The Gift of "50 Years"

This Monday (December 6, 2009) was one of the very significant days of the month because on this day we celebrated the golden jubilee of Fr. Allen's profession. The day began with a joint community recollection. The theme for reflection was very fitting indeed; PERSEVERENCE. So in the morning we spent time together reflecting and sharing our past experiences in life as a redemptorist and why we are still here continuing in this religious life. We ended the recollection in the afternoon at 4 pm with a community mass presided by Fr. Allen.

To make the day even more special, team of the month planned a common celebration on this very same day (usually, a common celebration is on the last Sunday of each month.) That is why that evening we had dinner in the garden and we gave special recognition to Bro. Eugene, the birthday celebrant of the month of December as well. Aside from the members of the community, there were also some of the close friends of Fr. Allen whom he personally invited.

One thing I noticed was that most of the songs played during that evening were something I have never heard before (which means that they went back more than 28 years ago.) Perhaps these songs were meant to help Fr. Allen recall the good old memories of his past 50 years of his profession. Fr. Picx read for us his poem that he composed for Fr. Allen in this graceful occasion as well (although somebody said to me that this poem was the one he used for his own 25th anniversary and he just changed the number 25 to 50!)

In the end Fr. Allen gave a closing remark expressing his thankfulness to God for the gift of life and the gift of vocation, to all the guests who came, to the community for the support, and to those prepared for this evening. Then the big, blue cake was brought in for Fr. Allen to make his wish. I didn't know what he asked for but I knew that my wish was fulfilled; I didn't have to wash all the dishes after that because everything was taken cared of by the food catering. ^ ^

(Boy)