Heartfelt

24/11/2023

Sharing the final Heartfelt reflections of the late Fr. Roderick C. Salazar Jr. SVD, posted on August 19, 2023.

24/10/2023

Funeral Mass for Rev. Fr. Roderick C. Salazar Jr., SVD
October 21, 2023 at the Diocesan Shrine of Jesus the Divine Word, Christ the King Mission Seminary, Quezon City.

Video of the entire Funeral Mass:
https://youtu.be/GOvnZzJQ18I

Video clip of Fr. Marcelino E. Nicasio, SVD's homily:
https://youtu.be/L2VmVMz5uBU

Video clip of Rose Marie Clemeña's eulogy:
https://youtu.be/JN6s8O-4584

Presider:
Rev. Fr. Rogelio Nob Bag-ao, SVD
(SVD PHS Provincial Superior)

Homilist:
Rev. Fr. Marcelino E. Nicasio, SVD
(Missionary to SVD PHC Central Province)

Reading: Wis 3:1-9

Responsorial Psalm: 38-41
“Though I walk in the valley of darkness, I fear no evil, for you are with me.”

Gospel Acclamation: John 11:25-26
“I am the resurrection and the life says the lord, He who believes in me will me never die.”

Gospel: John 14:1-7

“MAY THE DARKNESS OF SIN AND THE NIGHT OF UNBELIEF VANISH BEFORE THE LIGHT OF THE WORD AND THE SPIRIT OF GRACE. AND MAY THE HEART OF JESUS LIVE IN EVERY HEART! AMEN.” (St. Arnold Janssen - 1837-1909)

Rose Marie Clemeña Ronnie Salazar Randolph Salazar Chippy Salazar Dicky Salazar Lindy Salazar Zantua Belle Beluan

19/10/2023

THE VOCATION STORY OF FR. RODERICK SALAZAR, SVD (RIP)
(This is a part of his facebook post entitled “Somewhere are Places” dated July 14, 2020)

It is 1961. Legazpi City. I am in third year high school in Liceo de Albay. Twilight time. With a friend I am at the crossroad of Sikatuna and Maria Clara streets. We are just chatting. Teenage talk. People are walking home from school and work. Suddenly it occurs to me and my friend that the only meaningful way of life for us was to become priests.

We rush to the house of our school director, Father Joseph Bates SVD. We knock and, told to enter, see him praying Vespers. We tell him we want to enter the seminary.

Probably surprised or amused or whatever, he tells us to sit down and asks what brought this about. I no longer remember how we answered. But he tells us to think about what we shared with him, finish high school first and then see where our dreams would take us.
That was in 1961.

I graduated from high school in 1963 and entered Christ the King Mission Seminary that same year.
On June 21, 1974, with 19 others, I was ordained priest. Because we consecrated ourselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in our desire to persevere, we called ourselves Heartfelt '74.

I was missioned to the University of San Carlos in Cebu City in 1975. I would spend 34 happy years there. I still belong to the Southern Province of the SVD in the Philippines. But having been felled by renal failure at the start of the year, but thankfully recovered and recovering,I am at present at Villa Cristo Rey, our retirement or recuperating home, in the compound of Christ the King Mission Seminary.

Over the years, there would be other scenes in my life. Happy ones, unhappy ones. I would not always be good. I made mistakes. If I made some people happy, i made others sad. I hurt them, disappointed them. I am sorry. Sorry then, sorry now. I pray that God will heal me and us all. As He can and always has.

On the eve of my 73rd birthday, I hear the Beatles sing "In My Life":
"There are places I remember all my life though some have changed, some forever not for better, some have gone, and some remain. All these places had their moments with lovers and friends I still can recall, some are dead and some are living, in my life I loved then all ..."

And, of course, W.H.Auden:
"Somewhere are places where we really have been, dear spaces of our deeds and faces, scenes we remember as unchanging because there we changed".

By the grace of God, I remember my places and spaces and faces.
What about you? Do you remember yours? First date, first kiss, first time to say or hear I love you? First time you felt the Presence of God, realized that God is real, that He loves you, that you are loved. The moment you said I do or I will. I will follow. I will obey. I will leave. First betrayal. Disappointment. Heartbreak. Rising up. Dreaming again. Living a new life.

Thank you, Lord, for those happy moments. The painful ones that still haunt me and keep me sad, these I surrender to You. Please heal me.
You said, 'Come to Me all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest."

So here I am, Lord. All of me.
But I also say Thank You for all that has been. And for all that will be, Yes.

19/10/2023

It is with heavy hearts that we share the news of the passing of our Immediate Past Chair of the CEM Board of Trustees, Father Roderick C. Salazar, Jr. SVD.

