again requested us to hold the same March. We have successfully hosted the 2nd March of the Saints in the Parish in October 30, 2016. For this 2nd year, many more saints were represented, and the religious group/organizations that joined also grew in number.

Liezel: In our parish, we were able to assist a young couple who had come to us for help to facilitate their wedding. To help make it happen, since they had limited finances, we helped them pay their church solemnization fees (“arancel”), and provided the wedding gown. Some of the parish youths prepared the wedding invitations. Other parishioners provided utensils, and held a “potluck” dinner to source food. Still others helped with the entire preparation at the reception, and served as manpower on the wedding day.

Felmer: Last December 30, 2016, in communion with other groups in the parish, for an activity of the Knights of Columbus, we joined in the cleaning and painting of the interior of our parish church. It was a whole day’s activity to clean all the electric fans and paint the grills of the church. We really felt united with everyone while we worked together, and even consumed our snacks and lunch as one big family, the result of a communion of goods and the sharing of resources. Through this activity, we tried to strengthen the bonds of brotherhood among different parish groups.

Felmer and Liezel Ponsaran

Liezel and Felmer are serving actively in the parish church of St. John the Baptist in Sigma Capiz.. Liezel has been a Guidance Counselor for 6 years, and now works as a Senior High School teacher at Vicente Andaya Sr. National High School, and Felmer has been with the Civil Registrar for 3 years in the municipality of Sigma.