HE TAUGHT US HOW TO SEE!

A Tribute to Jaime Cardinal Sin
June 20, 2006
Edsa Shrine
by
+SOCRATES B. VILLEGAS

 
He was always brave and ready to fight. Rare were the moments when he shared with me his apprehensions and fears. One such occasion was when the eye doctor advised him of the irreparable condition of his right eye. Damaged by glaucoma, he was blind on the right eye for some years before his retirement. He said “If I will become completely blind because of glaucoma, I will be left with no choice but to ask the Holy Father to allow me to retire before I reach seventy five. How can I lead without sight?”

Until the day he passed into eternity, Jaime Cardinal Sin retained his vision, protected by God from total blindness. He always saw, in spite of his age and sickness, differently. He also taught us how to see rightly not with the eyes but with the heart and soul.

By his eyes, you knew he had Chinese blood. Those Chinese eyes smiled with his lips each time he greeted us. They were not terror eyes that sowed fear. They were not piercing eyes that gave us a guilt trip. They were not whirling playful eyes. They were just simple and plain eyes pf a man whose father was a fully Chinese from Xiamen. Those eyes saw what others didn’t see. Those small eyes had the vision of an eagle. Cardinal Sin taught us to see differently.

His eyes caused him much discomfort in his senior years. Cardinal Sin had many allergies. When he was young in his student days, his allergy came as asthma. He almost did not make to ordination as a priest because of asthma. Through the prayers of Our Lady of Miraculous Medal, his asthma left him a week before his ordination and never troubled him again. In his adult years, his allergies affected his eyes. He had itchy eyes most of the time because of his hypersensitivity to medicines, pollen and nuts. Unfortunately, he aggravated his eye allergies because of his incessant scratching. His doctors and nurses, feeling helpless that they could not stop him from scratching his eyes with his bare hands, sought my help to talk to him out of this habit. I told him not to scratch his eyes with his bare hands. Many people had held his hands to kiss them and most likely they carried varied germs and viruses. He retorted to my admonition, “Soc, even if you give me one million pesos, I will not exchange that for the pleasure of scratching my eyes.”

When he had to undergo surgery for his cataract, I can proudly tell our young priests and seminarians that Cardinal Sin always asked his doctors to allow me to join him in the operating room. While undergoing eye surgery, he asked me to hold his hand while the procedure was being done. This great man of the Church and giant hero of people power was humble enough to say “I need your assuring hand.” The hands that held our hands securely as we walked through the dark valley of authoritarian rule were the same hands that sought security and assurance.

There came a point when reading became a strenuous duty for him. He could not read the prayers for the Mass and the font of the letters in our prayer books were too small to allow him to read. I saw his anguish. I saw his helplessness. I saw his frustration. Shaking his head in frustration and anguish, he looked at me and tears rolled from the side of his eyes. He said, “What kind of a priest am I if I cannot even pray with the Church?” I told him, “The whole Church is grateful to you. The whole Church is praying for you.”

Those Chinese eyes that smiled at us for so many years have closed peacefully. Those eyes that saw differently from the way we saw things are now beholding the glory of God in heaven. His legacy is a new way of seeing. He taught me how to see as God sees.

We launch today a book in his honor. His eyes have been closed by sister death but closed in order to behold the face of God in eternity. He will not be able to see this book. That makes us sad.

Cardinal Sin, I miss your smiling eyes. I miss your vision and courage. There is no one like you.