Father Rod's 31 years of dedicated service and leadership as a Trustee, Vice Chair, and Chair of the CEM Board of Trustees hold immeasurable value for the entire CEM Community. He was a shining exemplar of wisdom, compassion, and inspiration to many. His eloquence was unrivaled, his depth of understanding profound, and his love boundless. He will be greatly missed, but his spirit shall live on in the work we do every day.

May the Lord’s grace comfort his family, friends, fellow clergy and all those whose lives he touched.

Rest in peace, Father Rod.

17/10/2023

FORMER University of San Carlos president Fr. Roderick C. Salazar Jr., SVD, passed away on Monday, October 16, 2023, the Societas Verbi Divini (SVD)-Philippines and University of San Carlos (USC), among other organizations, announced Monday.

He was 76 years old.

“The Society of the Divine Word Philippines sadly announces the passing of Fr. Roderick Salazar Jr., SVD, today, October 16, 2023. May he rest in peace,” said the SVD-Philippines in its page.

This was also confirmed by the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) as it offered condolences to the SVD community and the family of its former chairman.

CEAP described Fr. Salazar as a “2020 CEAP Pro Deo et Patria Awardee and longest-serving CEAP president (17 years).”

The USC and the entire Carolinian community also mourned Fr. Salazar’s passing, saying he has been considered “a pillar of the institution who dedicated his life in the service of the Carolinian community, both here and abroad.”

“He is a true servant leader whose vision propelled the University to greater heights. His compassion is still warmly felt by those whose lives he has touched and changed for the better,” it said in a statement posted Monday evening, October 16.

Known to people as Fr. Rod, he served as president of the USC for four terms.

“Fr. Salazar served as the university president for two consecutive three-year terms from 1987 to 1993, and then again from 2002 to 2008. He first served in the administration of Fr. Margarito Alingasa as his vice president for Administration,” said the USC.

It added that Fr. Salazar was an “excellent communicator and is widely known for his distinct British accent. He is well-loved by alumni associations all over the world for his speeches and homilies.”

“In his four terms as president, Fr. Rod oversaw a massive building phase in Talamban Campus which includes the Robert Hoeppener Building, the SAFAD Building, the University Stadium, the Michael Richartz Conference Center, and the Ernest Hoerdemann Building. He was also responsible for USC’s first website as well as the publication of the authoritative historical account of the University, a book authored by National Artist Dr. Resil B. Mojares, Dr. Erlinda K. Alburo, and Dr. Jose Eleazar Bersales entitled University of San Carlos: A Commemorative History,” the USC said.

Fr. Salazar was also the spiritual director of the SVD Mission Lay Associates. He was born in Legazpi City in Albay on July 15, 1947. He was the third child of Dr. Rodrigo Enriquez Salazar Sr. and Salvacion Meneses Crisol. He entered Christ the King Mission Seminary and then the Divine Word Seminary in Tagaytay, where he finished his Master in Philosophy. He was ordained priest on June 21, 1974.

He was also the chairman of the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations (Cocopea), Board of Trustees of Holy Name University of Tagbilaran, St. Jude Catholic School, St. Scholastica's Academy-Cebu, Divine Word University of Tacloban, SVD Social Communication Commission-Southern Province, and Cebu Archdiocesan Commission on Education.

He was also the education chairman of the First Asian Bishops’ Conference. (LMY)

The University of San Carlos is a Catholic Educational Institution in Cebu City, Philippines. Learn more about our learning institution on our website.

16/10/2023

Wake for Fr. Roderick C. Salazar, Jr., SVD will be at the Villa Cristo Rey, Christ the King Mission Seminary (CKMS), E. Rodriguez Sr. Blvd., Quezon City, starting at 3:00 pm on Tuesday, October 17, 2023.

Funeral Mass will be at 2:00 pm on Saturday, October 21, 2023 at the Diocesan Shrine of Jesus the Divine Word, CKMS.

Interment follows at the CKMS Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be given for the upkeep of Villa Cristo Rey, the retirement home of SVD missionaries.

BDO Bank Account:
Society of the Divine Word
BDO SM San Lazaro Branch
Savings Account No.: 001570054337
Swift Code: BNORPHMM

Thank you.

16/10/2023

It is with heavy hearts that we bid farewell to our dear classmate, Fr. Roderick C. Salazar Jr, SVD. His presence brought warmth and joy to our lives, and his memory will forever remain in our hearts. In this time of grief, may we find solace in the cherished moments we shared. Rest in peace, dear friend. Pray for us.

July 15 1947 - October 16 2023

I will be sharing here a link to a compilation of all his "Heartfelt" reflections.

