9 January 1893

Dapitan

Dapitan, 9 January 1893

VERY REVEREND FATHER PABLO PASTELLS, S.J.

My very reverenced father,

I have read attentively your precious as well as profound letter of the 8th ultimo and I remain very grateful to you for the interest you continue showing me.

These days I have examined my beliefs and their foundations; I have reviewed what little has been left to my by the shipwreck of faith, as my dear Professor Fr. Sanchez would say, or the solid vases that have remained firm despite so many tempests. I should like to be most sincere, that most accurate possible in the definition and exposition of my ideas because I esteemed Your Reverence very much not only for what you are, not only for what you have been to me in my adolescent years (to me always a loved and sacred memory) but also because Your Reverence is one of the few persons who, far from forgetting me in adversity, has extended his hand to me with so much benevolence.

I reply then with pleasure to your question and I shall unbossom myself sincerely so that Your Reverence may see if everything has been lost or if there is still something left that may be useful.

I believe firmly in the existence of a Creator more than by faith, by reasoning and by necessity. Who is He? What human sounds, what syllables of language can enshrine the name of that Being whose works overwhelm the mind that thinks of them? Who can give Him an adequate name when a little creature hereabouts with an ephemeral power has two or three names, three or four surnames and numerous titles and epithets? We call Him God, but this only recalls the Latin deus, the Greek Zeus at most. What is He? I would attribute to him all the beautiful and holy qualities that my mind can conceive in infinite degree, if that fear of my ignorance did not restrain me. Someone has said that each man forms his God according to his image and likeness, and if my memory does not fail me, Anacreon said that if a bull could imagine a god, he would imagine a horned bull bellowing in a superlative degree. Notwithstanding I dare to believe Him infinitely wise, powerful, good. My idea of the infinite is imperfect and confused on seeing His wonderful works, the order that prevails among them, their magnificence and overwhelming extent, and the goodness that shines in everything. The lubrications of a poor worm, the last creature on the little ball of the earth, however crazy they may be, can never offend His inconceivable majesty. His thought humbles me, and makes me giddy. How many times my reason tries to raise my eyes towards that Being as many times it falls stunned, dazzled, crushed. I am overtaken by fear and I prefer to keep silent to being the bull of Anacreon.

Permeated with this vague but irresistible sentiment before the inconceivable, the superhuman, the infinite, I leave its study to brighter minds. I listen in suspense to what the religions say and incapable of judging what exceed my strength, I content myself with studying Him in his creatures, my fellow creatures, and in the voice of my conscience which can only proceed from Him. I try to read, to divine His will in what surrounds me and in the mysterious inner sentiment that I feel within myself whose purity above all things I try to maintain in order to act according to it. Many religions pretend to have that Will condensed and written down in their books and dogmas but aside from numerous contradiction, from the varied interpretations with respect to the words, from many obscure points…[1]

01-773 [Family]