Reflection Paper

“Community Organizing (B.E.C)”

This seminar is B.E.C (Basic Ecclesial Community) it is all about the Church in the BEC
as one hope of the future that diocese all over the Philippines. There are more than 50,000 of
them all over the Philippines, and they are a dynamic force in Church and social renewal. They
also believed that massive poverty was the social problem. So what is BEC? BEC are small
communities of Christians, usually of families who gather together around the Word of God and
the Eucharist. These communities are united to their pastors but are ministered to regularly by
lay leaders. The members know each other by name, and share not only the Word of God and the
Eucharist but also their concerns both material and spiritual. They have a strong sense of
belongingness and of responsibility for one another. Our speaker, Mr. Andres Mendoza a.k.a
“Tatang Mendoza” discussed the BEC as a new way of being Church is not possible without
proper faith formation. This is why BEC members undergo a lot of formation sessions in integral
faith, i.e., in faith that can respond to the daily material or temporal problems of life, to problems
of poverty and sickness, injustices, and perhaps lack of peace in the community. To conclude,
truly the BEC is a new way of being Church. It represents a new paradigm of Church. It is a
Church that is genuinely a “community of families,” making the parish a “community of
communities”. What the BEC is really all about is the idea of a “contrast community”. It is also
in contrast to the old type of parishes where the poor rarely have a chance to participate, where
people in the big community hardly know one another, much less the people from the barrios,
and where participation is often limited to the better off in society and to members of religious
organizations. It is finally a Church that is engaged in transforming the wider community into a
better reflection of the Kingdom of God.
 Reflection Paper

“Benedictine Trust”

Upon attending this seminar, I learned more about the word “peace.” So what is peace?
Peace is a state of harmony characterized by the lack of violence, conflict behaviors and the
freedom from fear of violence. St. Benedict defines peace as “Seek peace and pursue it”, there
are four steps prescribed by St. Benedict to master the Art of Peace: 1.) A person must be at
peace with his environment. 2.) A person must be at peace with himself/herself. 3.) Everyone
must be at peace with his neighbor. 4.) A person must be at peace with God. The road to peace
can certainly be a very difficult one to take, many frustrations can be countered along the
journey, which may be a very lengthy one. Peace can be dismissed as being a ‘coward’s way’ or
not effective by those that sometimes advocate war. Certainly peace takes much more effort and
time to bring about. Peace is something that is difficult to bring about and requires constant effort
and engagement in order to maintain. Is it worth it? Yes, peace is very much worth the time and
effort, especially given the current perceived alternative, war. This reminded me of one line in
the movie about the life of Nelson Mandela (Long Walk to Freedom, 2013) sticks with me,
where he talks about hate. He states that children are not born to hate, but are taught to do so.
This leads to one of Mandela’s famous quotes “education is the most powerful weapon which
you can use to change the world.” Education and awareness campaigns should be at the forefront
of the tools helping to realize the aspirations and the goals of the people. As a famous saying
goes, “there is no wealth like knowledge, and no poverty like ignorance.” Our speaker also gave
an activity which we drew a star and a question mark inside the box. It was an activity where we
would raise the star if we see peace in the pictures he shows and a question mark if it does not
give us peace. Through this activity, I learned that not everyone can be as peaceful as the other
one like for example the first picture he showed was at a beach and 2 disagreed since they don’t
know how to swim. Sometimes what brings us peace does not bring peace to others. This
seminar reminded of me about the famous quote “You must be the change you wish to see in the
world.” — Mahatma Gandhi
 Reflection Paper

“Romero”

The movie "Romero" is about the life of Oscar Romero, an archbishop of El Salvador. It
is a documentary about the hardships and trials/sacrifices made by Archbishop Oscar Romero to
the people of El Salvador who have been mistreated and underprivileged. While watching this
movie there is a lot of things that caught my attention, I have seen clearly how important to lead
people peacefully in the church. The movie unfolds as the church begins to see the
discrimination and the unfair treatment of the government to its people. When leading people,
worship is one of the important things that should not be forgotten. As I keep on watching the
movie, violence erupted due to the fact that a new government was going to be instituted and
nonstop killings of the innocent people and also the priests. Archbishop Oscar Romero in my
opinion is one brave priest. Archbishop Romero changes very much in his understanding of love
and in his understanding of true conscience. At first Romero is just a priest who isn't really
concerned about the poor and how they are being oppressed, but when Romero is chosen to be
the new Archbishop his friend, who is assassinated, I think has a slight impact on him. But I
think when his friend is assassinated is when he really starts to realize what is happening to the
country of El Salvador and how the government doesn't want anyone to speak out about this. So,
now Romero is starting to action against the government and tries to speak out against them.
Archbishop Romero and all of his fellow priestess, who are trying to stop all of the violence
going on in the country of El Salvador and the gorillas were not going to allow that to happen, so
they started killing anyone who was against them, or who wanted to vote for the other
government, or anyone who got in there way. According to this movie, we can see how
important of worship. When heart of Human Being which God wanted were lost in the authority
holders of El Salvador, people were met with hardness, were raped, treated, murdered. Rights of
being human also were controlled. Archbishop Romero was nearly used by the authority holders,
but he fought for human justice without being used as tool of injustice. This movie has taught me
to not fear to speak the truth and always believe in God.