Mila Alvarez Magno, GS'59

St. Agnes Academy, Inc. mourns the death of Fr. Roderick C. Salazar, SVD , GS Class 1959 and Chairman of the Board of Trustees from School Year 2009-2010 to SY 2022-2023. We are forever grateful to his dedicated and loving service to his Alma Mater. SAA extends our deepest condolence to the Salazar family and the SVD community. May Fr. Rod pray for us as he rests in God's peace.

21/08/2023

KAYUMANGGI, I LOVE YOU

“BECAUSE I LOVE YOU “
the 11-year old son answered his mother
who was asking him why he volunteered
to help out in the garden today when the
day before he had only reluctantly done so.

Hearing the exchange, the father concluded:
“I had never been prouder of my son.”

Concluded. But how does the story start?

The day before, the father had called his son
to help unload soil from a truck to the garden
boxes in their yard. The son said he was
busy. But the father saw that the boy was
only playing games in the family computer.
So he prevailed on him to help out.

In the garden, though indeed shoveling soil,
the boy asked dad why they were doing this.

The father was lost for word at first.
Neither he nor his son were all into flowers or
vegetables or any of the things what would be
grown into the garden boxes.
But his wife loved gardening.

He thought while his son waited for an answer.

Finally, he said,
“WHEN YOU LOVE SOMEONE,
YOU SERVE THEM.”

And he went on, telling the son that he wanted
him to grow up to be the kind of man who
serves his family, friends, and community.

“This,” he continued while gesturing to the soil,
the garden boxes, the wheelbarrow, the shovel,
“This is what love looks like.”

The boy did not seem to like the answer.
But the next day, when he volunteered to help
and was asked by his mother why, he replied,
“BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!”

What about me, I ask myself.
If an 11-year-old boy learned the meaning of love
and service, what about this man of 70-plus years?

How do I love and serve my family, my community,
my friends, my enemies, my country?
I write this on the anniversary day of the death of
a man who had proclaimed his love for his country
and came home to serve it in whatever way he
could but was gunned down on arrival.

He loved and was ready to serve.

What about those who are supposed to serve,
who ran for government office to serve, do they love?
Love enough to serve, serve enough to love honestly,
sincerely, humbly and justly?

Our country is in the midst of hard questionings.
What to do, how to do it, and when?
If those who claimed victory and were so proclaimed
in the last national elections are shown to have won
under dubious grounds, would they be asked to leave?

By whom? Would they obey? Would they resist?
If they vacate their positions, who would take their
places legitimately? How will our country be run?
Who will set directions? Who will obey?

Difficult questions these which each thinking Filipino
needs to wrestle with personally, and the whole
nation must answer on moral, legal, constitutional
grounds. Who will guide?

We who claim to be a predominantly Christian people
or at least a religious nation, do we turn to God
for guidance and direction, ask the Holy Spirit for
inspiration and moral strength? We should.

And we should obey. This is surely not easy as we
are a nation of more than a hundred million citizens
with varied backgrounds, aspirations, and dreams.

But we are not unique in this. Every nation in the world
that claims democracy does not and cannot always
have unanimity, only consensus. So must we all be
ready for a national examination of conscience and
a majority-based decision on where to go and why.

Decades ago, Wilfredo Dayo Nolledo wrote :

“Are we a nation?
Our elections say we are. Why deny it?
Democracy being our special vanity,
we must preserve the allegory of strength,
for that, too, is nationalism.
You and I are a Filipino,
and we are the Philippines….”

“If you go to church, and I oversleep,
we have no faith.
If I go to school, and you never leave the movie house,
we have no culture.
If you plant this earth with rice, and I eat only chocolates,
we have no industry.
If I dream all night, and you do not act all day, we have no destiny.”

“Carpenters cannot build a home,
nor statesmen a nation.
You and I, constituted of and composed by love,
WE are a NATION.
For neither YOU nor I, ALONE, is a COUNTRY:
only WE.
I am MAN, you are the PEOPLE,
and WE are the WORLD.

“We are the lines carved in a miracle of
patience in the palm of our descendants.
And what we have, this country, is a GIFT
that we must hold tight,
as a garden embraces its water.

“The nobility of the Filipino is ultimately
the soul of man. These islands have made
brown his skin, but his life is not dark.

“Time creates its own temples,
and for us, our temple is TIME.
Time will come when we will survive
science and cling to our religion.
We will see the loss and the labor
that has made this our home.
“We will say, with the pain of pride,
‘KAYUMANGGI, I LOVE YOU!”

