No greater Love
By Ma. Ceres Doyo
“True to form, true to form,” a young Jesuit sobbed when he learned of the death of his friend and fellow Jesuit Brother Richard “Richie” Michael Fernando, 26. As Richie lived, so did he die. He live working among the victims of violence, he died in the midst of them.
Richie was killed by a grenade on October 17 at the Jesuit –run Centre of the Dove in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. At the time of his death, Richie was doing his two-year-regency, that stage when young Jesuits studying to be priests get immersed in an apostolate. Richie had spent two years each in the novitiate, juniorate and in philosophy studies. He had made his simple vows as a Jesuit, hence the ‘S.J’. After his name and had four more years of theology studies to go before he gets ordained. He would have been a priest by the year 2001.
Betty, a midwife by profession, is from the Diocese of Digos in Mindanao. She joined the PIME lay mission program two years ago. She was sent to Cambodia, a Buddhist country, in 2001 to work with HIV/AIDS patients in Phnom Penh, the capital. She tells us about the sad reality brought by this epidemic to the people of Cambodia.
