In Carmel, we lost a dear friend to all of us – Fr. Jose Ma Lopez, ocd who passed away last July 12.  “Tatay,” as we fondly called him was a special friend to us. He has a way of making you go back on your senses and help you realize that you are still alive. He will not hesitate to give you positive remarks to show that you are still important in this world, especially in Carmel.  He would always tickle us with comments like: “mahal ‘yan, Pare or “noong panahon namin…” I remember when I was a novice and I was eating too much, Tatay reminded me: “Pare, may bukas pa…” 

When our community went on retreat last July 22 to 26, with Bishop Emeritus Honesto Pacana, D.D. as our retreat master, many times in our sharing we always talked about Tatay. 

From a funeral homily by Fr. Ignatio Read:

“My first meeting with Jose  Maria Lopez occurred sometime during the month of August of 1950. I remember my surprise at meeting this young man newly arrived from the Philippines, who at that time weighed a mere ninety pounds!  His flight from the Philippines was on the Pan American Airways propeller powered aircraft which had only recently inaugurated commercial air flights across the Pacific  Ocean from Manila to Guam to Honolulu to San Francisco. From San Francisco he took the train to Chicago. The Provincial of the Washington Province met him in Chicago and drove him from Chicago to Holy Hill, which occasioned our first but not our last encounter. Before arriving in the U.S.A.  he had studied at the Seminary run by the SVD Fathers in Urdaneta, Pangasinan. 

Father Lopez came from a Religious family. His siblings included two diocesan priests and one Sister of the  Congregation of the Religious of the Virgin Mary   Little did I suspect that our two lives would be so intertwined  – mine and this still little Pinoy soon to be known as Brother Eliseus of St. Therese of the Child Jesus –  in the succeeding years.   When we first met at Holy Hill  I myself had only recently arrived from the  Novitiate to begin my philosophical studies when Jose Maria arrived there,  before himself proceeding on to   Brookline, Massachusetts, the site of the novitiate of the Washington Province. Our paths crossed again at  Holy Hill the following year but only for a time. We studied some courses in philosophy together, but I preceded him to the house of theology in Washington D. C. whereas he proceeded to Rome to pursue his theological studies at the Pontifical University of the Teresianum after finishing his courses at Holy Hill and making his final vows as a Discalced Carmelite.  After successfully finishing his course at the  Teresianum he was ordained to the priesthood in Rome.  Shortly after Ordination he was assigned to the Philippines, and he arrived on the same ship with another Carmelite Father,  Julio Xavier Labayan who also had been recently ordained in Rome. Arrived back in the Philippines Fr. Jose Ma was soon sent to help out the beleaguered group of Discalced Carmelite Friars working in the Prelature of Infanta, administering in that previously almost priestless territory on the east coast of Luzon which had only recently been established, broken off as it was from the Archdiocese of Lipa, Batangas and comprising the northern section of Quezon Province, the Polillo Archipelago and the,  then sub-Province of Aurora. 

He first arrived in the Philippines in 1963, some years after his return to the Philippines. At that time Fr. Jose Ma was still called Father Eliseus. Our paths crossed several times since then. In 1965 I was assigned as Parish Priest to the  Parish of St. Vincent Ferrer, in Maria Aurora, Aurora  Province whereas he was assigned to the Parish of St. Mary Magdalene in Palanan, Isabela, the last Discalced Friar to be assigned in that distant place. He must have felt frequently challenged to practice the Carmelite virtues of silence and solitude in that remote end of Luzon.  Shortly after his assignment to Palanan he was assigned to the southernmost end of the archipelago in  Davao City. 

The first house the Discalced Carmelite Friars occupied in Davao didn’t belong to us at all, but to the Religious of the Virgin Mary. It was a house the RVM Sisters had formerly used as a guest-house on the property where the RVM Immaculate Conception  College stands today in Lanang, Davao City, and graciously lent for our use until we could find a permanent residence. The Davao  Community was established by the General of the Discalced Friars in Rome and His Council.  That Community originally comprised only three Friars: one from the Anglo Hibernian Province, and two from the Washington  Province, namely Fathers  Jose Ma  Lopez and Fr. Arnie Boehme. The Three of them were placed under the jurisdiction of the so called Davao Commission, an ad  hoc grojup which comprised the Delegate Provincial of the Anglo- Hibernian Province, the Delegate Provincial of the Washington Province, and Bishop Julio Xavier Labayen, O.C.D.

The three members of the new foundation in Davao were tasked to see to the recruitment and formation of new Discalced Carmelite members for the future formation of a new and separate Discalced Carmelite Province of the Philippines. 

In the meantime a much larger piece of property in Tugbok, Davao City was given to the Order by a generous benefactor. 

Fr. Eliseus,  who by this time began to be known as Fr. Jose Maria or more familiarly Fr. Jose Ma, was put in charge of the building of the present Monastery of the Holy Family in  Tugbok. He often joked to me, that …… twenty thousand dollars was promised to me by the Washington Province for the building of the Monastery in Tutgbok, but the whole thing was constructed before any of the money arrived! The house – the old Monastery as we call it, and which still stands solidly intact because of the quality of the lumber used in its construction –   was likewise built through the generosity of kind benefactors. It was inaugurated on the  Feast of the Immaculate  Conception,  Dec. 8, 1975 and has served as the Novitiate for the O.C.D. Friars for the entire Philippines since that time.

Lest I prolong too much this record of Fr. Lopez’s life, I’ll fast forward to Fr. Jose Ma’s last few years. After assignments as Superior in Bacolod and elsewhere, Fr. Jose Ma was reassigned to Tugbok in  2002.  Here our paths crossed once more. He was an active member of the Tugbok Community, despite his age, during his last stint in Tugbok, acting as Spiritual Director to the three groups of Secular Communities in Davao, among other  Ministries.  I may say that he was quite active here until the last few years.  In April, 2010 he suffered a stroke. Our first notice of the stroke occurred one evening when the breviary he was holding for the recitation of Compline hit the floor.  The gravity of the stroke he suffered at that time wasn’t immediately evident. It was only after he arrived at Davao Doctors Hospital that the severity of the stroke to an already enlarged heart and to his brain was assessed. Once the diagnoses were made, and once it was possible to remove him from the intensive care unit, it was decided to fly him to Manila where accommodations were already in place for elderly and sickly Friars. For this very purpose a wing of the Parish Community House had already been remodelled.   He was given a room in “the Saint Joseph  Building” and provided with a care-giver day and night ever since.  However, Fr. Jose Ma wasn’t completely isolated from the Broadway Community until the last several months. From his bedroom until the last few months he would continue to concelebrate  Mass in the Mount Carmel Parish Church, attend the recitation of the Divine Office in Choir with the rest of the Community and attend community meals.

Until these last few months the Broadway Community would dote over him at the dinner table and get him to sing along with themselves songs in english, tagalog and ilokano which would brighten up his face and arouse peals of laughter from the rest of the community.

Father Jose Ma,/ Tatay, the whole Church and the Discalced Carmelite Order in the Philippines in particular has a huge debt of gratitude to you.  But my words of encomium will be as the pitter patter of raindrops on the roof compared to the thunderous reception the Chief Shepherd of the flock extends to you when he rightly embraces you with these consoling  words: 

Well done, good and  faithful servant; enter into the joy of the Lord!”