Let humanity be our summation
and may history forgive us
for we know not what we do…”

***
~ Fr. Roderick C. Salazar, Jr., SVD

20/08/2023

PHILIPPINES, MY PHILIPPINES

So we sang in our youth,
sometimes in the morning
sometimes later in the day,
the lyrics and the music puffing us somehow
even though we may not yet have understood
what we were saying, but we felt something
in the song that stirred our soul, firmed up
our love for our Land of the Morning, the
Child of the Sun Returning, which lines were
later to be changed to Bayang Magiliw,
Perlas ng Silanganan.

Except for the Lupang Hinirang which we all
know or are supposed to know, perhaps only
an older generation would now remember with
fondness our proudest of claims --

“I love my own, my native land,
Philippines my Philippines,
to thee I give my heart and hand
the trees that crown thy mountains grand
the seas that beat upon thy strand
awake my soul to thy command
Philippines, my Philippines.”

Long gone are those innocent days of the 1950s.
They will never come back.
In the time we are living now, it is not only in our
climate that we feel the alarming change but
also it seems in the hearts, minds, and souls of
our people. A certain tiredness in keeping up our
faith in our faith, in our own power to be good,
in restoring what is true and beautiful in our land
has crept into our lives, a certain apathy.

But this we must resist. Perhaps a memory of a
note, a song will stir back into flame some patriotic
ember that may still remain, or rouse a seemingly
sleepy, even sleeping -- nationalism that our
anthem used to proclaim as ALAB NG PUSO.

Perhaps the celebration of the event of
August 21, 1983 which galvanized our nation into
moves that changed our history might now also
change the direction our country is rutted in.

Alarming reports are that our economy has dropped,
deeper than we have been used to, but already worse
than any of our Asian neighbors.

Bank borrowings are at a minimum because
Interest rates are high.
The price of rice, ever our gauge whether we are
doing well or not, is running out of the reach of most
of our people.

Our national debt goes into trillions of pesos
and though our tax collectors urge us to pay
our taxes faithfully and on time,
response is tepid if at all, since the nation sees
that our own government leaders, rather than pay
the taxes they still owe our country,
instead take out or allow even more billions
of pesos out of our economy for supposedly
confidential projects that have no plans,
budgets or any promise of
proper liquidation and accounting.

Less and less money coming in,
more and more flowing out.
And still hanging unanswered
are the needed explanations
for the discovered anomalies that cast doubt on
the correctness of the process of our last national
elections and thus the legitimacy of those
who are in elective government positions
these days.

What can be done now? By anybody? By us all?
We need to examine ourselves individually and
as a nation. Philippines, My Philippines.

We CAN CHANGE the direction of our nation.
Each of us is invited and challenged to shout:
I CAN and I SHOULD and I WILL – CHANGE
for the better every which way that there is.

Turning, Returning, Forming, Reforming.

Where I have erred and sinned, I can start,
by the grace of God to admit my wrong and
say I am sorry.. I will do better. Starting now.

As we used to sing in earlier times when our hopes
were high and our dreams were more noble and pure:

“Ye islands of the Eastern sea
Thy people we shall ever be
Our fathers lived and died in thee
And soon shall come the day when we
lie down with them at God’s decree
Philippines, my Philippines.

Yet still beneath thy ardent sky
more numerous sons shall live and die
in them shall breathe the purpose high
the glorious day to bring more nigh
when all may sing without a sigh
Philippines my Philippines “

Thank you, Prescott Ford Jernegan for the song.
Thank you Francisco Santiago and Ildefonso Santos
for rendering it into our own tongue:

“Ang bayan ko’y tanging ikaw
PILIPINAS KONG MAHAL
ang puso ko at buhay man
sa iyo’y ibibigay
tungkulin kong gagampanan
na lagi kang paglingkuran
ang laya mo’y babantayan
PILIPINAS KONG MAHAL.

Of course, more than the singing, the shouting
the declaring and the promising is the DOING,
the LIVING of what our hearts and lips emit.
And so indeed we shall follow through.

I CAN. I SHOULD. I WILL.

In my introspection and determination to change
I AM CONFIDENT I am not alone. I remember that
Jesus had assured His disciples, “In the world
you will have strife. BUT DO NOT BE AFRAID
I HAVE CONQUERED THE WORLD.
I AM WITH YOU ALL DAYS
EVEN TILL THE END OF TIME."

Indeed, God does not put us IN a situation
and leaves us there. NO.
He helps us THROUGH a situation
so we can MOVE ON.

Thank You, Lord.
Please help each of us
make beautiful and happy once more

PHILIPPINES, MY PHILIPPINES.

***
~ Fr. Roderick C. Salazar Jr. SVD