May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be loved everywhere, now and forever! On Father’s Day let us give tribute to our dads. Papa, my first memory of you was when I felt your strong arms replace that of mama, so that you could give the milk from a bottle. Later, I became aware of how loving you were when you sang and danced with mama your favorite love songs at the hearing of us children. You began to instill courage in me when you brought me to a shopping center in the city, crowded with people, and you said to hang on to your trousers so that I would never be separated from you. And if I did, I needed to go to the counter and introduce myself as looking for you. Which indeed happened and I did as you instructed. Papa, when I was four years old and I wanted to be like Tarzan, I asked you to make a bow and arrow for me. And as you were molding the bamboo sticks with a sharp knife, you said to me: Son, I would like you to be a good boy. Do you understand what a good boy is, son? I said, no papa. And then you said: a good boy, son, stands for what is true and what is just, and would defend the country even if it cost him his life. I did not understand that. But you told me how at age 19, you left school and volunteered to join the United States Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) to defend the country from the Japanese invaders. And when Gen. MacArthur ordered surrender, you did not surrender but went underground and joined the guerilla forces to fight the Japanese. You became a giant to me then. My father is brave. He did not surrender. You brought magazines to our home: Life, Post, National Geographic. I did not know how to read English then, but the pictures of the universe and of Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali fascinated me. You provoked in me the wonders of the world and of science; and the bravery and firmness of one who “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee”. You brought me to the coliseum to watch the boxing championship between our Flash Elorde and the Japanese Teruo Kosaka. Flash Elorde won, and I thought I would be a world boxing champion someday. At home you always drilled me and my sister in mathematics, science and history. I was only in second grade then. You told us not to count with our fingers, but to count with our imagination: to use the heavens as the platform of numbers, words and answers. And the mark of a bright guy is not to ask what, where, when, who and how but always to ask the question: why! When I was 5 years old, you brought us to the farm on Saturdays to help tenants clean up the farm from weeds, so that the coconut trees could grow healthy. You said to use my hands, and never to be ashamed of working with my hands. For there lies I think I have your strength of character, reverence for God, firmness on the side of truth and integrity, critical mind for the scientific, passion for justice and peace, love and sacrifice for the family, ardent sense of freedom and nationalism and the adventurous audacity to explore the world. Because you are my father. And you live forever! – Fr. Ben, MSC