Cardinal Ambo David is back in Philippines: ‘Look at Jesus, not me’

MANILA, Philippines – Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, the 10th cardinal from the Philippines, celebrated a thanksgiving Mass at San Roque Cathedral on Saturday morning, December 14 — his first day back in the country after a weeklong trip to Rome.

David, fondly called Ambo, led the Mass at the seat of the Diocese of Kalookan along with at least seven bishops, more than 50 priests, and hundreds of religious sisters and brothers as well as lay Catholics.

Around 120 family members, including 9 of his 12 siblings, also attended the event, according to his niece, broadcast journalist Kara David.

David, who landed at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport late Friday evening, December 13, said he was running on only a few hours of sleep. It had been a breathless week for David, who was in Rome for the December 7 consistory that formally made him a cardinal of the Catholic Church. 

In his homily on Saturday, David emphasized the need for humility in pursuing the church’s mission.

“The Church’s mission is not about promoting a religion! It has rather to do with bringing about the Kingdom of God. And this Kingdom of God, we don’t build it ourselves. It is too arrogant of us to even think that it is our project. It is God’s project. We are mere participants in it,” the new cardinal said.

Humility and service have been recurring themes in the homilies and statements of David, 65, since the Vatican announced on October 6 that Pope Francis will make him a cardinal.

Cardinals are the church’s highest ranking clergymen next to the Pope. They serve as the Pope’s advisers and, if under the age of 80, are qualified to join the next papal election.

There are currently 253 cardinals in the 1.4-billion-strong Catholic Church, and among them are 140 “cardinal electors” who can participate in a conclave. 

‘Spiritual indifference’

Born in Betis, Guagua, Pampanga, David is one of three cardinal electors from the Philippines, Asia’s biggest Catholic majority country. He is also president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines and incoming vice president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences.

Despite the prestige of his new title, David said he is taking it with a dose of “spiritual indifference.”

David was taking his cue from the Jesuits, the Catholic religious order that ran two institutions that molded him as a priest: San Jose Seminary and Ateneo de Manila University, found in the same university complex in Loyola Heights, Quezon City.

The new cardinal even quoted from Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, who abandoned his life as a 16th-century soldier to serve God and the Catholic Church. 

Ignatian indifference, or indifference as inspired by Ignatius, does not mean “apathy and a carefree attitude toward life,” which “is the total opposite,” according to the Philippine Jesuits in a Facebook post on July 13. 

“Ignatius teaches us that we must not be attached to the superficial value of the things we have and the things we do. Rather, we must strive only to have and do whatever will lead us closer to God in an intimate relationship with Him — whether it be a short life or a long one, whether it be health or sickness, riches or poverty,” the Philippine Jesuits explained.

To illustrate what “indifference” means for him now as a cardinal, David recounted a question he recently got: “How are you coping with what is happening in your life at this moment?”

“I said, ‘I took the consistory in Rome and being made a cardinal as no different from any other day, any other ordinary day in my life. No big deal. That’s what Pope Francis told me anyway — not to make a big deal of it. And to take it all with a grain of divine humor,” said David.

“I deal with it with what Saint Ignatius of Loyola calls spiritual indifference,” he added, which is positive and “is the key to keeping your sense of equanimity in the midst of unsettling developments in our lives.” It is “a state of inner serenity that makes us ready for anything.”

Inspired by Oscar Romero

He then recounted the breakfast reception ahead of Saturday’s thanksgiving Mass. 

During the reception, as well-wishers took photos with the cardinal, David said he noticed that “everybody’s attention was on me.”

“You know what I did? I called attention to my pectoral cross,” he said, referring to the cross worn by Catholic bishops on their chests. 

The colorful Latin American cross was designed in honor of Saint Oscar Romero, an El Salvador archbishop who was assassinated while celebrating Mass on March 24, 1980. Romero was a critic of violence during his country’s civil war. 

“The great martyr Oscar Romero, defender of human rights,” remarked David, himself a human rights defender and a critic of Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. 

The cross was given to him as a gift on the 30th anniversary of Romero’s martyrdom, the cardinal told Rappler during the reception. Inscribed on the cross is a quote from Romero: “As a Christian, I do not believe in death without resurrection. If I am killed, I shall rise again in the Salvadorean people.”

As early as 2017, in an interview with Rappler, David had shown admiration for Romero and another martyred Catholic saint, Maximilian Kolbe, who was killed by the Nazis for helping the Jews during World War II.

David said in his homily on Saturday: “When people focused their attention on the cross, I was relaxed already. They were no longer paying attention to me. And as I marched inside this church, I was looking at the cross.”

“That was my way of suggesting to all of you, don’t look at me. Look at Jesus,” the new cardinal said.

“We’re all really unimportant here,” David added, “just participants in the life and mission of our Savior.” – Rappler.com